The temperature hit 60 degrees today, a couple weeks before the vernal equinox. 60 degrees, for any of you who live in less temperate climes, is basically a summer day here, what we call unseasonably warm. On days like this we drop what we\u2019re doing and we get our butts outdoors. Which I did. Which is where I am right now, sitting at our picnic table, pen in hand, beer at the ready. I know, it\u2019s a tough life \u2026 but save your pity for those poor souls who have jobs, indoor jobs anyway.<\/p>\n
Seemed like a good day to wander into the Pea Patch so I did. Cut up potatoes and planted them in mounds. Sowed seed for salad. Hauled the scarecrow over to a new spot. Roto-tilled. Put up the pea fence. Gentleman farmer, that\u2019s me.<\/p>\n
Every year I say I\u2019m going to cut back, grow only the stuff that grows well with our cold maritime nights. And every year I plant the whole she-bang all over again. Corn that barely ripens, artichokes that have heads the size of a pingpong ball, tomatoes that stay green. If I didn\u2019t, I\u2019d think I was Backsliding. And when you reach my ripe old age, you want to keep any forward momentum going even if it\u2019s de-accelerating faster than reverse glacial accretion. It\u2019s the same with woodcutting. I think, gee, maybe I\u2019ll switch to propane heat. Save hauling 10 or 12 cord of wood out of the back 40, just hit a thermostat when I\u2019m chilly. But I know it\u2019s a slippery slope. And that slope leads to a Laz-y-Boy and a channel changer.<\/p>\n
What I think is you have to see the future as Potential. As Progress. You have to have something to work Toward. And don\u2019t mean tonight\u2019s PBS programming. Me, I\u2019m growing dinner. I\u2019m splitting my heat for a warmer winter. I came to the country so I\u2019d be tuned into the seasons, I\u2019d till the land, I\u2019d plant orchards and I\u2019d make firewood. Sure it gets harder every year. Damn right it does. But not near as hard as the day when I sit here looking at an overgrown garden gone to grass and weed again because I can\u2019t bend down far enough to poke seeds into the ground.<\/p>\n
But today feels like spring and as we say on the South End, hope springs eternal. My salad days aren\u2019t over yet and my woodsheds are nearly full. I\u2019m even betting this will be a good tomato year. Like I bet every year\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The temperature hit 60 degrees today, a couple weeks before the vernal equinox. 60 degrees, for any of you who live in less temperate climes, is basically a summer day here, what we call unseasonably warm. On days like this we drop what we\u2019re doing and we get our butts outdoors. Which I did. Which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7484,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7483\/revisions\/7484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}