dream season

Good morning. It's 5:45 and still dark, the sky luminous with a crooked two-thirds moon that reminds me of a cockeyed grin.

It's been cold these days. Gray these days. The frozen ground speckled with mud and ice and thin snow. It's thus the time of year (the only time of year) when I get truly ambitious about gardening. I spend my free hour on Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea and paper and pencil imagining the cold-frames, chicken coops, bean tipis and hoop houses I will erect around my house come springtime. I map out places for plum, cherry, peach and apple trees. I make my Johnny's seed order with abandon.

Come springtime it'll no-doubt be a different story: there is, of course, this half-finished addition to insulate and side and make livable by next fall, and these songs to record, and these wee ones to run around after, and my penchant for lazy afternoons with a book in hand. But I have always been a dreamer. And so...come spring...

Would be lovely, no?

(These photos were gleaned from the world wide web. I wish I had link to the original source, but alas. Thank you, good gardeners of the world for your continuous inspiration.)