– of the cold. For a week or so anyway. I am feeling desperate for the warm to come. For just a touch of green. The promise of it makes it seem so much harder to wait. Do you remember that feeling when you were taking an exam and you were on the last two questions, that rise of anticipation – almost there – almost there! Your body starts to tingle and answering that last question is Interminable. Just the fact that you are almost done meant everything was so much harder to bear.
Waiting for the weather to break is a lot like the last few minutes of an exam. Soon, soon I can take off my hobnailed boots and walk like a real person.
I am the only person I know who LOVED taking exams – I loved the order of it. Did you? The quiet. The teacher walking up and down the rows, her gentle heels clicking in such a tireless comforting rhythm – eventually I was that teacher too – I loved the clean sheets of supplied paper and my wee bag of sharpened pencils, an eraser (in NZ we call them rubbers – for Rubbing Out – no smart arse comments please). I would place my Dads large-faced mans watch on the desk beside the pencils, and three peppermints. Upon reading the exam I would allot the appropriate time to each question depending on its value, and then begin when everything was in place, only when all was in order and I was settled and calm would I begin. I never hurried. I always passed. Everything was in place. Nothing mattered anymore. The knowledge was there or it was not. I had done the best I could. I never felt the weight or possibility of failure only the finite-ness of completion. Actually, though I will only admit it to you – I miss the learning and then the exam.
But we were talking about weather. Always with the weather. You know how cold it has been here. It is winter after all. And I cannot complain as I have had three separate summers during this winter. But the weather man said, on the pigs radio today, that there is only One more cold, cold day -this morning is FREEZing and tomorrow will be very cold then we will rise above freezing. ABOVE FREEZING! (The crowd Roared!) 
And as I was saying – Knowing that the weather man might be right and it might warm up for days at a time makes the next two cold days feel Interminable.
Good morning. Other news! Out here in the Mid West boonies the local Countys offer cut price native (to this area) trees, to try and encourage farmers like me to plant more trees. (Like we need encouragement). Usually I can only afford a couple. But this year they are offering packages of bare root trees. So this year the Fellowship Forest will be receiving 25 Black Walnuts and 25 American (Wild) Plums at a very reasonable price. These will be twigs, barely a foot long. So we will pot them up and grow them on and hopefully plant them along the fence lines and along the creek, that is really a ditch, in the fall. (Unless I can find a way to winter them over in this environment and plant them the following fall as bigger trees). Black walnuts are reported to grow 24 inches a year in this area. The wild plums are for the bees… of course. I have also ordered a peach tree for our John to replace the peach he lost in last years bad winter.
One of the most important objectives I have is saving the soil here on the prairies. Just my little patch. Trees can do this better than I can. When we save the soil, we save the birds, the air, the water, the butterflies. We save ourselves. And more and more. RE -forestation is the key. The Fellowship Forest is spreading.
They say the best time to plant a tree is yesterday. I am working on it! And if you have no-where to plant a tree let me know – I will plant one for you and attach a name tag. We already have a number of Fellowship trees growing here. Here and all around the world. Spring is coming. Not overnight! But it will come!
Have a lovely day,
Your friend on the farm,
celi
ps.. Do you remember Grace our wwoofer from Korea – she is on spring break from her university in Wisconsin and is coming to visit this weekend. Her U.S. home. I told her she has to share her room with Six chicks!! She has learnt to write LOL on her texts!
The Kitchen's Garden 
118 responses to “Last Days –”
I am almost giddy with the thought that the forecast is for 35F tomorrow and 50F next Wednesday — it cannot come soon enough. I would be honored to have a tree on the farmy. If I have a choice I would like a plum tree as my father kept bees many years ago. One more day to warmer weather — the crowd is indeed roaring! Have a lovely day!
Oh Vesta! Lovely, I shall write you on the list.. I wonder what we should use for labels this time. c
We are waiting for the temperature to drop below 35, but for us, it’s Celsius, not Fahrenheit! Give it a month or so, and the heat will moderate, the soil will relax its hard, frowning surface and I will be able to dig! I have trees to plant too, that have survived the heat of summer in irrigated tubs, but come autumn, it’s time. I will be planting an Illawarra Flame Tree, a mango, an avocado, a lychee, a cherry guava, a Tahitian lime and a Meyer lemon. Mine will be a little tropical fruit forest!
hmm, perhaps a Banana and paw-paw and you will have the whole fruit salad 🙂 Laura
Pawpaws are easy to grow here, but I don’t like them much. A banana tree is on the shopping list, together with some pineapple bushes, both of which I’ve grown before in our previous house. What I’d really like is a guava!
wow, that sure is tropical, I have four pawpaws here believe it or not, they are due to start fruiting either this year or the next!.. c
I’m impressed they’re still alive after the winters you’ve been having! They’re dead easy to grow here, just stick ’em in the ground and away you go, but I really dislike the smell and taste of the fruit, so it would be pointless!
I have a guava in a pot Kate, you could tuck it under your arm and take it with you after your visit 🙂
Hmm, I wonder how it would stand up to 1100km on the back of a motorbike at speed…?
ME TOO? oh no – wrong country.. one day tho
I’m looking at the weather myself – it’s much warmer here than where you are, but I need a sunny day to make a film and the weather man seems incapable of telling the truth…
We used to call them rubbers here when I was little, but I suspect they might be called erasers now 😉
Natural light is the best.. good luck with some for your film..what an exciting project. c
Ha ha – it is when it behaves 😉
It’s warming up here, too, with sun forecast all week and, when today’s has disappeared, no more frost. Good on you for planting the trees – you may be doing it for the sake of the soil, but you are also helping to save us from (more) climate change. I’m doing a Climate Change MOOC course at the moment, and it makes depressing thoughts.
Have a lovely weekend with Grace
Love,
ViV
Trees are magic.. have always thought so! much love.. c
Yes, they are called rubbers here too! Would love to have a plum tree on the Farmy (allergic to nuts) please. You really do deserve some warmer weather, holding thumbs that it is on the way very soon. Laura
The first time I ever heard of ‘erasers’ being called ‘rubbers’ was when we lived in Malta. But remembering to say ‘rubbers’ was easier than this American learning to drive on ‘the wrong side of the road’……. ; o )
It sure has been a horrifically cold winter here too. Most of our dear friends have bought homes in Florida or Arizona to help manage the winter. They’re saying this past February has been THE COLDEST on record. Ever. At least we don’t have the frequent power outages that we had last year. Possibly because we purchased a generator. Murphy’s law.
yup buying a generator works kind of like putting the snow plow on the truck when they forcast snow.!
I loved taking exams, too. I actually liked studying for them, as well. I am weird.
The temps rose to 71 degrees yesterday. Six of my large tortoises got to experience the outdoors for the first time in six months. They were delighted, Today, we have a predicted high of 29 degrees and an ice storm. I am hanging my hat on May. May is the great equalizer, and the balance will tip toward the warm for good. We’re almost there.
I don’t have a place to plant a tree. We live in an area with dense trees surrounding our property, but only steep hills for our yard. I don’t think there’s a Heather tree yet, and if there is, I do not want to be greedy.
Two critically endangered and very valuable (genetically) animals hatched yesterday. I am bursting to share the pictures, but there are rules I have to follow. It will likely be a week. *sigh*
Can’t wait to see the photos !!
One of them is my favorite hatchling photo yet. The baby looks like it is swaddled for a nap.
My brain is spinning….. I’m wondering if it might be a baby turtle…. But I know you can’t say right now. Again – looking forward to the photos!!
It IS a baby turtle! I can’t give specifics, but it is a precious baby turtle. I have to wait until it is weighed, measured, and officially recorded as a viable hatch before I can post images publicly.
I don’t think I ever met anyone who actually liked taking tests! But you were lucky. And, because you weren’t stressed, you were able to do your very best. About the Black Walnut trees, my neighbor (who also lived in an old New England farmhouse like mine) planted Black Walnuts not too long ago. I never saw any trees grow so fast!! ++ Just like you, I always get excited thinking of spring being on it’s way!! In fact, people at our local hardware store said they’ve already started their veggie plants. I’m going to have to get right on that !! That is, as long as I can get someone to help me build a groundhog and rabbit-proof fence this spring. Of course, I don’t mean a Rabbit Proof Fence like they have in Australia…. Did you ever see the movie of the same name? It’s wonderful !!
I loved exams – in much the same way as Celie. I am 77, and took an end-of-course test this morning. I gained my degree at 72. Studying is addictive!
Congratulations for showing us that age is no excuse for doing what we want to do.
Nothing like getting in the first vege plants.. could you put a netting cloche on top of the seedlings? Our cats made short work of the rabbits.. we have nothing like the problem we used to.. c
Fabulous!!!! I love learning new things but I never liked exams. How wonderful to actually enjoy them – and how wonderful that you gained your degree at 72. There’s certainly nothing wrong with YOUR memory !!
I didn’t mind exams either, and we called them rubbers too 🙂
How exciting about the trees! Our conservation office does the same thing usually with pine and pecan. Pine seedlings are a nickel! I’m sure you know this, but you have to be careful where you plant black walnut trees. Their roots contain a toxic substance that can kill plants 80 ft. from the tree.
I have heard this, but my black walnuts grow along side other trees quite happily, so maybe it is just some other species that it moves off so it can get more light.. sensible tree. These ones will be planted in a long line, evenly spaced parallel with the ditch, but not too close, plenty of room to spread and in 20 years i will run the pigs under them at fattening time.. (how FAR ahead wwe gardeners need to think!)..i c
that’s good! they make great shade trees. We had a whole field of them when I was little. We had to pick up walnuts and put them in the ruts of the road so my dad could run over them and remove the hull. My grandmother would spend all winter cracking out walnuts for us to eat. Funny how the mention of a tree brought this to my mind.
I loved exams as well but not when I was at school. I took all my exams after I had grown up, got married and had 2 children. It was only then that I realized just what I had missed so I went back to college and got my qualifications….
Yes Spring is just around the corner, I can see it on the trees. Here in Bulgaria last Saturday was Baba Marta day when Spring sort of begins at the end of March Baba Marta finishes and goes away leaving blue skies and the sun behind.
Good news about Grace..is she staying long….we had an enquiry from a woofer but when I said it involved painting she replied that she did not know how to paint…well would you believe it!
Too much hard work that painting!! Gracie will be here for four days, she is thrilled about the chicks.. c
We most likely would have had to suffer a sit down with the principal if anyone had referred to erasers as rubbers around here. Even from a young age, and through lots of giggles and remarks, most of us knew what was being insinuated by using the word rubbers…even if we didn’t understand the rest of the process 😉 Am I wrong, or aren’t/weren’t rain boots referred to as ‘rubbers’ in some parts of the world?
Tingley makes different sizes of rubber footware — those that were ankle high were the ones we called rubbers when I was growing up on the farm
Thank you Vesta, it’s always good to know that I didn’t simply make things like this up in my own mind 🙂
Though i am sure your mind could make up some wonderfully entertaining stuff!! c
Haha!
Just rubber boots – but nowadays they are wellies.
From the brand ‘Wellington’ I assume, Viv?
Not a brand: after the illustrious Duke of Wellington, of Waterloo fame.
Well, what do you know…I learn so much from this blog, just wonderful, and thanks 🙂
I feel almost guilty posting early blooming cherry blossoms from here when it seems that the rest of the continent is freezing! 😦 I sure hope your spring is just around the corner. I’m looking at the jet stream and it is still resolutely dipping directly over you. I’ll do a little sun dance.
Funny story: When we first immigrated to Canada, I couldn’t believe that someone would send you a watch for eating three packages of cereal. So I begged mom, got my cereal and sent away for the watch…a great big Mr Peanut watch, yellow face, black numerals, and the watch hands were Mr Peanut’s arms. I loved that watch and wore it every day. And then came a math exam and someone complained and the teacher asked me to take my watch off please and he took it to the principal’s office over the time of the test because the loud ticking was driving my class mates crazy! I never even noticed it! 😀 Oh, one more thing, I saved three vine maple twigs at the recent home and garden show and will plant them up at the cabin. 😀
Vine maple.. They grow fast too.. I just looked them up and they go to zone 6, I am 5 – poo.. I like to plant trees that will survive a zone colder than me due to the over all cooling trends in the climate.. c
I confess I never liked exams or studying for them & always had a novel I couldn’t put down when it was time to cram for a course. Where I grew up in central Kentucky we wore rubbers or galoshes. Rubbers slipped on over the tops of your shoes, galoshes were big old rubber boots with some kind of buckle closures—-I think. It was a long time ago. But I certainly do remember very clearly that I adored all things black walnut: ice cream, cake, fudge, and especially Kentucky Colonels, pulled cream candy made with brown sugar & black walnuts. Since they are not compatible with some other plants, plant your black walnuts in their own grove or in a row up the drive – so you can run over & de-hull them when the nuts fall. I would love a black walnut please, Celi. — Judith, in chilly damp Asheville, NC, where just yesterday it was sunny & 72 F.
I may need to grow them on for a years or so. Then I intend to plant them in a row just out of the new fields across the way.. I will put YOUR black walnut next to mine right here in the drive, so i can run over yours too! c
I’m going to be near Ashville next week for a knitting retreat. Please tell me it won’t snow?
It won’t snow. A knitting retreat, how lovely that sounds..c
I’m so glad to hear of your forest! We just acquired two kumquats to plant out when it’s done freezing here, along with a Meyer lemon. We don’t have anymore room for additional larger trees (three on our city plot already, and four small ones) but there’s still room for citrus!
Deeply envious of your citrus.. such a shame I cannot grow them here.. too cold. kumquats are wonderful, i love eating them.. c