Thinking Spring

I'm done.  I no longer think it's pretty when I look out the window and see snow.  I no longer cross my fingers and hope for a snow day (thank you very much, Blizzard Bags!), and I'm sick of shoveling and trekking down to the bus stop in over-the-ankle-deep snow.  I'm ready to see those first shoots poking out of the ground.  I'm ready to head to the nursery.  But I can't.  My yard still looks like this.

View From My Kitchen Door 

There IS one thing I can do--PLAN!!  Ooooh!  I can even make LISTS!!  So the first thing I'm going to plan is my
garden.  I left the raised beds I was so excited about at the old house.  There is a rumor that they may be able to be transported here, but I'm not hopefully we'll be able to make that happen in time for spring planting.  I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to have a garden here because of all the shade, but after the Great Tree Massacre in which we had 6 trees cut down, I think there might be a little more sunlight peeking through than I previously thought (of course I'll actually have to wait until I see the sun again to test that theory out, but I'm confident that some day soon I'll be able to see that glowing thing in the sky that I remember as the sun.).    I'd like to till up a little square, but I may have to wait on that, so for this year, I think I'm going to try my hand at container gardening.  I've wanted to do that in the past and never really had a good place to do it--well, I did, but it was right beside the garden in the ground which always kind of seemed a little silly.  So I'm going to put a few pots on my upper patio (which is pictured above, but you can't really see it because it's buried until snow.  I just logged in at Sprout Robot again and it says I can start planing Kale on March 31st.  SO excited for that again!  It'll be great to have easy access to the garden right from the kitchen door too!  Yay!  Spring planning!
     OK, second spring planning is decorative plants.  This one will be hard to do until I see what I have here in the spring.  I think that's going to be a fun adventure in and of itself.  I'm SO excited to see what pops up!  One of the best gifts I ever got was my Aunt Janet, who's an avid gardener, coming over to the old house to help me plan and plant my flower beds.  I learned so much from her, and it gave me the confidence to do things on my own that I never would have had the courage to try on my own.  It made me feel like I too could be a gardener and if I messed up, tear it out and start again.  So for this item on my Spring Planning list, I think the only things I'm going to add here are just a few little flowers in two places to start with.  First, check out the windows in the shed/play house above.  How cute would window boxes look there?!?!  Fun right?  I've always wanted window boxes!  There are two windows on the opposite side as well, which I probably won't add boxes too, simply because I can't enjoy them.  The second thing I'm super excited to plant in is the planter by my front door.  When we first saw the house in the fall, I immediately thought, "Mums!" but now I'm thinking about perennials.  Again, have to wait and see how much sun it gets.  Now it's an ice skating rink for chipmunks.

Front Step Planter

The last thing on my list is---chickens!  I was just thinking about my friend Jesse and his chickens when the weather was so cold these last few weeks.  I was wondering about how they faired.  Which got me thinking about chickens again.  Which is always dangerous.  My mother will tell you, I've always wanted pets.  Lots of pets.  And I've had them.  I have to hand it to her, looking back.  I had way more pets than most kids had.  I never felt like I did, because they were spread out over my childhood but I had the traditional dogs and cats, but also a bird, a turtle, a snake, gerbils, hermit crabs, fish, carniverous fish (in the name of science of course) and even ducks.  Getting chickens doesn't seem like that big of a stretch for me.  But, as I said last year, I don't want to just get a pet without doing the right amount of research (which I've done) and thinking (which I'm doing again.)  So I'm going to *think* about chickens again.  Don't tell Evan.  

And there you have it!  My short list for Spring Planning!  I feel sunnier already!