dreaming of spring...

We got hit with a late February storm (again) - and a broken snowblower necessitated us spending some time outside on Saturday shoveling ourselves out. I helped on the driveway a bit - although Hubby did the majority of the work. We get plowed in by both the village plows, and the sidewalk plows, so it can get pretty messy near the end of the driveway. We also had a lot of wind, so a lot of drifting on the driveway side of the house.

Disappointingly this was not good packing snow - although it seemed to be sticking to everything else. There was a lot of air in it and we just could not get it to stick to itself to build a snowman, so the Munchkin busied himself making trails through the snow, or sledding down the miniscule incline next to the driveway, or trying to help shovel with the shovel out of his sand box, or posing for pictures.

Meanwhile I went searching...

...for signs of spring. I found a few - mostly in the buds of the lilac - which should be gorgeous unless the deer decide they are hungry and try to eat the buds off as they have in the past. For now they seem content to raid the bird feeders and leave the lilac buds alone -

The heaped up piles of chopped up leaves we put into the raised beds seem to have settled, and hopefully all the compost goodness we layered under them is right now making that soil nice and rich and yummy.

This weekend we will set up my little indoor greenhouse - basically a 4' tall wire shelving unit with a vinyl cover that I can set up in front of my south facing french doors. Things did well there last year -but with the cover I am hoping for some extra warmth and humidity and an even better kick start to our growing season. The 4' is also about triple the space I had last year - so I have room to try more things!

I want to monitor the temperature for a bit before starting anything, as I want to see just how warm it can get in there and how much I will need to ventilate when I am at work during the day. Don't want to cook the greens until they are ready to be eaten, know what I mean?!?

We are barely in to March - and the snow of 4 days ago has given way to bare patches of lawn (again). I am sure we will have more snow to come before we can truly call it spring - but it is getting closer... little by little it is getting closer.