The New World Order

Chionodoxa under melting snow crystals

Almost three weeks into the New World Order.  The Covid-19 New World Order.  How are you faring?  My family and I are all healthy.  My friends, to the best of my knowledge, are all healthy.  I’m very grateful. 
                I have plans to do things in the next month that I’m not working.  Rake the lawn.  Clear the garden and get it ready for spring.  De-clutter my house.  Write.  Walk every day.  Stay off the internet.  Eat right and take my vitamins.  Do a project.  Make art.  Read.  Whittle down my To Be Read piles.  (Yes, piles plural, I’m afraid.)  Go to bed and get up at set times.  Get enough sleep.  Stay sane.  And wash my hands, of course.  These are all things that I’ve been advised are good things to do during this staying at home period.
                And, for the most part, I’ve been doing them.  And doing them happily.  I’ve made great progress with the raking and garden clearing. I have half a dozen piles of leaves and debris to go on my permanent decomposing piles along the borders of my property.   There are snowdrops, crocuses, chionodoxa, and cowslips blooming in various parts of the garden.  Daffodils and hellebores have flower buds.  Green tulip and Lady’s Mantle leaves are opening, and the red points of peonies are poking through the soil. 
I always read a lot, but I’ve been reading a lot more these few weeks.  In addition to what my husband likes to call my Plant Porn (plant and seed catalogs), I’ve finished five books and am almost finished with a sixth.  I’ve even gone through some old gardening magazines, pulling out things I want to keep and discarding the rest.  That also qualifies as de-cluttering, right?
I walked Monday and Tuesday, but not yesterday and today.  I haven’t done as well as I’d planned with staying off the internet either.  I’m on too many mailing lists.  One rabbit hole always leads to another.
 And this morning I just could not drag myself out of bed.  In my defense, it was yet another grey and gloomy day, cold and raw.  Yesterday, which was also gloomy, raw and cold, I spent all afternoon in the garden, finally coming inside when I couldn’t feel my fingers and toes and my right shoulder and neck were painful from reaching for and cutting down dead plants.  Even after I’d thawed out I couldn’t get warm and comfortable, in spite of woolly socks and a blanket.  Finally I gave up and went to bed, with an extra blanket, the heating pad, and some Stress Away essential oil to rub on my sore neck and shoulder.  This morning I was finally warm and comfortable, and not at all inclined to get out of bed.
I did of course.  Pippin insisted.  She always does.  I’m amazed she let me sleep as late as I did.  Today, I let my plans slide.  Sometimes one needs to do that.  I washed dishes, but mostly it was a day for drinking tea, reading (book and plant porn), and watching the birds at the feeder by the living room window.  Juncos, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, lots of goldfinches, the males blotchy yellow, and bright Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, he scarlet and she with her brilliant orange beak.
Tomorrow, as Scarlett O’Hara was fond of saying, is another day.
cowslips

Spring is an uncertain time, it must be conceded, and very treacherous for the gardener who is often tempted to put out tender plants too early.  It is traditionally the time of greatest growth and tremendous optimism.  Promissory notes are out from the Bank of Hope, but…the weather can undermine confidence and even threaten foreclosure.                                                       Ursula Buchan

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