Winter Indoor Gardening?

Beloved ~ 
          I have to go stick some of my bamboo plant stakes in the ground in case we get the two inches of snow predicted for today.  Last time they cleared the neighborhood, snow plows gouged five gallons’ worth of lawn soil alongside my driveway.  They’ll fix it come springtime, but I’d rather they not make it worse now.  In other outdoor (wildlife) news, two does have taken to resting on the cedar needle carpet behind my house.  They lay there for hours – sleeping, I suppose.  I like that they find this place safe enough to let down their guard.  Birdy has started a digging project in one corner of my front flowerbed.  I’ll let it go for now, but come good weather she and I will have a come-to-Jesus meeting about it.  The seed catalogs have started arriving; my favorite is this one, a family iris farm in Oregon.  I’ll cut this year’s up for collaging while waiting to see what last year’s order is going to do in my yard this spring.  A friend and I ordered sixteen phenomenal lavender plants between us ~ I hope to fill my tiny side bed with purple flowers, bees and butterflies.  I might put one or two at church as well.
          In some ways this is the best gardening time of year, me cozy on the couch with coffee and catalogs, pretending my tiny yard could look like pictures in a magazine.  On these wintery indoor gardening afternoons, money is no object and no labor is required.  The season proceeds with a perfect balance of sun and rain, but no munching bugs or thieving raccoons.  Certainly no tunnel-digging voles or moles!  Tomato bottom rot is not a thing and weeds decline to sprout.
          But soon enough I’ll need to order mulch, and find some young adults in need of spending money willing to spread it for me.  I’ll pick up my annuals and some new hostas to fill in the bare spots, and my regular flat of herbs and vegetables from my favorite farmers’ market vendor.  (The picture above is from their farm.)  The squirrels and bugs and raccoons will take their share and I’ll have the same stingy heart I’ve had for thirty-plus years.  I’ll neglect the weeding, then catch it up in a day and be sore for the whole next week.  My water bill will be ridiculous and Birdy will probably still dig where she’s not supposed to.
          But there will be days when the hummingbirds are thick and the irises explode with color; when the lavender positively buzzes like a factory at full tilt and brushing by them fills the air with perfume; when I cut a fistful of basil to add to my supper and bite into a tomato no magazine spread can ever match.  For all of the work and all the money and for however great a difference between my yard and the picture in the catalog, I still choose what’s real.  Therein is the sight and sound and smell and feel of the miracle of God’s goodness to me, three steps from my front door and rising from the most ordinary dirt found anywhere.  I am deep down grateful for another season to kneel and put my hands to it. 
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​~peace and prayers,
pastor annette

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