Goslings, Saplings, Seedlings

The pile of catalogs.

It's January in Buffalo and- let me set the record straight- there has been no significant snow fall so far. It was sweatshirt weather today! I am a little nervous about the two options available for Old Man Winter. The first is that we will have no winter and I will not get to see glistening snow falls or watch my pooch play in the snowy back yard. The second is that the winter will squish all we've missed and more into the remaining months available and it will be a nutty season. With the lake effect snow we could be facing with our non-frozen lake, I worry (and also hope!) we are about to become a winter wonderland, just  a few months late.

Nevertheless, the sure sign that the restlessness of winter is upon us has arrived. We have been receiving seed and chick catalogs for weeks now. Mark has looked out the window longingly and spoken of his plans for planting this season. Something small inside us is beginning to stir.

This year, there are two lots we intend to rescue from misuse with some raised beds and some direct seeding. We will try carrots, radishes and parsnips for the first time. We hope to perfect potato growing and have a successful corn crop. Last fall, we replaced some failed fruit bushes with new northern hardy plants in hopes our backyard will bear grapes, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries.

There is something to this. There is something about knowing that your feet will be in a place for long enough to benefit from a decision to put down seeds or bulbs.  There is something about picking a variety of carrot in January of 2012, hoping that it will cellar well into 2013.  There is something to choosing a tree in hopes that your children will climb on it.

In a beautiful way, I am expecting to be found here.  I am literally and figuratively putting down roots. 

I am reminded of the practice found in many cultures of burying the placenta of a just-born child. The practice stems from the belief that the child will always be planted in that spot, will continue to return home.  In a time where many dangers existed to interrupt one coming home, this ritual planted a seed of hope.

Placenta or no, the rose bushes we may plant, the lavender patch that I hope takes off, the nettle the chicken may prevent from returning, the possibility of a willow tree along the fence... all of these tie me to this place and speak of a future I intend to have here. And it feels right to believe that I have taken out something more than a years lease on a spot of earth.