Snow Day

spirea in snow

Well, the weatherman called it. What a gift. I work at a college, and I knew late last night that they would be calling a snow day -all buildings closed. We had a lot to accomplish today and the students have a big project due tomorrow. This really screws with that! But as I put on my shoes to head outside I thought, wow -when weather slows life down there are so many other things that can be accomplished simply because you cannot do what is planned, like going to work. I now have a whole day. Here's what I am doing:

Drinking way too much home brewed coffee. I am wired, I feel dizzied. I am cooking many meals for the week in a much more thoughtful way than I would with only a Monday morning to accomplish this. I had a group critique yesterday evening, so I am allowing myself to not use this time for the studio, I'm being domestic -staying in. I'm going to put up those coffee mug hooks that have been loitering around. I am going to clean some. I've already cooked the broccoli rabe for one dinner, moving onto a sardine dish with red peppers, and going to make fennel seed meatballs later. I wrote two 99 word stories for Garden Rant. I'm posting here as well. I'm going to research growing mushrooms and figure out how to get a lower rate on our cellphones. Oh, and I am going to get those tomato seeds in pots and in the window.

No snow, then I'd have been at work at 10am. Its how to make the money, but monolithic -look at that diverse list of accomplishments!

Beyond all that, the land needed this moisture. We received 2.98 inches in January while normal is over 4 inches. This February we received .86 inches, where normal should be around 3 inches. March normally has around 4 inches of rain, frozen or not. We can count on about and inch of rain from this storm as 12 inches of snow equals 10-12 inches of snow. So good for us.

Of course, why not plant vegetable seeds on such a wintry day? Tomatoes anyone. I have five varieties to plant this year, conservatively planting two or three seeds for each variety in their starting pots.

I'm glad I didn't set out the growing snap pea plants too soon or it'd look like this.

I'm glad I've only been planning the vegetable garden, not planting it!

Giving new meaning to the name "cold-frame." I'd say about 10 inches of snow on there.

The cat is bugging me, wants attention, doesn't get this staying at home thing.