We are BACK!

No, we did not die, leave the country (other countries do have Internet, you know), or quit writing all together.The problem is that we have been suffering from a serious medical disorder called Garden-body.

Seriously!

Garden-body occurs from an excessive number of hours and days spent gardening.

Usually, we begin cleaning up our garden sometime in March - after the snow has disappeared. Not that it doesn't snow here again in April, but late season snow does not usually last very long. Then, the first of April, we plant pea pods for stir fry, followed by radishes, lettuce, scallions, broccoli, and other cool season crops. By the first of May, when the oak trees' budding leaves are the size of mouse  ears, as my grandfather used to say, in go the potatoes. By mid-May, its time for tomato plants, peppers, and eggplant.

In between veggie planting, we trim dead wood out of shrubs, put in new shrubs, including a rose or two, split and move perennials, and put new perennials in empty spaces. Though by now there aren't many empty spaces left. It's like a symphony with its moods and movements, all carefully composed for the pleasure of its creator and its listeners.

However this year it was still snowing in early May and the ground covered with winter snows.

The result? Garden-body. We have done about  two months of gardening in two weeks. Other than keeping bills paid, milk and OJ, in the fridge, and gas in the car, our lives have been consumed by retrieving our garden from the effect of last summer's drought and this year's extended winter.

Now I am happy to say the hard work is over. And we can resume normal life. That is, if life can ever be described as normal.

The worrisome issue is climate change underlying all of the "crazy weather." Part of the present cause of weather events is melting Arctic ice, pushing cold air much further southward into the USA. When that cold air encounters warm gulf air it creates the makings of disasters. The melting ice floes from the high Arctic that we encountered, as we crossed the North Pacific last spring (that meant returning to Japan to find another route), was further evidence of these massive changes.

Folks here, me included, have been grumbling and complaining a lot about the weather this spring. One grey rainy day after another. But we have had it easy compared to other places around the world.
Excessive high temps in the SW and forest fires. Flooding in the east and central parts of this country. Tornadoes. Eastern  Europe flooded and unseasonably cold. The list goes on . . .

So in scheme of things, our sore Garden-bodys will heal. At this point, our garden looks like we are living in an English gardener's paradise.  And we now have time to "take pen in hand" and resume our writing lives.