Thursday, March 18, 2021

Marching on

I'm writing this one week ago today, fingertips tingling as warmth returns to them. It's somewhere between 40 and 44 degrees outside, depending on whether you ask the Amazon Echo or the thermometer on the back porch. The sky is sunny, and the wind is gusty. As it is in March.

What's this all about? March 11 was our first outdoor laundry hanging of 2021. Sunny and gusty is exactly what you want, and then the air temperature doesn't matter so much. Except to my fingers. 

I wrote about laundry and numb fingers in October, too, and yes, I wimped out promptly thereafter. I'm also disappointed to report that I did not test hanging a towel out in January to see if laundry would dry on a sunny but sub-freezing day in our backyard. I forgot about until I just now glanced back at that October post. Oh, well. Next January?

March is also a time for starting seeds indoors. This year, I treated myself to a warming mat to put under my seed trays, which are set up in the basement with a grow light. 

The seeds went in on February 27. Marigolds were the first to sprout, followed by tomatoes, and now I'm starting to see some petunia, moss rose, and basil cotyledons (the first two seed leaves). Still waiting on the other herbs to rear their heads. I'm brewing an idea for a vertical herb garden along our fence, where the plants can better share the space with rain barrels. Hm...

It's probably time to flip those rain barrels right-side-up again. They'd been disconnected, emptied, and stacked upside-down for the winter. Let's add that to the to-do list and see how quickly I forget about it.

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