Snow, Seeds and Anticipation

I'm visiting my mom in Barrie.  She had cataract surgery last week so I made the trip to spend a few days with her to help out while she recovers.  It's a cold, grey morning with a light snow falling as I sip my tea.  Winter is old, I can feel it, but we haven't broken her back yet, as my father said to me yesterday.

I borrowed my mom's van (she's a parrot head, so it comes complete with a Margaritaville license plate, Jimmy Buffet bumper stickers, plastic lei hanging from the rear view mirror and a shark sitting on the dashboard), picked my dad up and we headed to Penetanguishene.

Being away from Ottawa this weekend, I missed Seedy Saturday.  As soon as I realised this tragic turn of events, I searched feverishly online for one happening close to my mom.  When the one in Penetang popped up, I sighed with relief; the day would not go unmarked by me.

Held at the Karma Marketplace, with only two tables, it was a fraction of the size of the Ottawa event, but the folks who were there were no less passionate, enthusiastic and dedicated.  And I got some really cool seeds: chufa nuts, fibigia, magenta spreen, sorghum, along with calendula and echinacea.

I'm excited to have new plants to experiment with!  Surprisingly though, I am not yet impatient with the weather.  It might be because I still have so much reading, planning and researching I want to do, or perhaps I am content with nature and the time she chooses to take to move from one season to the next.  I am in no rush.

That doesn't stop me from getting off on garden porn though.  I am pretty much smitten by the Bealtaine Cottage permaculture gardens in Ireland, and I'm ready to run off and declare my undying devotion to the woman in the videos with the soft, soothing Irish brogue.
There are 87 of her videos on youtube, so yes, it can snow here just a little bit longer, but maybe not too much, because already I can sense a spreading feeling in my chest, an expansion across the collar bones.  There's something akin to anxiousness or nervousness in it.  My breath quickens, my heart beats a little faster.  I pause for a moment, take a deep breath and try to put a name to it.  Ah yes, I know this feeling.  It's anticipation.