Washing Winter Away

I woke this morning to rain. Cold, icky, foggy spring rain. I look out the window, and each time the snowdrifts against the fence are smaller and smaller. I think "Could this be it? Could winter really be over?"

I know it is too early for such hopes. Snow in March (and even April) is not uncommon in MN. But I can smell the earth thawing. That smell that is so particular to spring... you know the one. That smell that promises warm days of green growing things and crisp tasty veggies out of the garden. The smell that promises that life will return to the landscape.

Funny story:

The other day I was looking at seed catalogs while sitting at my folks' place. Little Sprout got all excited looking at the pictures, asking me what each veggie or flower was. Then she saw a picture of garden peas. She looked at me all excited and asked if they were peas. I said yes, and she asked if they were peas from the garden. Again, I answered in the affirmative. Then she began jumping up and down, grabbed my hand, and excitedly announced that we had to go out to the garden to get some! I couldn't convince her that there were no peas in our garden right now, so we had to take a little field trip to the back yard so that she could see with her own little eyeballs that there is nothing green growing in the garden yet. She was very disappointed, and made me promise that I would plant peas as soon as I could.

I think I may have another garden helper this year. Now if I could just get her to understand the difference between a weed and a "keeper" plant. And how to harvest without pulling the entire plant....