Ready For Spring

I can really appreciate the beauty of winter time. We're in the Hungry Gap now, and living in a rural area away from the conveniences of city life, I can feel it. The produce section at our grocery store is lean, picked over, and over priced. Most of our fruits and veggies this time of year are frozen. We've had a lot of potatoes, mushrooms, and onions. My wife doesn't mind having pot roast twice a week... but I'm starting to get a little weary. Yesterday was the first sunny day in what felt like months. I snapped a quick selfie on my one-block walk to work.

[Photo features a close up of a woman with dark brown curly hair, glasses, and a dark green coat. She has a black and white scarf wrapped around her neck. She is wearing lipstick and silvery blue eye makeup. She is smiling with her mouth closed. Behind her, a bit of pavement peeks out from beneath a blanket of snow. There is snow falling in her hair.]

I cannot wait until spring. My mother-in-law gave us an awesome wagon for Yule so it will be much easier to go shopping without a car. And now that my wife is working at the gas station, we get a paycheck every Friday. Last summer we could never seem to get to the Farmer's Market to get groceries because it's only open Saturday mornings until noon, and we got paid Saturday mornings at 11am (so by the time we got our checks picked up and cashed, there was never time to walk down there).... I'm glad that this year will be different.

We're planning our garden for this year. Pretty fitting considering that Charming of the Plow is this week. So far we've decided on strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, bell peppers, green onions, and basil. We'd like to either grow or locally source 50% of our food this year. It seems strange to think about spring when there's 4 feet of snow in my yard, but I think it's going to be warm again before we know it.