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Mid-January: A Journal of (Mostly) Grey Days In this latest entry in the Whitehurst Diaries, Sharon finds small things to cherish during the "do-nothing" grey days of January. Cooking, reading, birdwatching, genealogy, and planning for the spring garden all play a part in getting through a long spell of dreary weather. By Sharon Whitehurst Blue skies have been rare this month. A promising sunrise has often faded into a sulk of dour grey clouds, bringing rain, sometimes in desultory dribbles, at other times in brief pounding deluges accompanied by the rattle of thunder. Morning temperatures have not been far above freezing. When I take out cat litter each morning the ground underfoot alternates between soggy and frost-crisped depending on what the previous night has brought. The hard freeze and snow during the last days of December left the east meadow looking sere and dun-colored, yet the verges of the lane and random patches of the lawn show a vivid green. Much of the green is not due to the grass seed hastily strewn in the spring of 2019, but more about mat-forming weeds that are hardy through the winter Sunny afternoons have been welcomed in spite of chilly winds. Sunday, 15 January and a blessed day of sunshine! A sharpish wind had stilled by noon and I went out, feeling liberated from the long slow days of gloomy greyness. The spell of cold and snow has done my gardens no favors. I cut back the foxgloves after their modest fall flowering; the leaves remaining are now a sodden rotting weight on the crowns of the plants. Surely the next few weeks will bring an afternoon when I can pull away the spoiled leaves. There are small rosettes of new growth at the base of the plants. Centranthus ruber which spills over the wall is a brown drooping curtain. It will be weeks before I can know whether the buddleias have survived. In two previous Kentucky gardens a brutal freeze has killed them. Behind the timber wall of a raised bed monarda is spreading in a mat of purple-tinged green. Thyme planted at the base of the clematis trellis is a tangle of wiry blighted stems, only a few sprigs of green showing life. I'm remembering that clematis begins its spring rejuvenation way too early having to be swaddled in old sheets and blankets on frosty April nights. I slogged twice around the perimeter of our open acreage, my feet shuffling in cut-off wellies, noting fuzzy seed heads in the tangle of brush along the south ravine, a few brave dandelions, a sudden shout of bright yellow in the cold grass. Winter brings appreciation of the 'bones' of the landscape; trees twisted by weather and by decades of crowded unruly growth along the edges of the steep ravines. Jim, with four years of mowing, bush-hogging, pruning and trimming has expanded the width of open ground along the north hillside. I spent some time standing underneath the hickory and oak trees that mark our eastern boundary, then walked along a short path that runs into the woods toward the north ravine. Nuthatches were busily scuttling up and down tree trunks as comfortable trundling downward as in working their way heads up. It has been heartening to see more birds in the past two weeks: a large flock of robins bouncing about in the west meadow, titmice chattering on a branch above the compost dump, juncos, sparrows, a few cardinals. Starlings are ever present; large red-tailed hawks perch on the power lines, on the alert for some unwary small creature. The nests of squirrels are on view in the bare treetops, untidy hovels of leaves and twigs that were invisible during the summer. In a rare 'just at the right moment' I saw a squirrel pop into a small round hollow in a tree trunk, then quickly poke its head out again. January--the longest month of winter with often a sameness of grey inclement weather. I read until my vision blurs; some evenings I go downstairs to finish another block of the current quilt in progress. I plonk away at the piano seeking out pieces that I can still manage more or less gracefully when it is my turn to 'play' for church. I make soup, bread, cookies, homely substantial food. On rare sunny afternoons I brew a mug of tea and sit for a few minutes in the new west porch/sunroom. Son Howard installed curtain rods above the triple section window on the south wall and I clambered about to put up the ticking stripe valances modified from curtain panels I made while living in our Amish-built farmhouse. This small embellishment has pleased me. It is too easy in a long spell of dreary weather to consider that I am merely marking time--waiting for another season, wishing for the return of abundant energy [not likely to happen to any degree at this age!] Cousin Pat and I, working long distance via email turn to the further unraveling of our shared French Canadian ancestry; my feeble high school grasp of French struggles with unfamiliar names recorded in faded cramped handwriting. We try to recreate the lives and the stories of these ancestors, journaliers who came from Quebec to upstate New York and Vermont in the late 1800's with their large families, willing to work menial jobs in the hope of better education, better living conditions for their children and grandchildren. Even the grey days, the seeming 'do nothing' days are precious. There are the small things to cherish-- two foxes seen strolling on the western end of the meadow, the deer foraging in the winter-chilled grass; random thoughts and ideas which spark research; words, fabrics, colors, patterns; seed-heads scattered on snow, paw prints and hoof prints in thawing ground. Worries and concerns intrude--so many situations beyond our small spheres of influence or ability; I am comforted on some abiding level that the seasons continue, the moon waxes and wanes, where one plant withers another springs up and blooms. It has to be enough. This story was posted on 2023-01-18 11:20:41
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More articles from topic Sharon Whitehurst - Whitehurst Diaries:
Whitehurst Diaries: Sojourners The Whitehurst Diaries: Raccoon Saga The Whitehurst Diaries: The Man in the Garden The Whitehurst Diaries: Willis-The-Cat, Then and Now The Whitehurst Diaries: Whir, Whiz, Zoom! Sharon Whitehurst: A Morning Without Rain Letter: expanding cyber acquaintance with Blue the Cat Blue will likely adjust more quickly than we humans will The Whitehurst Diaries: A Cellar Hole in Progress The Whitehurst Diaries: Gardening with Willis View even more articles in topic Sharon Whitehurst - Whitehurst Diaries |
 
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