Peace and Quiet

Ahhhhhh. The sweet sound of silence, except for the music (of my choice) playing on my iPod. There is a fire in the fireplace, chili on the stove, the dog at my feet and just me and my computer with the whole day to ourselves.

My quick-thinking husband saw the crazed look in my eye that I get when things are piling up and I don't have an uninterrupted minute to carry on a complete thought. Brilliantly, he scooped up the kids and a couple of their friends and took off to the ski hill. His parting words were, "Make notes while you have some time to actually think, we'll be late." God, I love that man.

So, here I sit surrounded by seed catalogs, notes from last years growing season, calendars etc., trying to make heads or tails out of what the hell I'm going to do for this 2006 growing season that is fast approaching. I know what you're thinking, gardens don't start until summer, right? Well, we fire up the greenhouse at the end of February to start our own transplants and in order to get the seeds you want, especially organic ones, you better order early - so that's why the early start. Just looking through these catalogs makes me so hungry and wanting summer. Can't you just taste the tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli and such when you look at those pictures? My absolute favorite is the salad with tomatoes, basil, garlic, feta cheese and olive oil. It makes my mouth water thinking about it. It is the staple of my diet from July-September.

After the seed order I will jump into the stack of publisher catalogs and try to decide what books people would like to buy at the farming conference this year. This is always tough, no matter how much of a variety we have or how many different areas we try to cover, there is always someone asking for something they think we should have. Short of taking over the whole conference with books - that is always going to be the case. Being in charge of ordering books is difficult for me, I am an absolute book LOVER and want to order one of everything, not only for the conference, but for myself. During the conference I am constantly sticking books I want to buy under the counter and at the end when the total is added up? My husband usually dies of a heart attack, then I give him CPR, hand him a beer and tell him I'll try harder next year not to buy as many. He knows I'm lying. When we built our house, how many built-in book shelves we had was more important to me than the kitchen. Completely addicted.

Well, before I use my precious time I've been given with blogging - I better get back to work. Lord knows this isn't going to last long. Here's to hoping you find your own quiet corner today to have a complete thought and some well deserved silence.