Well, that didn't take long, did it? The second day of 2020 and ProfessorRoush has already blogged twice! I simply couldn't restrain myself from a quick entry, given what I found on a walk outside after yesterday's blog.
The temperature reached 50ºF yesterday around 1:00 p.m. and the sun was shining, so despite a brisk wind, I took the lovely Bella out for a walk. Well, I walked. Bella ran around like the world was brand new, sniffed the cold earth for awhile, and then rolled in the sunny buffalograss like the puppy she still is. We sat for awhile, there in sunshine's embrace, me on the low granite bench in my front yard, and Bella on the warm grass, and together we contemplated how much trouble we would be in from Mrs. ProfessorRoush when Bella dragged all that grass back into the house on her fur. We discussed running to the nearest Greyhound terminal and heading for Florida, but Bella finally convinced me that was a ridiculous overreaction to the moderate scolding we would undoubtedly get later.
I didn't think that I yet displayed my granite bench to you, the granite salvaged from our kitchen island when we remodeled,
but I was wrong, so wrong. I'm not shocked that I forgot about blogging about the bench, but I was chagrined that the linked blog entry was clear back in 2014. It seems like the remodeling project was just a year or two back. Where does the time go, and why does its passing speed up as we age? I wish, sometimes, I were more like the granite, impervious to time, ice, and burning sun, but then I remember that granite doesn't really get much accomplished year over year.
Showing you the antics of my energetic and loving Bella, however, was just a cheap ploy to draw you in for the real reason that ProfessorRoush is blogging again so quickly. Worked, too, didn't it? No one can resist a perky beagle!
I really wanted to share the photograph at the right and announce to the world that SPRING IS COMING! Yes, only 9 or 10 days past the beginning of winter, the first daffodils are foolishly pushing stems above the frozen ground out there in my garden. I was shocked to find them, even here in this bare patch of dark earth disturbed by some digging critter last fall. Early? I'd reckon so. But I'm happy to see them all the same. It's tempting to cover them up and tell them to go back to sleep, but instead, this old gardener will bow to their wisdom and leave them be, impertinent spring-rushers that they are.
It's a very cold winter day here in the Flint Hills and while I was searching my phone for inspiration, I kept stopping at the bright, the cheery, the flashy photos. Many of these were photographs of last summer's daylilies, still beaming the sunshine of July into the freezing aura of January.
The prairie grasses, themselves, were bent low with the weight of 1/2" thick ice, reddened by the strain of winter's fury. Even the buff buffalograss was transformed, a crackling surface rough on the paws of poor Bella, who decided she really wanted as few bathroom breaks as possible in this mess.
How much the ice must have affected all the wildlife who couldn't rush inside? At least the overhang from my bluebird boxes seemed to be protecting the precious structure and potential lives beneath it.
And, alas, all the poor shrubs. Viburnums, lilacs, honeysuckle and sumac, transformed to statues as stiff as the concrete and glass ornaments among them. Look at the icicle that was formerly my Star Magnolia, brittle branches defenseless to the first cruel wind that arises. Today's high is supposed to be 36ºF. I can only hope that the sun comes out before the south wind and clears the branches from their burdens before they shatter and break.
There is hope however, buried within the glass. No deer will be munching on these Magnolia flower bud popsicles in the near future. Glazed artwork, the protected buds will wait patiently and, maybe, just perhaps, decide to put off their spring debut until a more reasonable period of warming occurs.
For right now, my garden is a time capsule frozen by a winter's tantrum. A freak sudden climate change, a sudden shift to Ice Age, and millennia from now a future archaeologist might be uncovering a garden of magnolias, roses, and daylilies, wondering how they could all survive together in such a horrid place for gardening. He or she might come across that eternal granite garden bench of mine, an alluring seat in the sunshine of my photo last week, but not nearly so inviting now. A little more digging, however, and they'll discover the strawberry bed of the vegetable garden, protected behind an electric fence and under a layer of straw, and know that here lived a gardener, one filled with hope for a fruit-filled future and spring. 
Well, that didn't take long, did it? The second day of 2020 and ProfessorRoush has already blogged twice! I simply couldn't restrain myself from a quick entry, given what I found on a walk outside after yesterday's blog.
The temperature reached 50ºF yesterday around 1:00 p.m. and the sun was shining, so despite a brisk wind, I took the lovely Bella out for a walk. Well, I walked. Bella ran around like the world was brand new, sniffed the cold earth for awhile, and then rolled in the sunny buffalograss like the puppy she still is. We sat for awhile, there in sunshine's embrace, me on the low granite bench in my front yard, and Bella on the warm grass, and together we contemplated how much trouble we would be in from Mrs. ProfessorRoush when Bella dragged all that grass back into the house on her fur. We discussed running to the nearest Greyhound terminal and heading for Florida, but Bella finally convinced me that was a ridiculous overreaction to the moderate scolding we would undoubtedly get later.
I didn't think that I yet displayed my granite bench to you, the granite salvaged from our kitchen island when we remodeled, but I was wrong, so wrong. I'm not shocked that I forgot about blogging about the bench, but I was chagrined that the linked blog entry was clear back in 2014. It seems like the remodeling project was just a year or two back. Where does the time go, and why does its passing speed up as we age? I wish, sometimes, I were more like the granite, impervious to time, ice, and burning sun, but then I remember that granite doesn't really get much accomplished year over year.
