Having a three year old in the house is a great excuse to act like a kid. We spent two hours yesterday playing in the yard, taking a walk, and building this snowman.
Quite regal isn’t he (the snowman, not the three year old)?
Thanks to some quick packing snow, it only took us about 10 minutes to get him standing.
Once our Frosty was upright, I searched the garden looking for things to use to build his face:
- Rocks are always easy to find around here, so those became his eyes.
- His hair consists of Lawson’s cypress branches and St. John’s wort stems, and
- His grin is made from hibiscus seed pods.
- My son insisted that snowmen only have carrot noses and made me remove the tulip tree seedpod I had centered on Frosty’s face and replace it with a carrot (of course to do this, I had to take my boots off and go inside and get one out of the fridge – ugh).
Though I don’t think of winter as a time to focus on gardening, it always seems to work its way in there somehow.
Even just walking through the perennial bed looking for snowman features I found myself thinking about whether or not I’m going to plant so darned many zinnias this year; and walking down the street made me wonder if the neighbor is going to want to swap seeds again.
At least in my brain, the gardening season never really ends.
So, winter is here for a bit longer and I’m going to enjoy it.
There is something comforting about winter to me. I think it’s because there are so many familiar, home-centered things happening this time of year – and so many good excuses to play.
Like every other gardener I’m going to ogle the catalogs, start my seeds, and plan for the spring. But I’m also going to make snow angels…just because I can.
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