Montana has two seasons.
Winter and July.
Every year about this time, our quaking aspens grow leaves seemingly overnight and having leaves they begin to quake. The plum bush out front begins to bud and while the lilacs and roses seem slow they too begin to stretch and yawn and tease me with remembered color and smells.
Every year I begin to prepare to garden knowing full well that we have only 90 frost free days here and they don’t necessarily come in a row. Yesterday, I went to the store and bought some cheap garden gloves, I always loose last year’s pair. I also bought a garden hat. I went for straw again, this year crocheted straw, and floppy.
I need to resist the urge to begin planting because it could snow again by the weekend. I have things to do though, I only plant one flowerbed, and at the moment, a mummy, a skull and two turtles are partly hidden by last year’s dead vines and plant corpses. Cleaning up what looks like a body dump and archaeological dig won’t take too long. Then, I have to go into wait mode again.
I have been trying to go the greenhouse since the latest spate of warm weather hit on Saturday. Last year I took my granddaughter, Shaman-Ariadne with me and she thought we were going to a green house, much like a yellow house or a blue house. Today is her eighth birthday. In 2001, when she was a newborn, a June snowstorm settled in, trees lost branches and many fell, the power lines went down and an endless stream of trucks hauled out the dead all summer long.
I know the construction slow down and the recession combined with a short growing season is impacting our greenhouse down the road. An ambitious project that was going to take place in our neighborhood is wrapped up in a huge and scandalous bankruptcy.
Although, I am a yearly customer, I only put in a small flowerbed and don’t think my business is going to put them in the black. I do wonder what cash strapped families can do to make sure small family owned businesses stay viable in such an economic climate.
Back to the stalling part of gardening, I should be writing. Oh, wait, this counts as writing. I should be capturing the new spring green that has gathered on the trees like gossamer clouds and put a few photos up with this post. I could dust off my watercolors and grab some Arches paper and try to match the spring green colors before they become a harder summer green.
What do you do while waiting for Mother Earth to finish awakening? What are you doing to encourage a struggling business when you are on a budget? What are you growing this year? What seasons do you have in your part of the world?
While setting up a photo I found last year’s garden gloves. Now, I can’t find my small hand rake.