The irony was not lost on either Juana or I. After over six weeks in the tropics where the temperature never dropped below 70 degrees, we come back home to a Nor’easter and 6 inches of snow. The first thing we did upon arriving late in the day was to don our snow boots and shovel out our driveway.
The next day was spectacularly bright with a perfect blanket of snow covering the yard. The trees and bushes sparkle with ice and melting snow. Cold but magical to look at.
The day warms and I exam the rosemary bushes I placed in the garage to winter over. Both have soft and pliant stalks. I brush a branch over my nose, inhaling the heady perfume while appreciating the fresh and budding flowers. I take both survivors from the garage putting them into the greenhouse and give them a bit of water to shake off their dormancy.
The cold frames are covered with snow that I remove carefully with a shovel then a broom. Underneath the plexiglass, I can see a variety of fresh greens. The panes come off easily revealing a wide cluster of miner’s lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata). It is ready to be eaten. I bite into a single heart-shaped leaf, noticing the crunch and sweet flavor.
The other cold frame is filled with rosettes of Verte de Cambrian Mache, another sweet green that winter’s over well. Apparently this variety of green may have been grown by Thomas Jefferson in 1810 under the name Candia. I also find some parsley and kale coming back. Yum!
It’s good to be back home.
