Reflecting

Because there is a new blizzard and because I have read through my current seed catalogs to the point that the catalogs themselves are tired, I have been looking at pictures of my property and the progress. Once upon a time, there was a cabin, a neglected trailer next to the cabin, and a pond. No walkways, no gardens - although there was a significant amount of Comptonia proclaiming that sweet plants could indeed live here. This Google Earth photo says so much to me: the trailer is replaced by the main pollinator garden, there is an interlocking series of paths to the pond, to the goose Palace, to the rhododendron gardens, through the woods (plural), to the deer feeding station. Every inch of path was built with cardboard and gravel and a wheelbarrow. In the beginning, the driveway was a series of holes fringed by long reaching fingers of alders. No longer. The ankle-biting blackberry vine ground cover is replaced by a hundred other plants that welcome both my ankles and a host of helpful invertebrates. So much has changed. I will hold tight to the thought that the property is all resting under the newest blanket of snow, waiting to explode into green once again.