1/12/11

The snow is deeper than a stack of seed catalogs.

That’s the lede.

It handily disposed of two obvious subjects: the current winter storm and the annual task of ordering seeds. I am fortunate this year in that the two are synchronized; the deeper the snow gets the more engrossed I become in the seed order.

The list is a general replication of last year’s – but for the higher prices – with a handful of additions and even fewer subtractions. Even so, it takes a few days to go over every item and then a few more to write everything down on an order sheet. (That takes a lot more time than you would think: filling out forms.)

The scene before me as I work is a long sheet of white from my back window rising up to the highest point in the fields. Blank. Utterly empty. Clean.

The same space is represented on a long piece of butcher paper, equally stark and clean to begin with but soon filled with obvious landmarks, field measurements, and then lists of cultivars, noted with planned seeding dates and row lengths.

I look from the paper to the field, from the field to the paper. From the paper to the field.

The catalogs are stocked with nifty images of vegetables. Perfect glossy representations of flawless vegetables.

I look from the catalogs to the fields. From the fields to the catalogs. From the catalogs ….

Hope is a snow covered field. An undisturbed white canvas. A frozen tabla rasa upon which we project our own idea of glossy perfection.

The forecast says it won’t melt for a while.