Looking Forward to a Great Week

I started a new book a couple of days ago.  This one will be a WIP between bouts of finishing a couple of others.  

Working on multiple projects again is a breakthrough for me.  I feel like I'm making progress, though toward what, I don't know yet.  It's certainly not technique-based advancement.  But I do know that when I was at my most prolific, I was working on multiple projects at a time.  I had to let that go for a while.  Coming back to it feels like coming home, but to a bigger house so that all my stuff doesn't feel like clutter.  If that makes sense.

Anyway, I feel like I've found my groove.  

In gardening news, I pulled up a bunch of blackberries.  I have a lot more to pull up, and mulching to do.  While cleaning up, I found a lot of daffodils nosing through the ground.  Too soon, my darlings, too soon!  I made sure they got covered up again with mulch, not so much so that they don't freeze, at least not in a direct sense, but to make sure they remain dormant.  

One of the kewl things about living in the Pac NW is the long growing season ... and one of the disadvantages is the long growing season.  We're very prone to early warm-ups followed by late frosts.  We often have a warm stretch in February, and snow as late as April.  Fruit trees?  Sorry, they have to take their chances.  But the bulbs I can do something about without a huge investment or time-consuming intervention.  It's just what I did ... mulch.  

Cleaning up the last of the leaves mid-winter, especially in January, doesn't just dislodge pests camped close to their spring food source.  It can retard or halt fungal disease and/or rot.  And if you manage to do it on a very cold day (preferably windless so that you're not too uncomfortable) you can seal in cold around those bulbs.  That means they'll stay colder longer, meaning they'll stay dormant longer ... and hopefully they'll stay dormant during that weird 50 degree F weather in February and come up at just the right time, instead of getting frost damage or dying altogether in early March when the temperature drops hard and the earth freezes up and all moisture is sapped until your skin cracks.  

I would have been gardening today in the beautiful sunshine, but I had to work.  We've got snow and possible freezing rain forecast in our area.  Being one of those weird people who won't kill themselves trying to get to work, I may very well end up working in the garden unexpectedly, cutting back weeds, pruning roses, and mulching like crazy during the freeze.  And, of course, when darkness falls, I've got projects to write on.

Sounds like a great week ahead.  If I get a chance, I'll post a pic of our giant, fierce snowbunny and the boy's twisted snowman.