Glimpses of Spring

I don't know about you, but it's during these long, cold winter months that I start to get the wintertime blues, and I need a small glimpse of spring. I haven't stepped foot in The Sister Garden in months. Just a few weeks ago, it was buried under a fresh blanket of beautiful white fluffy snow. The countdown to the days when green life seems to miraculously emerge from nothing has been on since the last leaves were falling from the trees. The birds linger around, chirping when their feeders run low. They are one of Gods beautiful creations that I get to enjoy through the cold months that, when they sing their songs, remind me of spring. Red cardinals, blue jays, yellow finches, and Eastern bluebirds are the only pops of color flying around the brown and tan landscape that make up our acreage.

So, what is there to do during these cold winter months when plant life is almost non-existent outside that brings a glimpse of spring? We have had herbs hanging in the loft for months for days just like these. They could all have been put away weeks ago. There is something quite exciting and special about taking the screens that hang full of dry, delicate, still beautifully green leaves and stems down. The peppermint, lemon balm, rosemary, oregano, stevia, spearmint, lavender, sage, basil, and thyme that took months to grow are coming to their final resting places. Putting away dried peppermint is especially my favorite. While stripping the stems bare of their dried leaves, the entire room fills with the strong and delightfully clean peppermint aroma. Countless stems are condensed down to broken fragments of leaves in one jar, soon to be blended in as an herbal tea.

Rosemary and lemon balm still hang on screens in the upper loft. There are still at least two more months of cold weather. Two more months of a vacant garden. Two more months of a brown and tan landscape. The dried leaves and stems of rosemary and lemon balm will tide me over until the miraculous process of life that God has created begins again in The Sister Garden. 

Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth," and it was so. Genesis 1:11