early spring

As we took our walk earlier this afternoon, it was 25 degrees Celsius, with a humidex of 29. Even now, as I write this — close to dinnertime — it is stlll 24 degrees out. It is so warm that everyone is out in t-shirts, shorts and sandals — so warm that I am actively considering new shoes for the summer, already, when in other years I would still be living in my boots.

It is so warm that the tulips — there are two of them, so the plural is warranted — the tulips are blooming.

Today is supposedly the last day for the warm weather; it is supposed to be cooler — but still warmer than seasonal — tomorrow and through to next week. But still. Tulips and humidexes in the middle of March?

This is madness.

auld lang syne

I think I've mentioned before that Pd's father and stepmother live on a farm near Collingwood. They've retired to a big, modern house there with all of the latest amenities (including satellite television, pool table, wine cellar and a deck that is bigger than our last apartment), but when Pd was growing up, the accommodations were definitely more rustic: a log cabin with extensions for the kitchen and bathroom. (Their water, until a few years ago, still came from a well ... which was interesting when they were in the midst of a teardown and the well pump broke.)

Anyway, for the past year or two, Pd's father has been slowly stripping the old farmhouse back to its log cabin roots with a view of eventually turning it into a studio. Consequently, he's been finding a lot of long-buried things from the deep recesses of the house. Last summer, they unearthed a couple of big bins of Lego and Transformers; after a bath in some soapy water, the cache entertained the grandsons for days.

And this weekend, Pd's father surprised us with a giant bin of old family photographs that he invited us to root through for things to take home. It wasn't just photographs from Pd's childhood — there was older stuff in there, too, even a few from his father's childhood in France.


It was a mess, though; just piles of photographs, 35mm negatives, some slides, nothing labelled and everything just sort of in stacks. We thought it was a shame to tear it all apart and put it away, and it was impossible to tell what were in the negatives or slides — so we decided to turn this into a bigger project. We've ordered a really nice Epson scanner (not quite professional grade, but close), capable of scanning slides and negatives as well as photographs, and we're going to install it at the farm and catalogue and sort the entire box.

It's a big project, and it's going to take months, possibly years. But I am really excited about it.

the promise of spring

As I write this, it is 13 degrees Celsius outside, damp and wet. Yesterday, it was 16 degrees, overcast but relatively dry. Pd was at home with a cold, and the baby was sleeping, so I decided to work out in the garden for a bit. It was still a little too chilly to be doing that much digging, but see what I found:


Tulip buds!

My notes (which is to say, this blog) tell me that they didn't start budding until the third week of March last year. Granted, we had a real winter last year, and a cold and late spring, but still — two to three weeks ahead of the game is a bit excessive. At any rate, this means that we are on course to have tulips in a month or so, which is a lovely surprise, because I hadn't expected any: I hadn't planted any bulbs in the fall, and aren't tulips supposed to be annuals in this zone?

(Speaking of plants that aren't hardy in this zone, supposedly: I'm pretty sure my giant rosemary survived, too. What an odd winter we've had.)

The buds above are Guiseppe Verdi, judging from the distinctive striping, and I've got a clutch of Carnival de Rio going, as well. I'm not sure about the Banja Lucas, though — I labelled everything with wooden stakes last year, but as you can see, the labels are not what one might call "legible" any more. So it'll be a surprise.

I'm not sure what this will mean for the razing-of-the-garden plan I was going to implement in a week or two. Is it still a raze if I have to raze around things?