I'm afraid it's far too early to start yearning for spring or itching to get out in the garden, but thoughts of springtime keep creeping into my head, especially now that the garden catalogs are flooding my mailbox. Fortunately, with all the snow we've had this winter, I've been able to keep myself busy cross-country skiing two or three times a week.
As a matter of fact gardening and cross-country skiing have a lot in common. I don't think either one requires the talent or training needed for most other pursuits. Try singing in the choir when you don't have an "ear" or facing the top slope at Butternut if you've never had a lesson. Cross-country skiers just gently fall down when the going's too steep, at least this one does. And gardeners don't need expertise to try their hand at growing things. Green thumbs are a fallacy - all thumbs get brown in the garden.
Both provide good exercise. Even when the temperatures are well below freezing one can work up a sweat cross-country skiing. Of course if you choose to ski the railroad bed you probably won't exactly raise your heart rate, but sitting in the sun weeding the carrots won't either. You need to pick a ski trail that involves a lot of uphill if you want serious exercise. If you crave a real workout in the garden dig up and divide a five-year-old day lily and transplant it.
Other similarities include the fact that both activities are delightfully inexpensive, and unlike most other forms of recreation, can be pursued all alone. No need to line up a partner or an opponent. Having a companion is nice, but not necessary. Ah, and one more parallel between these two - neither one entails a mess of red tape. No forms to fill out, no need for a permit, no reason to stand in line. What other pastimes can you say that about? Even a simple fisherman has to get a license from the state or he'll have the game warden breathing down his neck.
As for the pleasures of these two sports, both provide a wealth of them. There's nothing quite so peaceful as gliding through the silent woods, the only sounds the creak of trees complaining of the cold or the brief chatter of an angry squirrel or a chickadeedeedee. The hemlocks and laurels bow down to the ground with snow and sparkling ice. A late afternoon sun turns the meadows into sheets of silver. The tiny prints of field mice or the cloven hoof prints of deer tell their tales in the pristine white blanket beside the trail.
As for the pleasures of gardening, the same restful peace can be found as one walks down the flower border at dawn, dead-heading the spent blooms of iris or counting the dewdrops cupped in the center of each lupine leaf. Planting a tiny nubbin of a seed and have it turn into a beautiful flower is as satisfying as having your ten-year-old bring home a report card full of A's. Seeing the vegetable garden full of tidy rows after a day of weeding is a treat. In fact I find that just getting my fingers in the soil can turn a bad day into a happy one.
I guess the similarities between cross-country skiing and gardening stop right here. The end result of cross-country skiing is little more than wet mittens and socks put to dry over the woodstove. Ah, but the end results of gardening are countless. Flower gardens not only enhance the landscape, they provide colorful bouquets, filling the house with their perfume. A vegetable garden may not be quite as attractive, but it will supply the cook with a delectable assortment of edibles.
How I relish eating peas fresh from the garden or a salad rich in homegrown lettuce and tomatoes. The first slurping, seed-running bite from a plump sun-warmed tomato out of the backyard garden cannot compare with a pulpy cardboard tasting bite from the store-bought variety. That is true of almost every vegetable I grow, be it radishes or lettuce, string beans or squash, Brussels sprouts or Swiss chard. Even a vegetable as mundane as a potato is surprisingly different when home-grown, crisp as an apple and wonderfully flavorful.
The other aspect of gardening, landscaping, is to me the most rewarding of all. Because we bought a farm that had been abandoned for six years, the property was riddled with falling down fences, swampy pastures and hideous collections of burdocks and seven-minute itch that had once been lawns. The photo albums of Locust Hill are chuck full of "before and after" pictures of areas that gardening has enhanced. The challenge of converting all those eyesores into attractive areas has given us infinite pleasure.
The double photograph above shows our backyard. Admittedly the one on the top was taken on a drab November day, but the area looked equally depressing on a summer day. By the time that old woodshed, covered in ropes of poison ivy, finally collapsed in a heavy snowstorm, we could hardly wait 'til spring to start building a tidy garden shed and planting a new vegetable garden right outside the back door.
