Winter Prayer

Not THE snowy winter mentioned below but one of them from my childhood.

Born and bred in New England, I am used to long, hot summers punctuated with a few rainy days and pop-up thunderstorms. In my childhood, autumns, with their vivid foliage, were followed by cold, snowy winters. I remember a time when the first frost came in October and we had snow by Thanksgiving. One particularly snowy winter my brother had to grab a shovel and drop off the porch roof into a deep drift, shovel his way round to the garage doors (no electric overheads in those days), and shovel away the snow that had piled up three feet or more so my dad could get the car out. Today, the 4th of December, it is 50 degrees, the sun is warm, the breeze is barely cool and the confused forsythia bush in my yard is putting forth its second set of blossoms!

We who like to garden know a good snow cover is needed to insulate tender roots from the penetrating and damaging frost. Snow is often called the poor man's fertilizer, especially if it comes mid-spring once the ground has begun to thaw. Snow contains nitrogen and moisture, both essential to the health of emerging plants. If the predictions of a rainy winter in our area hold, even we poor folks won't be getting our fertilizer this winter.

So, please, please let it snow!