John Schneider

The harbingers are piling up like peanut shells

Frankly, I’m no seed catalog connoisseur. When it comes to vegetable gardening, I’m pretty much a tomatoes, onions and lettuce man. Maybe a few basil plants if I’m feeling fancy.

But a seed catalog arriving in the mail is like a sandhill crane ratcheting its way across the sky, or a red-wing black bird at the feeder, or a rack of Peeps at the grocery store. It means that winter’s back is broken.

I’m thinking of taking the snow blower off my tractor this week. I’m considering removing the reflective markers that tell us where our driveway is after a big snowfall. I made a mental note over the weekend to replace the line on my fishing reels. In fact, on Sunday I took my mower blades to the hardware store to get them sharpened.

A man can get a little wild this time of year.

A sight for winter-sore eyes

Here’s a silver-lining story for the first Sunday of March:

On Sunday morning I found a puddle on the floor of our upstairs bathroom floor - never a positive development.

I traced the leak to the shut-off valve on the toilet’s water-supply line. So, I cut off the water in the house, took the supply line apart, and drove to the hardware store for new parts, grumbling all the way about my Sunday plumbing project. One never knows, after all, where a plumbing repair will lead.

The store’s new seed display - and the promise it implied - made me feel a lot better. Of course Sunday’s sunshine didn’t hurt.

Yes, I got a little wet, and scraped a knuckle or two. And I guess it goes without saying that I had to make a second trip to the store.

But what’s that in comparison to the rejuvenation just around the bend?