Snow day

 Winter showed signs of ending early. A few weeks ago, I saw buds on a magnolia tree, and the snow has been gradually melting. Last week, my flower beds were exposed and I could see some signs that the crocuses or daffodils were coming out. Today we are having a snow storm, so it seems that winter is back for a while. Such is life in Montreal. I have been pawing through my Vesey's seed catalogues and the intensity of the colour is getting me all excited.

   I have come a long way, I can now just look at a page and say forget it, those need sun. I am starting to rethink my attempts to grow flowers on the edge of the sidewalk despite the fact that is the sunniest strip on my front lawn. I left my short metal fencing defending the edges up for the winter and they were run over and completely mangled by snow plows all winter. It feels like a losing battle.

Recently I googled my name for fun to see what came up, and lo and behold, my blog didn't. I realized that I have never properly introduced myself. Initially, I did not expect that this blog would be read by anyone who is not related to me, or at least a close friend, but somehow people have found me in countries where I really don't now anyone so I suppose some of my readers have no clue who I am.

My name is Francine Cytrynbaum. I am a social worker by profession, coordinator of day centre services for seniors in the area of Montreal where I work, live and garden. When it is not garden season I teach courses on Ethics in social work at a local university part time. I only teach in the winter semester, so from May to November I have time to garden, blog, and occasionally pay some attention to my three kids. My husband, an electrician, loves gardening in principle but is not obsessed enough with it to pull off what he wants. He has big ideas, but not enough follow through. He is great at building new beds, building me a seed sprouting area in the basement (he is working on that now), doing the big, time consuming projects but I end up doing a lot of the day to day work.

Right now I am focusing my energy on spring cleaning and Passover, then we will start planting the sprouts for this summer. Suddenly today with a blizzard outside it feels like summer is far, far away.

These photos were taken by my youngest daughter, Orianne, on the first day of spring, at least that was what it says on the calendar. Spring and winter dance back and forth for a while in Montreal. Everything might start to bud (trees, spring flowers) as early as March but we still have snow, even snowstorms right up to the beginning of May.