It’s been a long while since I’ve actively posted.  That, in part, has to do with a case of optical rectitis that I was suffering from…read shitty outlook on life….and partially because once the snow hits, everything here freezes.  The compost is composting, the leaves and branches and things in the beds are folded over and nicely rotting away, providing much needed nourishment to the soil come spring.  The Stokes Seed Catalogue showed up two weeks ago and sent shivers down my spine, and the amaryllis has just opened flower number four.  Simple flowers the size of cake plates the colour of watermelon bleeding into the green rind of the petals as they close close to the stem.  The other 4 amaryllis have yet to even peek out of their bulbs, which gives me hope of additional flowers.

Something I long forgot about was that gardening in winter doesn’t have to be restricted to dirt.  I cleaned up a 55 gallon fish tank last week-end, a job I’ve been putting off for (see above reason, optical rectitis), and because baking and cooking with a slow cooker seemed to pass the time with more grace than scrubbing three months of fish fecal out of gravel.  But the monumental job of doing it is done, less than an hour later, and I find myself with new LED lights and a power filter for a tank 25 gallons bigger than the one it’s on.

Thus began the addiction and the indulgence of indoor aquatic gardening, having just sunk $60 and change into plants, including a dwarf lotus, which will be leaving from Winnipeg Monday morning and arriving via Canada post hopefully by Wednesday.

The other thing crossing my mind is the value of being a hermit.  Good grief.  Yes, there are contemplative and meditative issues with this, but sometimes something comes along your way that requires some additional contemplation.  A hermit is only as good as the community they belong to, which at the surface may seem somewhat an odd statement to make.  But even the desert fathers had to come in and share a communal meal, as well as take Communion and worship as members of a community.  We’re only as good as the company we keep, and the commitments and times that we spend with that company.  My mess begins when I shut everyone and everything out.  My victories begin when I open myself to the possibility of companionship on all kinds of levels, without expectation, and just allow the fertile garden to grow.

Which is a really nice, really complicated way of saying I hope he calls.