Spring is Just Around the Corner, This I Know!

News flash.  Weather bulletin. Spring is just around the corner!  That’s right.  No doubt.  No question.  It’s a fact.  A beautiful truth.  A slam dunk reality.  Despite Pennsylvania's resident rodent meteorologist’s shadowy prediction of continued cold, winter is a has-been, a been-there-done-that, a true-blue blip in our seasonal rearview mirrors.

I assure you this is not just some hopeful fantasy or dandelioned wish on my part.  To the contrary. This is something I know to be true.  I know it.  I absolutely know it.  How can I be so confident, so sure, so completely and utterly convinced?  The answer is simple.  Seed catalogs have arrived!  And for me and other diggers in the dirt, there is no greater confirmation of spring’s impending arrival than their much anticipated appearance in our mailboxes. It confirms we are but a whisper away from the sweet time, the green time, the grab-your-wide-brimmed-hat time and head outside where seeds, shovels, dreams and compost collide.

Oh yeah, I’m in the thick of it, page after tantalizing page.  How could I not be?  I have no reservation saying that some of the best writers in the world are employed by seed catalog companies.  Their descriptive language skills border on pure genius.  Shakespeare had his sonnets, but these folks have their heirloom jewels, their bountiful yields and their ever-so- tempting tendrils.  By very design their writings are alluring, enticing, beguiling; and believe me, they’ve caught me in their web of seduction.  How else can I explain why I recently ordered eight varieties of lettuce (lettuce!), two of which aren’t even in our growing zone?!

The only bit of comfort I have is knowing I’m not alone in my earthly fervor and commensurate weakness when it comes to resisting the urge to try just one more variety of (fill in the blank).  All I have to do to find my fellow gardening zealots is look around my place of work.  We know where to find each other thanks to Mr. Dewey and his great decimal system.  We’re hunkered down in the 635 and 712 areas in the library, glaze-eyed ecstatic at the earthy possibilities.  We have no shame.  We pour through gardening books like the proud and crazy seedling loving fools we are.

And here’s the great thing.  At the library – YOUR library – you can’t beat the price. It’s free!  That’s right. It’s your tax dollars at work, making the choosing, the hoeing and the harvesting all sweeter. So come in and check some of the beauties that are sitting on the shelves, just ripe for the pickin! All you need is your library card.  I hope to see you soon.  I’ll meet you in the rows.  After all, spring is just around the corner.  This we do know.

by Kathleen Ahern,
Children's Librarian
published February 11, 2012 in Moscow-Pullman Daily News