DECEMBER 26TH, 2009
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Winter is a much-awaited season for me. The anticipation starts for me in August, when after a long (and busy day), I’ll start looking for a place to farm away the holidays in the Southern hemisphere. This year, with cold weather holding back until the first week of December, it didn’t really strike me that it was time to change seasonal gears. Then last week, a snowstorm came out of left field and into New York City. Six inches is nothing to write home about, but it did turn NYC into a quiet, white wonderland. As for the farm: the swiss chard left standing on the rooftop turned into brown mush, the broccoli buds turned sweet, and the bees disappeared into their hives as the drifts gathered at the feet of their wooden winterizing stands. With a few neighborhood co-farmers in tow, we braved the biting wind to add some compost to the bins. When I went home, instead of looking online at airline tickets, I cracked open a seed catalogue. For the first time in four years, rather than planning a winter away, I’d was looking forward into the spring.