Almost time to renew passions!

The garden seeds are in the stores. So to are the starter kits for flowers, tomatoes and other plants that will be transplanted later this year. The days are growing longer and there still is light after six in the evening. I can now almost see daylight as I head to the office shortly before seven in the morning. In fact this week we will almost see melting temperatures.
Spring is arriving, while winter keeps kicking and fighting to stick around.
We barbecued on Monday evening. We like to barbecue almost year round, but the cold of this winter has made barbecuing less than perfect. Shivering in the cold to create a perfectly cooked hamburger or grilled steak just doesn’t elicit excitement.
Later in spring, with wearing only a sweatshirt, grilling burgers, or salmon on the barbecue and sipping on a glass of wine is much more pleasant experience.
But besides piles of snow that now are over four feet high surrounding the barbecue, it is hard to be excited barbecuing. I look at the calendar and notice that come Friday, only four more weeks of winter remain.
With almost three feet of snow on the ground, it is hard to imagine that yard work and clean up could begin within seven weeks. Looking today at the piles of snow, it is hard to imagine that it will disappear very quickly, but when warm weather strikes, the snow can disappear rapidly. I am optimistic.
I am a poor gardener. The arrival of seeds in stores is but a sign to me that spring is on the way. I trust that the nursery operators already have a plan in place to have bedding plants ready for me the weekend after the long weekend in May.
Last fall, I put three fishing rods on a rack to be worked on over the course of the winter. All three have had eyes broken out of them and now are fraying the line. I had forgotten about them until, I glanced at the rack on the wall on Monday. Open water fishing season will occur quick enough, and it is time that I ordered up the replacement eyes and epoxy to make the necessary repairs.
In January, in the midst of all the unseasonably cold weather, the fishing and tackle catalogues arrived in my mailbox. They were shuffled to the pile to be gazed at later. It is really hard to get excited by the anticipation of open water fishing, when your outdoor activities tell you that survival in the cold is most important. But after seeing those three rods on the wall requiring repairs, I was seduced into looking at the catalogues that are sitting on a table beside my chair in the family room.
Sure enough, there are new rods, and new reels to dream about. Manufacturers have new lures to add to my bulging tackle boxes should I really need them. The accessories that I can add to my boat have not diminished. I felt like a kid at Christmas circling all the possible additions that I could make to increase my fishing success.
We all have our vices. For some it is gardening. Others it is golf. In winter, my vice is woodworking. In summer it is fishing. We all get to dream that spring and summer are almost here and we will renew our passions.
–Jim Cumming,
Publisher