I think I was born to be a gardener. Some of my earliest memories ar of the mudpuddle in the back yard I called my garden. I was always planting 'seeds' and profusely watering them, and when they didn't grow, I just enjoyed the mud.
An now that I am allegedly an adult, more like a senior citizen, i explain my passion by saying that gardening is the adult form of playing in the mud. Long winters are spent daydreaming of the bounty of tomatos and huge pumpkins I will grow and reading about better methods of composting. When the icy winds howl in the chimney I think of the heat of summer. Shall I compare me to a summers day, hot sweaty and dust covered......and as close to sane as I will ever be. Happy as the child playing in the dirt.
I look forward to those first days the ground is thawed and I can take my winter weary muscles out and start spading, listening to the chickadees and the wind in the still bare trees...and feeling the first warmth of spring.
We moved here about 25 years ago. The house had been lived in by a couple who had lived well into thier 90's, they and thier small family had lived off this plot.
The first year we lived here winter came early and after the long, cold winter we discovered the snowdrops and crocus, rhubarb and horseradish, spearmint and quince, currents and yellow ladyslippers they had planted. And I began my garden.
