Hello friends,
After what seemed like a 55-day long January, it’s good to say, “happy February!” I hope you survived the single digit numbers of mid-January. As a teacher, I was grateful for the added snow days and the ability to work from home during a snowy workday. We’ve also gotten some much needed rain, and as I write this, the rivers are overflowing their beds. I haven’t seen that in a long time.
Seed catalogues are starting to fill the mailboxes, and I’m getting eager to dig in the dirt. I planted some garlic bulbs this past fall, and I need to go out and check for sprouts (probably a bit early yet, but it’s worth a shot!).
Every year about mid-February I get the urge to plant seeds indoors, I remember planting tomato seeds with my grandma about this time of the year. She always brought in a bucket of soil from the garden and baked it in the oven (I guess to kill any insect eggs or larvae that might have been lodged there). After it cooled, she searched through her store of tin vegetable cans she’d carefully washed and dried through the year. We filled the cans with the garden dirt and planted tiny tomato and cucumber seeds. Planting a garden was a much bigger deal for her then than it is for me now. She lived through the Great Depression and depended on her large garden, chickens, and farm animals to feed her family for the year. She told me once that the hardly knew there was a “depression,” and that the only thing she truly missed during that time was good coffee. Oh, to be that self-sufficient!
The front page of this month’s Chronicle is a tribute to some of the good things that are happening in our county schools. There is a lot of white noise circulating through our country and it sometimes drowns out the positive programs and activities taking place in education. But amidst the noise, teachers are still calmly doing what they do best – teaching students and fostering a love of learning. I know that for certain. I’m there.
I hope you have a wonderful Leap Month!
Until next time, stay safe, create good things, and be kind!
Tammy
