Winter Dreams in Oregon

The gray damp days now have turned sharp with chill.  A cold snap is coming, I hear.  Not that bad.  Nothing like last years, I moan to myself. I did like that snow.

Some winters now I think hibernation is the answer.  I'd just switch off the light by my bed, cuddle with my cats and my pillows and the down comforter, take a last look into the dark deep blue night sky and wake up sometime mid April.  March, if I had to.

I dream hard now and last night I dreamed of summer berries.  I could almost taste the strawberries plump and juicy and red from the farm down on Seven Mile.  They're the first.

After that, it's blueberries coming on, my third favorite berry, and then blackberries, my second favorite berry and the best thing about the blackberries is they're free everywhere.  I have my secret patches.  Everybody does around here.

I used to grow my own strawberries out front, but the plants grew old and I had to pull them last summer.  I froze as many strawberries and blueberries as my tiny freezer would hold for the winter, but they're all gone now no matter how often I open the freezer and stare into its corners.  They're no more in there.

All I can do is dream now about summer berries and hope to live to see another June and the wood sign at that farm will say OPEN in huge scrawled black letters and "Strawberries".  And I'll pull into their gravel drive and get out and choose a flat, maybe a $6 flat or maybe even a $12 one or I'll go pick the left overs in a row, and hand them over my cash and eat some before I even get them into my car.

June is all strawberries in my mind.  Nothing much else.

Today it was clear and cold and even the low hills out near Lacomb and Lebanon are dusted in snow.  The mountains hover over the valley like guardians.  We know our mountains here.  We love our mountains.  We talk about them like lovers.  Even those of us who don't climb, talk like we're going to one of these days---go up Hood or get in shape by climbing the south Sister.  

Our blessed Hood

Everything's bare now.  Life outside is quick and wet.  It's time to read in Oregon.  The plants look like this....

Bare Maple

Bare Cherry

Frozen Hydranga

Insulated cat houses for the colony I trapped to be fixed a couple weeks ago.  I made four and placed them over there.  I am told the cats are now using them.  Good for them.  It's cold and getting colder!
They're just perfect for hibernation, should cats come on board with me on that.