Here we are, March first, and what is the temperature? -38 with the wind chill. -30 if you don’t count the wind chill. And believe you me, the only time you don’t count is if you’re not here. Take my word for it: when you can guess the temperature with a fair degree of accuracy by the angle of a person’s body when walking into the wind, the chill factor counts.

Am I, however, about to post a sad and bitter post about how awful it all is, and how unhappy I am? No, I am not! As it happens, things are starting to bubble up that have turned my thoughts to warmer times.

First of all, last week I got a reminder via email to send in my payment for the garden plot for this summer! And this week…the first gardening catalogue arrived in the mail. This wouldn’t be happening with months and months of winter to get through now would it?

Also, even though I’ve decided that I don’t want to own large animals (unless, of course, I’m a multi-millionaire and someone else looks after them for me) because of the travel restrictions they cause, I’m not giving up on the idea of beekeeping. SIAST is not making it easy for me – they haven’t offered their beekeeping course in years and years. But years ago, to my great and lasting delight (yes, Graeme and Bron, I know you think I’m a nut bar and mayhap you are right) I got to go to a real working honey farm. It was, like, the bestest thing. I had a great time. And came home with lots of honey!

I still have an ever-expanding honey collection. Most friends – and once a friend of a friend who knows about me – bring me honey when they travel. From right next door to around the world, I have some really wonderful honey. Locally, a friend brought me some creamed honey with added herbs. Made by monks, I think. I could be wrong about that, that could just be a weird connection in my mind. Monks, honey, mead, herbs. They’re all interconnected in my mind. And another friend brought me some French lavender honey. One of the “must haves” for honey collectors, I was very glad to get some. I think at the moment – not counting a couple of Canadian honeys – I probably have a least a dozen different honeys from about as many countries. Lucky me.

Anyway – since I am not yet moving to the island, and with the garden plot I’m as close as I can be for the moment to urban farming, I decided to move on with the possibility of a future honey farm. And to that end I sent in an application last week to join the Regina and District Bee Club. And I got an email today thanking me for cheque and application. I’m in!

So there. Yes, it is ferociously cold out there. And yes, last weekend – last week, for that matter – sucked. But spring is coming, I will learn new things and tonight I’m going out for supper with my boy and a friend of his. Life is good.