It’s a good thing I do not have seasonal affective disorder. We have not had a sunny day in recent memory. My solar panels are on vacation — yikes! I probably will actually receive an electric bill this month.

Also it’s not really pleasant to work in the greenhouse. It’s chilly and gloomy in there.

I have an annoying chicken who escapes the pen daily. She is laying her egg in the woods. While searching for it one day this week I found a patch of almost-ready-to-bloom snowdrops. I know they are the first of the spring bulbs but it’s just barely February, for Pete’s sake. Also, while wandering around the property I saw ready-to-emerge witch hazels. They often get mistaken for forsythia, what with their cheerful yellow flowers.

Speaking of cheerful I also saw a blooming dandelion in the vegetable garden. Will wonders never cease?

During a recent windstorm my hoop house experienced loss of its covering. Not only the plastic but some of its basic structure.

Honestly, if it can go wrong, it will.

I’m at an impasse. Do I hire someone or bully family members? This is a critical time. I would like to get it ready to receive early starts of vegetables and baby perennials for the business. I already ordered from Select Seeds, a small catalogue company that has many heirloom and interesting perennial seeds as well as a nice selection of hard to find annuals.

Once I start the seeds on propagating mats and bump the tiny transplants up into larger pots, I like to harden them off in the aforementioned hoop house. You can see the impending dilemma?

When and if I ever get back on some jobsites, there will be a lot of pruning to be done.

One thing that drives me crazy is shrubs rubbing on houses; it’s bad for the house and the plant. I never just cut them. I try to avoid the expression “hack and whack” in reference to pruning. I take some time following the offending branches to the main stem. I like it to look like I was never there.

In the early ‘70s I became a supporter of the National Arbor Day Foundation and have supported them ever since. Every year I receive a copy of their annual report, which I confess I rarely read in its entirety. A quote from Nelson Henderson caught my eye this year:

“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”

Last week I put a pin in Iowa while discussing corn production in the U.S.

One of the least-populated and arguably the whitest states in the union, it receives more than its fair share of importance in the presidential election process. Does the primary in Massachusetts ever get mentioned? A mere 100,000 people showed up for the caucus and apparently the race is already called?

That’s all I need to say on the subject. We all have news available to us 24 hours a day.

A subject I’ve been avoiding since Oct. 7 is the Middle East.

I was two years old when Israel became a state and for as long as I can remember there have been problems in the region, many because some have never accepted Israel’s right to exist.

The latest event involving loss of American life has further complicated the entire sad and scary situation.

Several Republican lawmakers want Joe Biden to go into Iran and show our strength. It did not end well for Jimmy Carter in 1979. By the way, since the previous administration pulled out of the John Kerry — Barack Obama deal, Iran is now a nuclear power.

Hopefully, sober, sane decisions will be made. Have mercy!