First snow(peas?)

Where did the time go?  I’d swear I just posted an entry last week, okay last month.

It’s been a little busy, and not really in a fun way. I failed Organic Chemistry with a resounding F, but passed the lab course with a B-.. go figure. I also failed Calculus 2 but that was due in part to my giving up on it to focus my efforts on O-chem, much good it did me. I have decided I need to not try teaching myself math online. (See? Valuable and expensive lesson learned!)

I took my son to go visit my mother for a week. It was lovely. The weather was the same as in Syracuse, which is very unusual for Syracuse. I relaxed, we visited, we went to an air & space museum near Sea-Tac, it was a nice time. There’s a medical school in Seattle which is steadily creeping up my “top 30″ list. Now if they only had a particle accelerator to keep my husband busy…

The silver lining to the O-chem cloud is that it’s cleared up my scheduling conflicts nicely for this semester, and given me the added bonus of an entire year to schmooze professors for letters of recommendation. Yippee. Lucky me. A whole year before I can apply. See, I’m smiling.

I’ll be teaching my human sexuality course again this year. I’m tweaking things and lining up guest speakers. I also have a TA this time around. I had 56 students last year, which is a lot of quizzes and papers to grade so I get a little help. Of course we’ve only got 11 signed up so far, but we had a huge influx at the beginning of the semester last year too. I’m not sure if they’ll let me keep the help if we don’t get higher enrollment.

We’re getting our first real snow this morning. The plow just went by. I need to see where the snow banks end this winter so I’ll know the safe zone for roadside planting. (No sidewalks to clearly delineate the “crush zone”.) I’ve been playing in my head, and on paper, with a planting scheme for trees and bushes. We need to get a badly sited blue spruce out of the end of the driveway, and possibly a little work done on a Norway maple which straddles the property line, but mostly lives on and leans to the neighbor’s side. I’d actually like to take the sucker down and put something a little smaller in on our side of the line, but it’s up to them ultimately. (It needs hacking back and a cable due to a split trunk/being two trees grown together and a few other issues.) So I’m hitting the nursery catalogs and calculating the damage and inquiring into what the budget might look like. I want to get fruit trees and edible landscaping going. (Yes, I realize the trees need to be sited where I plan on their staying with an eye to mature size: see comment about the spruce.) I have a not overly large lot, and every square foot is going to count. There are a few roses I want to get, some ferns (the front yard is basically full shade and I found some really zingy ferns), and at least one lilac because sometimes you need things that are just pretty. I’m even thinking of trying to grow a hardy fig on the south wall of the house. Strawberries are a must, and fresh herbs make the world go round. Most of what I’m looking at could be moved after the first year if I decided that I really wanted them in a raised bed or maybe over there.

I’m still going through withdrawal since I couldn’t really do a garden last year owing to being away at planting time (and then we moved as soon as I got back, and a thousand other things). Anyone who has ever lived with a gardener will tell you this is a dangerous thing. I’m probably going to end up with either a horticultural mess or more fruit and veggie than my family can possibly consume, but dammit this year I will have tomatoes!

Now, Mr Snowplow, show me your secrets.. I have plots to hatch.

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