I think spring might be beginning. The bulbs are pushing up their fleshy green leaves. The snow is begining to melt away from the ground reveling grass still not revived from a long sleep. Finally spring is coming to my doorstep! I am having visions of going out an planting vegetables, pruning fruit trees (that I should be doing already), and not being stuck indoors with a few suffering houseplants.

Right now is a great time to start working on propagation too. I am currently inolved in a native plant propagation workshop, and we are just about to plant up the seeds that we have been stratifing for the last few months. Just so you know stratifing is the process of placing dormant seeds in cold moist conditions (often a refrigerator). It mimics the effect winter has on the seeds. I find it interesting how different seeds are. Some require three months, others a few weeks. It will be fun to see how the ones do that I have going.

It kinda felt like spring today and yesterday. Made me all happy inside. Winter is a little depressing, although I’ve tried to like it a little more this year. Haven’t complained as much either. But now it’s all warm outside, and I wore my Chacos and only 1 jacket today. And in honor of winter here are some snowy landscape pictures.

I went snowshoeing a bunch this winter. Probably not again; I think the snow is going to melt now. Hopefully. I really want it to be spring. The tulips are coming up so there is hope!

Someday I will remember to tell you about the oven, the dish-rack, another time snowshoeing, more school, and more. I even have pictures. But they are on my camera, not my computer and I don’t want to take the time and go get them.

Instead you are going to here about how I just barely finished filing my income taxes. Because I did. I got my federal return filed last week, and my state just barely. Not a huge refund due to 4 jobs between the two of us, change of filing status, etc. But actually, that’s not a bad thing. It just means we received more money in each paycheck. And since we are doing a good job of saving anyway, it’s worth it.

I have to say that I kinda like filing taxes. It is still easy for us–we don’t really make enough, or have any complicating factors. The hard thing this year was trying to get Joe’s W2 from his old work. They sent it to the wrong address, Joe went to the company, they were going to mail it to us and never did, went back again and finally go it. I wanted to do taxes but was unable to do so. Not fun. I always get my taxes done very early, and I would highly recommend it for two reasons. 1)It’s done with, and 2)I get my refund faster.

Happy tax filing!

I wanted to get a gardening blog forever. I finally have one. It has one entry on entries. If you are confused go to the site. Hopefully I will actually write stuff. I plan on it. I like to write about plants. Problem is I have to do it for school, so the recreational writing might get a little shunned.

School is busy. I am learning how to answer questions like–The total absorbed radiation is 500 WM^-2, relative humidity is 40% and the air is 25 C.What must the transpiration rate be for the leaf to stay at exactly the same temperature as the air? I am also learning how to draw landscape plans, that is using up all of my limited drawing skills. But its really not too hard.

We have been snowshoeing/hiking the last two Saturdays. I made the ambitious and almost certainly failable goal of going hiking once a week for the upcoming year. Only missed one week so far. Last Saturday I went with my old roommate, Beth, through whom I met Joe. That was fun because we hadn’t seen each other for ages. This Saturday I went just with Joe. He picked the location, down Blacksmith Fork canyon. Not a whole lot of snow, so we didn’t bring the snowshoes (one huge advantage of owning your own snowshoes is you don’t feel obligated to use them when you don’t need them). At the end we were wishing for them a little more. The cool thing about  the hike was we were pretty alone. We saw one set of footprints going up and back and that’s all.  And it was way quiet: no cars and other people around.

We end up a canyon, and started up a mountain. Didn’t really know where we were, so we didn’t finish the climb up the mountain. Joe had to work later on, and we had limited time. On the way back. I decided I didn’t want to go clear back so we slid down the side of the mountain. That was fun. And only possible in the snow.

Life is continuing on for me. The new semester has started, and I am finding that I am learning from my classes. The problem with my major, is a lot of it gets repetitive and I tend not to have classes that challenge me and force me to learn. But this semester, I don’t think I have a bad class among them anymore. I actually did have one, an urban forestry class, where I really wasn’t learning a thing. I don’t need it, so I finally asked myself why I was taking it. And dropped it. Which brings me down to 15 credits–the lightest semester I’ve ever taken. Sort-of. My classes are a little harder.

I have soil nutrient bio-availability, which is a fancy way to say I learn about how plant nutrients work in the soil.  Environmental plant physiology is one of my toughest and I like it a lot because of that. I have to use my analytical side of my brain to work equations relating physics to plant growth.  And I actually have to really pay attention in class and study afterwords to really understand it. I haven’t had a class like this for ages. Senior seminar is predictably boring and I would appreciate any suggestions for a 6-10 page paper for it. Residential landscape design is challenging my artistic side, and I have come to realize that I cannot letter. So I print the words out and trace–which makes it really pretty. I really hope I’ll be good at design–I think I will, I’ve got all these ideas of what I could do in yards from the past three years. It’ll be fun to actually incorporate them into landscape designs.  I have art symposium again, yoga for fun, plant pathology also for fun (hey cultures of bacteria are fascinating), and two institute classes, one with Joe.

So that was really long, but now you know what I am doing. Plus my two jobs which I continue. I get to head up a community education class in March for Extension–so any ideas would be appreciated.

Life is great. It’ll all change after April–I will be done with 16 years of school. That’s most of my life. And I’m actually not necessarily looking forward to it. I like school. But I guess we always have to move on to bigger and better things. And just so you know–Joe is wonderful. Lucky to have married the guy–he’s the best thing in my life.

Yesterday we went hiking in the rain. Only for a couple hours because it was wet, but it was the prettiest hike I have been on in a long time. The snowy landscape was combined with mist. Actually reminded me a little of the coast. Horrible day to forget the camera.

First, went snowshoeing some more so I’ll put in some pictures. We went Wednesday with my sister Emily, and Thursday with my brother-in-law Nate. Wednesday was pretty boring and short. Thursday we had the wild idea to climb up a mountain. Surprisingly we did make it to the top and in only two hours. I guess going with two guys means I end up being very tired–but I kept up.

Second I would like to share a recipe I made tonight. I was supposed to bring dinner to new parents in the ward, and wanted to make potatoes and chicken but didn’t like an of the recipes I had. I found one for potatoes that turned out divine. So I’m sharing it.

6TB melted margarine

3 TB Parmesan cheese

Put in bottom of pan

8 medium red potatoes halved length wise

Place in ban cut side down

Bake 400 F uncovered 40-45 minutes.

I also sprinkled them with Italian seasoning.

It’s getting a little old. It is still snowing in Logan. There is more snow at my parents house than I can can remember since elementary school. So, here are some things to do in the snow.

1) Build snow forts. 2) Sit inside snow forts.3)Go snowshoeing4)Try to figure out why the pole for snowshoeing doesn’t work5)Slide down hillsChristmas was loads of fun. Lots to do with family including playing karaoke, bored games, watching movies,  playing basketball with snowballs, etc. I still have one week of break left, and then it is back to school.

We went snowshoeing for the first time on Thursday. I discovered I am not in shape, sleds are fun, and winter is cold. We went up a trail that wasn’t too steep, and already pretty traveled so it wasn’t too hard. We brought a sled up, and the entire way down either Joe, me, or both of us rode it. Haven’t done it before, and it was fun. Someday I might actually learn to ski/snowboard, but I’m not in any hurry to do so.

I had the nerve to wake up at 4:00 this morning–and all I have to do today is shell corn and clean. Yesterday we watched Iron Man followed by the Incredible Hulk. I hadn’t watched Incredible Hulk yet, and thought it was pretty good. Then I had to figure out what they were talking about in the end. Apparently they have plans for an Avenger movie.

And I am about ready for the snow to end. I would like to drive down to family tomorrow without worrying about dying. I hate driving in the snow even since I was driving up to my grandparents, and slid to the slide of the road. Then, before I could get all straightened out I watched a car hit the median, and slam into another car. So I am constantly telling Joe not to go too fast. I am glad I do have him to drive so I don’t have too.

Christmas Eve tomorrow! Yeah! Christmas Eve is packed with parties and such, and Christmas is pretty boring. I will try to remember to take some pictures of anything interesting, but be warned I am horrible at remembering I own a camera even though I have for years.

Our hopes and wishes of snowshoeing are closer to being realized this year. I didn’t even know it was supposed to snow until Liz opened the door and we found six inches of fluffy snow covering everything. Here I was thinking it was going to be a warm night. Yeah snow! Yeah no school! I did alright in school. I wish that husband and wife could share GPA’s. Liz’s 4.0 would do me some good. We both are excited for next semester, Liz’s last semester and one with more classes associated with my major. Barring some crazy weather I guess we don’t have to dream of a white Christmas but we can play in one. Yeah SNOW!!!

This is the view from the back window