It’s an undeniable winter weekend. The Buddhas are up to their necks in snow. My little monk is barely visible. The cedar by the front door is heavily weighed down. There’s still traffic going by. But this is not as bad as the one in January of 2007. I remembered it well. It was the year I got Sheba. I remembered trying to walk her in the morning when she was still unwalkable. I was rather stupid back then. She was only 5 months old and I was a first time dog owner.

I did give up soon enough. We just went around the block. Snow was falling and kept falling. I had to shovel almost every hour, or so it seemed. At one point I phoned SPCA to ask what my options were if I couldn’t handle having a dog. I wasn’t thinking of giving up on Sheba but just in case. My woman said, Don’t come out today! We’re closing. But she gave me info for just in case. I was lucky that I didn’t have to work that day. If I had, I probably wouldn’t be able to get home by the end of the shift. Traffic was at a crawl. Even the buses weren’t running. My nephew had to walk home from university in deep snow.

I’m feeling pretty lucky now that I’m retired. The house is well stocked with food and toilet paper. I don’t have to go anywhere. I did make a couple of trips out to the greenhouse. I haven’t stopped being stupid. It’s pretty dumb to think that I could still put in a crop of greens in November. I don’t think that they will germinate any time soon. There’s nothing wrong with being stupid. The seeds will keep in the dirt. They will germinate when conditions are right. I’ve seeded spinach in the fall before. They germinated in the spring. Spring will come sooner in the greenhouse. Nothing is lost.

We went out in late afternoon to do a shovel. It’s good to be able to open the front door without snow falling in. There’ll be less to shovel in the morning. I did a last check on my babies in the greenhouse. Everything holding steady. The temperature inside has been around -2 degrees Celsius. It could get colder overnight. So be it. I wonder how Sheba would have reacted to the change in the yard. I miss her and our spruce trees. I had Sheba for almost 14 years, the spruce for 40. For everything gained, there is a loss. For every loss, there is a gain. Life anew.