I’m having my second cup of tea and waiting for the sun to rise high and bright. I woke at 6 am to a temperature of -16 ℃ outside and -5.1 ℃ in the greenhouse. It is 7:50 am and the temperatures have climbed to -17 ℃ and -5.9 ℃. It will start to get warmer in another hour. Will my 4 tomatoes survive the test? They each are under layers of 2 pots and at least 5 layers of different cloth. They had survived minus temperatures up to -5 ℃ in the greenhouse before but I think it was a shorter period. I guess we will know in a few hours. The sun is bright and full above the horizon now.

Spring holds so much promise but it can be wearing also. I do not like this in between phase, the bouncing temperatures and the melting snow. I will miss the cross country skiing. It was not a great ski yesterday afternoon. The tracks more messed up, the snow sinking beneath my skis. One round around the park and I called it quits. The sun was out when we started for the park. Then just like that it disappeared. The clouds came and the sky darkened. I could feel a storm in the air. I would have welcomed more snow. None came.

The sun is quite bright now, coming in the east windows of my sunroom. It has always been a very bright room. Since we took the spruce trees down in August it is that much brighter and warmer when there is sunlight. Sometimes it is almost too warm even in March. How powerful the sun! In these few minutes the temperature has risen to -5.5 ℃ in the greenhouse. I am hopeful for my tomatoes.

It is 9:30 am. The greenhouse is warming up nicely at -3 ℃. Meanwhile it is -14 ℃ outside. The sun is bright. It looks warmer than it actually is. Stepping out onto the deck, the sun does not look or feels so warm. It has that grey cold of tepid dish water. I feel livelier than yesterday but I still would like to sink into a chair and stay there. Self talk was effective yesterday so I talked myself through sweeping the kitchen floor. Without Sheba, it is full of crumbs of all sorts. It is surprising how crummy a crumby floor can make me. Now if I can extend my self talk….

Ah, it is 0 ℃ in the greenhouse at 10 am. Pretty soon I can do the unveiling and see what happened to the tomatoes.