December 3, 2007 : Ocie and Ken in Bare Root

Once the snow falls, there is little to do outside at the nursery. We put it off as long as possible, finding little outdoor projects, but sooner or later we have to move into the cold, wet, moldy and windowless confines of the Bare Root Building.

During the mad rush of digging, we pile things here and there, and the stalls are overflowing with unsorted spirea and such. Each kind of potentilla, for instance, we stack in a separate area from the rest, hoping that we remembered to put one or two tags on in the field to identify the variety. Now is the time to sort through the mess. We trim, sort, tag, bundle, and inventory everything that we have dug.

My friend Ocie from Chicago joined us this fall. We met at a Vipassana meditation center in Rockford, Illinois. Since it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment to make someone work in the bare root building by themselves all day, I was glad that Ken and Ocie could keep each other company. That allowed me to "work" on the computer in the pleasantly warm office.