Once we are tucked into bed up in the sleeping loft, the yurt roof is only about three feet above our heads. Since around midnight last night, I have been listening to the lovely soft sound of rain falling on that roof just above me. For a short while this morning it even turned to snow... fortunately not the foot of snow that fell in Flagstaff, Arizona last night. Ah, the unexpected pleasures of living at a high altitude. It's quite chilly too, barely topping 40 so far today and after dragging all of the fragile plants and seedlings back out on the deck this morning when I got up, I drug them all back in about the time it started snowing. That's alright, I expect I will be dragging things in and out a few more times before real spring finally gets here. In the meantime, I feel this joyous peace over the better than half inch of rain that has fallen so far, with more expected through Thursday. That might not sound like much to most people, but in the high desert it means I can stop scanning the horizon for smoke for at least a few days.
Earlier this year I learned about a winter hardy rosemary called Madalene Hill. Rosemary is one of my most favorite cooking herbs and it seems every year I am hauling a huge pot in and out during the winter, or watching my rosemary slowly losing its needles and dying from being in the house. I ordered it through Mountain Valley Growers along with some sage plants I've been looking for and they finally arrived today. I have to say I was impressed with the health of the plants and the care they had been shipped with. Too many times plants I've ordered arrive barely alive and with the harshness of this environment, they often don't survive. By the time the weather warms up again, these little guys should be ready to be potted and moved out onto the deck. This company offers an interesting mix of hard to find herbs and plants and I'll definitely order from them again. The helicopter was supposed to be picking Mike up at 5:30 this morning to take him out to the rig in the Gulf that he will be working on for the next week or so. I haven't heard anything from him yet so I hope everything went smoothly and that he is getting settled in. He may not have phone access, but we should be able to exchange emails.