It feels like it has been forever but it seems like most years there are some nice days in February. When my second son was born, the day before there was freezing rain and snow in the forecast. After spending the night in the hospital, I went home to check on the dogs and things and people were mowing their lawns and it was 65 degrees.

The first weekend in February had some similar weather patterns. We transitioned from ice to a southwesterly jet stream and it felt downright tropical for a couple of days. Then, the sun broke free for the entire weekend before I really realized this was going to happen. It was a good thing that I procrastinated checking for a leak in the apartment until the weekend. I didn’t really want to do the task, but being outside all afternoon was glorious.

One of my persistent irritants is that my neighbors have several full-size cherry trees along the fence line. Those trees hand over the house and drop their leaves and cherries over a portion of the roof. But it also clogs up the gutters multiple times a year. While I was up looking for leaks, I took the time to trim the trees as much as I could. This brings me to my point. This is the time (for me) to start getting the yard work going.

Pruning time is here. I will cut the cherry trees any time of year because I don’t want them dropping stuff on the house. But apple trees, grapes, roses, this is the time to get it done. These are the things that need to be done at my house and a sunny, 60 degree day is a perfect time to do this.

I have a tree that I am wanting to take out. I am not sure what it is exactly and it doesn’t add a lot of value to my property. It puts shade on the other things that I want growing. This is a good time to do this for deciduous trees because you don’t have leaves to deal with, just like pruning. The truth is that any time of year is fine to remove trees so I might wait until later in the spring just for drier ground.

This is also the time to start seeds. I am currently looking at 10 weeks before last frost date. But it is getting very close to the time where seeds need to be started. It kind of just snuck up on me. I haven’t given one thought about it and now all of the sudden it is here.

There is a famous slogan in programming. ‘Days of coding saves hours of design.’ I would never say not to plan, but that ship has already set sail for me this year. I am a fair weather gardener anyway. Since I pay for yard service, I already only engage in those things that I want to do. Years of indecision about whether we are going to stay and how certain changes impact value, etc has kind of left me paralyzed with indecision.

The colloquial advice is to proceed as if we are going to stay, we just might and I am going to regret not planning a better garden for the five years of waiting to make a decision. Chances are pretty high that I will not do anything different this year and this is another year wasted. My point remains that if there is going to be any seed starting that that needs to be soon.

I know that I talk about and it may seem like I am indecisive. I am trying to delay the ultimate decision until my kids graduate from high school. That is coming in about 18 months. Since I would like to live in the country and I have documented issues where I am at, I can’t imagine that I won’t want to move in a year from now. But, I am relatively happy here and I don’t have to move so that is what makes this hard. You never know what the future holds.

End Your Programming Routine: I really enjoyed the opportunity to get out of the house on the weekend. It wasn’t in my mind that I had other tasks to do other than try to find a leak. Fortunately, god reminded me that if I want to kill a bunch of plants later in the summer, this is the time to get started. If you have dreams of a garden bounty, it is likely time for you as well.