Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…
Wintry view from our shop
Enough is enough. Here in Naples, we’ve been spared much of the snow that’s fallen just a few miles to our north (record December snowfall in Rochester) or east, but we’ve still gotten more than our share–there’s a reason we have 2 major ski areas within a 10 mile radius. It’s also been one of the coldest winters in memory.
Shoveling my way through the most recent snowfall earlier this week got me to thinking why I’m still here in the frozen north, anyway. I love the outdoors, but I hate the winter. Our winters are something to be seen on Christmas cards, not to be experienced first hand. I love living here. It’s beautiful. Most mornings for the other eight months a year, I’ll be up at sunrise, bicycling up and down our hills, the road to myself, enjoying the quiet and some of the best views on the planet. It’s beautiful in winter, too, but who wants to be out in it? And what’s beautiful about the brown slush that follows the pretty white stuff?
Okay. So why do I tolerate it? I wouldn’t, if it weren’t for plants, and growing them for a living. Inside, it’s ALWAYS spring. Unlike the shades of white and gray outside, we are surrounded by color inside. Outside, all is dead or dormant. Inside, there is life! Of course, it’s warm, too (best not to think too much about the gas bill). As a teenager, I was prepared to move to warmer climes as soon as I graduated school. I went so far as to subscribe to newspapers from potential places I might move to. Then by my senior year in high school, I had caught the “violet bug” and had three light stands and the few hundred plants in my bedroom. I no longer felt the urge to flee the cold and snow.
A few years later, when my obsession with plants had completely clouded my judgment, I decided on growing and selling plants for a career. I could do what I loved to do, I could be my own boss and, better yet, no commute! Working at home meant not having to get up at 6 a.m. to shovel the driveway, scrape the ice off of the car, then drive who knows how long through that awful mess to work? Then repeat the process to drive home (likely in the dark)! Now, our morning commute is the two flights of stairs from our bedroom down into the shop–I have to admit, one of the biggest perks to the job.
I still hate winter, and I still don’t like snow, but growing plants for a living makes it all bearable. I look out of our bedroom window when I get up in the morning and say, “looks like it snowed last night”, sometimes even, “gee, it’s kind of pretty out there with the snow on the trees”, and I can say this with a straight face. The view is always nicer from heaven, I guess.
…Rob (photo by Olive)
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