This faux-spring weather is such a tease.   With its 62 degree temperature today, even with heavy overcast,  it lured me down to the garden where I turned over the composting materials and fixed the wire fence enclosing the pile. When I cleaned up the last of the decaying vines, I found a hidden lonely gourd waiting to be reunited with the others on the drying pile.  They seem to be drying as they should so when shaken resemble the weight and sound of colorful maracas. 

Throughout the winter I've collected articles on composting, companion planting, and other gardening tips and actually put them in a 3-ring binder, instead of just making more piles on my kitchen island, so I could refer to them when I'm ready to till the soil, which may happen about the first week of March.  There are a few more trees that need to come down.  Last year we got to observe where the sunlight still needs to hit the plants longer.  The garlic and onions surprised me when they started sending up their green shoots this fall.  I thought they were sleeping and I wouldn't see them til spring.  I'm anxious to see if the rhubarb comes up again.  I've been reading about growing organic ginger root so will prepare a spot for that, too.  I use a lot of fresh ginger in cooking and love homemade ginger tea.  The seed catalogs should be arriving soon.  Then I can accumulate stacks of seed catalogs on the kitchen island along with the gardening articles, the sewing machine and various other projects.  This year I have vowed not to go hog wild and over-plant with uncontrollable enthusiasm so that the vegetables can't breathe and must compete with each other for nutrition and sunshine.  Survival of the fittest................ adapt or perish!