>Yesterday morning, I spoke to my mom on the phone and she mentioned that it was snowing in istanbul. “i hope it doesn’t snow down by you,” she said, and i laughed her off. the forecast said rain for us, but how could it snow when the weather has been in the 50s lately? the rain started early, so we took off to town to do some marketing and then stopped off at sundance camp for lunch. while we were there, someone said that a friend on a neighboring mountain had called to say that it was snowing. we peered out the window and the hills were white! when we got home, there was a bite to the air (although i feel no pain since i started wearing a thick, itchy ragg wool sweater of my dad’s — i even sleep in it. i take it off only to change my shirt once in a while) and the hills right above us were white with snow! it was gorgeous and clearly, mother knows best.

Our mountain yesterday:

And last week:

I am sure that all this excitement over a millimeter of snow seems ridiculous to those of you who are routinely buried in the stuff every winter!

>Today was so beautiful, it was the kind of day where you just want to hit the pause button and let the time stretch. It was sunny and cool, the perfect weather for garden work. It was not too soggy, so I spent the day digging and making new beds for flowers.

We have also been hard at work in the greenhouse, so I thought a picture or two was in order. Above, you will see the state the greenhouse is in. All of those trays have seedlings in them. Here is a closer look:

This year, we started a new method of starting seeds. We used to make paper pots for them, but this year we are starting seeds in boxes, so that the setup looks like this:

As you can see, everything is still pretty small — the seedlings may be newcomers, but they aren’t dumb. They know it is not spring yet!

There is also action outside the greenhouse, naturally, and we are just a small part of what is going on around here — this is a wild iris that I encountered on my way up to the house:

>