Wow, talk about March coming in like a lion. I spent last weekend moving flats in and out of the house in fear for their lives in the extreme cold. The greenhouse froze solid. I placed bubble wrap on everything. Supposedly, a layer of plastic will give five degrees of protection. So even with the two layers everything still froze.

Here it is Tuesday. The wind is blowing like crazy but it is finally above freezing. I had little purple crocuses poking their closed heads through the snow cover. It was a lovely sight in the full sun last Sunday morning.

My least favorite weather is wind. It never bodes well. The sound of it is worrisome especially when trying to sleep.

I came across a small magazine on the book shelf. It was the December 1938 edition of Real Gardening. It cost 25 cents or $3 a year. There wasn’t a single advertisement. I read it cover to cover. A couple of things jumped out at me concerning wind. One was an admonishment about outdoor fires. “You can’t be too careful when burning heaps of brush or garden refuse....No one should light one of these outdoor fires on a windy day lest it get out of control and make trouble.”

Secondly, there was a small one-page article on Trees and Their Behavior in the Wind. There are a few gems I’d like to share.

“The duty of a shade tree is to stay up there where it can give shade. Some kinds know their duty, others do not.”

“Ranked on the basis of beauty alone, there might be some questions whether oak is king, but a strong gale blows away all doubt. Seldom is any oak uprooted, seldom any living branch torn from its crown.”

“Do not judge the behavior of any tree species by experience with individuals which originally stood in a forest, and from whose unprotected flanks companion trees have been chopped away. Forest trees strain toward the sky, overreaching their own strength and depending on neighbors to hold them up. Once grown, they can never fully equip themselves to stand alone.”

“When planting a tree within a hundred feet of your house, remember that a weak-wooded sort may grow up to destroy you. Do not be tempted by speed of growth, but keep in mind the menace which grows with it.”

There you have it — some common sense advice from the pre-World War II era of F.D.R. I loved how grammatically correct all the articles were.

One point of interest, I have a bed of lettuce in the hoophouse. The Black Seeded Simpson has held up admirably. It can be picked mid-day once the leaves thaw.

The red-leafed Romaine, however, is no longer with us. It froze and rotted as soon as the mercury dropped into the teens. Also, some dill has survived. I’ve been cutting a few leaves and adding them to salad dressing. It seems too tender to live but wonders never cease.

I whiled away the stormy afternoon removing sprouts from the stored potatoes. Some at the bottom of the basket were a foot long, for Pete’s sake. I should be able to eat them until time to plant again. For years I planted the leftovers from my own crop but since the potato fungus that plagued us a few years ago, I buy new ones from reputable sources. Better safe than sorry. After all, potato failure drove my ancestors out of Ireland.

I would laugh out loud at the new Health and Human Services Secretary if it weren’t so sad. He claims the reason to finally repeal Obamacare is that the Republican Party is the party of choice and people want to make their own decisions for themselves and their families. As we know, this does not apply to the reproductive choices of women or even using certain bathrooms for that matter.

That coward Paul Ryan cannot wait to cut nearly $900 billion from Medicaid and give tax breaks to the folks who need it the least. Don’t forget, not only does he get a six-figure salary but will have government health care for the rest of his life.

How do these people sleep at night?