I’m going to stop mentioning the lack of winter and turn my attention to spring. It’s made the inevitable turn into yet another season. I’ve been hearing spring birds singing, there are crocuses and snowdrops everywhere and buds are noticeably swelling on trees and shrubs.

I’ve accepted that I’m not going to get a few weeks of “down time” and have started planting in my hoophouse.

I moved several starts from their cozy pots into the ground under plastic. They seemed happy to be set free. I imagine that I’ll be picking a few leaves for salads in a week or so. Lettuce, spigarella and spinach are in the ground waiting for some baby kale in the next few days. On Tuesday, work was done in the hoophouse in shirt sleeves with a few honey bees hovering over. They came out of the hive in vain, I fear, as there are only crocuses for pollen as yet. They come out when it gets to 47 degrees. Wonder how they know? Nature is grand.

Another mystery in the natural world is how crocuses and snowdrops multiply over the years. I planted a few clumps of snowdrops on the property back in the seventies. Now the blooming area is probably 400-square feet. Some are quite a distance from the original clumps.

Along these same lines, check out the entire lawn full of purple crocuses across from the Tisbury School on Spring street. The hellebores are in full and glorious bloom. All the blooms, however, point down. I totally made up the following. For my religious readers, I wonder if the hellebores, also known as the Lenten Rose, grew like this so the penitent needed to be on their knees to enjoy the blossom?

I’m using up my canned and frozen foods from last summer’s harvest. I’m a big fan of one-pot meals. If I start by sauteeing a few onions something is bound to happen. I’m pleased with myself. Last August and September I spent some time shelling a good amount of my pole beans that had bone “beany.” I froze several containers. Some of the Kentucky Wonders were almost as big as Lima beans. Anyway, a container of them added to carmelized onions tossed into a pasta is quick and easy. My family never met a pasta it didn’t like.

Sometime before Christmas I began getting seed catalogs from many various companies. I probably did some complaining knowing me. Just the past few days, I’m getting them all over again. There were so many in my mailbox recently it took time and effort to worry them free.

The Tisbury post office removed the recycling bins and blocked off the window sills to discourage folks from depositing their junk mail. No matter, people just throw it on the floor. Who raised them?

Recently, in Bunch of Grapes bookstore I picked up a small paperback book called What Are We For, the words and ideals of Eleanor Roosevelt. There is a forward by Nancy Pelosi.

In the first term of her husband, F.D.R., Eleanor was asked to write a newspaper column. She agreed and wrote My Day six days a week until her death in 1962. Many of the quotes in this little book are from that daily column.

Because I’m fed up with the White House handling of the coronavirus and the results of Tuesday’s election have yet to be revealed allow me to pick a few quotes from Eleanor.

From My Day, Feb. 13, 1957: “I have long felt that the same amount of money should be spent by both parties, that radio and tv time should be given free, and an equal amount of newspaper advertising and railroad travel should be allotted in different categories and paid for by the public.”

From a White House press conference, January 17, 1939: “I hate to see so much trust in polls. After all, they don’t represent reasoned thought.”

Wonder how the country would have turned out if she had been president?

I lamented to my friend, Sharlee, last week that I probably won’t get to see a woman president in my lifetime. She said, “With our luck we will and it will probably be Ivanka.”