Root Cellar Quits, Outside Roots Blossom

One week ago, people were planting poppy seeds on top of some of the remaining snow, and now it's sixty-four degrees, on its way to the seventies. Getting off the train from the city last night I smelled the river for the first time this year. This morning, when I was dragging broken branches from the storm to the curb for city pick up, the whole yard smelled like wild onions, and other smells I can't yet identify. Crocuses are blooming, daffodils and tulips are coming up, and many of these cracked branches have buds, not knowing yet that they're dying. And I was sweating.

I adore warm weather, so all of this is very nice. I love having all the doors flung open, and the cats are in bliss about it, too. But it is early. Three weeks ago we had no power, and carved little passageways for ourselves to move around in the canyons of ice and snow. Last week, flooding threatened to wash the market out. At least all the rain took all the snow with it. (Don't the streets and sidewalks seem so wide now?)

This typical-for-May weather is the end of root cellar storage, for sure, with everything either rotting or sprouting or both. I worry after the sunchokes in the garden, and whether they'll last three more weeks without sprouting. I'm juicing last carrots like a maniac, and relocating potatoes to the coolest, darkest spots I can find. And pulling up my sleeves so that my shoulders can get some sun.