We are coming up on the fourth anniversary of our retirement. It took us a while to get moved after we retired, and after we moved it took us another year to get into the house where we now live. This February is the fourth that we have been members of First Congregational Church of Bellingham. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but I thought that after this much time, I would have settled into my new life. However, I am aware that I am still adjusting. There are still days when I am not sure what to do with myself even though I have plenty of tasks to do and work to accomplish.

One of the things that still surprises me about our adopted home is the flow of seasons. We’ve had a couple of mild days in the past week or so and over and over again I have heard people say, “This sure is nice. I’m ready for spring.” I’m prone to spring fever and I often got a bit carried away during spring months earlier in my life. I remember best the year when our son was born. His birthday is March 15 and not long after he was born the weather was warm and mild and I set out tomato plants that were frozen when it turned cold. I tried a second set of plants that also were frozen. Around the end of May, I finally set out plants that survived. I knew the rule, “Wait until memorial day to set out your plants,” but I was seduced by warm sunny days. It wasn’t the last time I got into the gardening mood and pushed the schedule.

Still, I have to suppress the urge to say to folks around here, “You may be ready for spring, but it is only the middle of February.”

After all, I’m a survivor of the Mother’s Day blizzard and I can remember several years when we got snow during Holy Week and it has only been Lent for one week.

But we live in a different place now. Our daffodils are four or five inches out of the ground and we can see buds on some of the plants. The tulips are breaking through the ground as well. I can see the buds on the lilacs starting to turn green. There are all kinds of signs of spring around us. I’m just not quite used to this place. According to the USDA climate map, our area is zone 8b, where last frost comes around March 15. That should be easy for me to remember because it is our son’s birthday.

Our daughter-in-law, who is a disciplined and effective gardener, keeps schedules of when to plant various crops. She starts most of her seeds in the house, moves them to the greenhouse, then lets them acclimate to being outdoors before planting the plants. In the process she moves the plants from smaller to larger pots. It is a lot of work, but you can’t argue with her results. And she is very busy outdoors these days, mulching, spreading wood chips and straw, preparing her beds and doing other chores.

Our gardening plan is much simpler. We time most of our planting to the plant sales of more experienced gardeners. We have neighbors whose relatives have a greenhouse and who allow us to order tomatoes and some flowering plants from them. When their tomatoes and petunias are ready, we pick them up and pant them. We also try to get to the local native plants sale each spring and come home with additional flats of plants. In both cases, we don’t have to worry about the dates, because once we get the plants it is generally safe to put them out. I simply observe our son’s practices with his dahlias and put out our tubers after I know he has gotten his in the ground. We harvest plenty of tubers each fall to have planting stock for the next year.

I am planning to plant a few plants from seed that can be planted directly into the garden this year, and I’m comfortable waiting until after our son’s birthday. When we lived in South Dakota, I used to let the sunflowers go to seed and allowed the birds to harvest all of the seeds, but we had good luck with our sunflowers here last year and I have enough seeds saved from just a couple of heads for planting this year. I’ve added a few small beds in our back yard and so have a bit more space for plants this year.

It seems a bit strange to me to not be chomping at the bit when it comes to gardening. I’m content to wait for now. I think that is partly residual habits from our years in the Dakotas. I’m in no rush. I keep thinking, “It’s still February.” When I do, sometimes I am thinking that I have months to go when in reality it is probably closer to weeks. Who knows, maybe I’ll even be a bit late this year. On the other hand, I have noticed that the lawn services have started making their rounds and some of my neighbors have started mowing their lawns. Ours is getting close. I’ll probably begin weekly mowing in a couple of weeks. The extending mowing season still seems strange to me. This year, however, forecasters are predicting much lower than normal rainfall and it is likely that we will allow our lawn to go dormant for a couple of summer months and not need to mow much in July and August.

The third chapter of Ecclesiastes reminds faithful people that “there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the sun.” It, of course, doesn’t say that the seasons come at different times depending where you live. That may not have been obvious to the ancients who tended to live their entire lives in a fairly small geographical area.

I just need to learn the seasons and times in this place so I can discern “a time to plant and a time to uproot.” Then again, I’ve never been good at knowing, “a time to be silent and a time to speak.”