As the spring wandered off to make way for summer, the garden was still going strong. Now that summer’s tight grip has taken full hold of our air, I find the cabin fever setting in. Last year it took until August for the fever to hit. Today, it hit hard. I knew I needed to go out, and despite the blanket of steaming humidity, the imposing sun, and the absent breeze, I went out.

I stuck to the shade as best I could. Spraying the strawberries with some compost tea. As the shade traveled across the land, I started work in my backyard garden. Clearing out the blossoming arugula (that we never eat, but that keeps coming back). The long-since-bolted, seeds collected, and re-bolted lettuce made their way to the compost bin.

Just like that, I was out of shaded tasks. Having spent the entire day yesterday on the river (coated in SPF 70) I didn’t wish to subject my skin to another day drowning in sunscreen, and dare not go without it. So the tomatoes still need higher trellising on their posts. The peppers still need their caging. The melons still need netting and the last squash have likely lost to the borers and the bugs.

I headed indoors. I pulled out my graph paper pad. I pulled out my pencil and eraser. I set to work drafting my winter garden.

That’s right.

In a week or three, I’ll sow my brassica family veggies, my kales and my chards, and other winter garden varieties into seed trays indoors. Last year I direct sowed seeds October 1st and found my beds lagging behind those of the Farmer’s Market Farmers. This year, I’ll do my sowing in the comfortable 75 degree housing we occupy and let those cooler weather crops get a head start before dropping them out into the 90s it will have cooled down to by October 1st (I hope.)

And with that, I sigh. Sure. I have a long growing season – October through June – which is the inverse of most vegetable gardens I know about who have their three month “can’t grow” season during the winter months. It doesn’t change the fact that I miss the summers that mean playing outside all day. In my sighing. I start to dream. DH may be done with school as soon as two calendar years from now. It feels so far away sometimes, but I’m learning all too well how quickly time moves as you age. What used to take forever to pass (summer vacation as a child, anyone?) is now gone with the exhale of the wildflowers. Over. Spent.

A dream of ours, when he finishes school, is to see about moving. Last summer, we fell in love with Boulder. Sometimes, when I get frustrated with various frustrations, I take a peek at Boulder. It has yet to fail to make me yearn.

Case in point? 20 acres are for sale. That we could afford. That looks as picturesque as I only dreamed we would find.

Sometimes, the beauty of the world just makes my heart ache.

There are so many decisions to make in one’s life. So very many.