Aside from lots of frigid temperatures, icy roads and sometimes scary driving, winter can be a really good thing. Here's why:

• The winter gives me an opportunity to re-charge. There's no way I could sleep past 5:00 am in the summer!
• I'm not entirely sure that I would even like to garden year-round. Would I get sick of it?
• I can finally organize all those photos I took last summer on my laptop.
• There are no snakes, bugs, or insects, except for that stray box elder bug that somehow made its way into the kitchen.
• When it gets dark so early, I can enjoy TV without thinking I should be doing something else. Tangent...I recently watched a most bizarre documentary called 'Grizzly Man.' It was about this activist who lived alongside wild grizzly bears in Alaska for thirteen summers.
  
• Winter is a great catch-up time to complete all the to-do's I put on the back-burner during the nice weather.
• Finally - I have sustained anticipation for spring gardening in April.  And you'll have to admit that sometimes anticipation can be the best thing of all.

Western Wisconsin has been crazy cold this winter. As of February 4th, this winter was tied for the 14th coldest in La Crosse history with the most below zero days since the late 1970s. We've endured frequent snowfalls and week-after-week of below zero weather. Even my car battery hates this weather. It reminded me just how much on the -45 degree day in January that it didn't start my car.

How will my daylilies fare over the winter? I have some southern belles (like Sabine Baur) that have acclimated to our northern climate, but when it gets this cold I can't help but worry about them. Luckily there is a nice snow cover over all the plants. So I'll cross my fingers, hope for the best and continue dreaming about spring.