The Gardens in Winter

It is cold, bitter cold today. There was a thaw a few weeks ago and a lot of the snow melted. What was left behind was a dirty gray mess. Then it got bitter cold and all the melted snow turned to ice. Pretty it was not. Last night we got a nice dusting of snow. Not so much as to be hours of shoveling but enough to make everything look clean and fresh.

I decided today was the day I would go out and take pictures of the gardens in winter. No one had disturbed the snow yet. So off I went camera in hand. The first picture I took is of the Murray cabin. The Scottish gardens are located behind the Murray cabin.

I walked over to the site of our Norwegian garden next. This garden is huge! It is the full size that a normal family in the 1800's would have planted to feed themselves. As you can see in the picture one of our shovels is out there standing guard. One of our volunteers had been in the garden digging up some root crops right before Thanksgiving and left the shovel there for us to collect. We forgot and there it stands frozen in the ice and snow. In the background you can see the Newhouse cabin. It was built by a Norwegian family in the 1830's. It was also moved to our site in the 1980's.


I walked over to the Potawatomi Garden area where the wigwam, drying rack, tobacco circle and sweat lodge are located. It was there that I discovered the sheet of ice lurking under the snow. I was down so fast I couldn't even react. I was sore for days!


I decided to head into the office after that and sat next to the pellet stove and thawed out. I will wait till we get another snowfall before I venture out again.