I am the most confident gardener in February.

Some more cold weather and some more snow this past week. Early Thursday — or maybe it was Friday morning — travel was quite bad, especially from Johnson to the Northeast Kingdom. Our daughter, Rhoda, was on her way to her school in Lowell when she saw the snow burst coming. She pulled into Maplefields in Johnson just before she was enveloped in a cloud of snow. She said it was like being in a snow globe.

The Belvidere Community Club is offering a few events on Feb. 15-16, at the Belvidere Central School.

(Editor’s note: just before press deadline, Cambridge Selectboard member Charlie Guyette announced he would not seek re-election.)

The groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, saw his shadow on Sunday. That means we’ll have six more weeks of winter. Here in northern Vermont we usually have six more weeks of winter whether he sees his shadow or not but it is fun to see what his forecast will be every year. He is awfully cute.

With both January and Groundhog Day behind us, signs have arrived that spring will, at some point, appear.

Most of the time, baby Ida is either on my hip, my back or sitting in her chair two feet away from me. We tightly orbit each other in moments of autonomy, but mostly we are a magnetic pair, pulled to physical connection mimicking as best we can the nine months she was inside me.

They came, they ate, they chatted, and they did so in numbers. The Cambridge Elementary cafeteria was filled almost to capacity, as was the parking lot, this past Saturday for at least the first two hours of Pie for Breakfast. I arrived before 8:30 a.m. and squeaked into one of the last two or three parking spots before enjoying slices of pecan, raspberry and pumpkin pie and a piece of quiche, all of them homemade. This town’s pie-bakers have some serious chops.

Have you noticed that the days are staying lighter longer now? That makes me feel so happy. Before you know it, the skies will be light until 9:30 p.m.

January is bound to bring seed catalogs, if they don’t arrive in December. This year, it also brings the first CSA announcement of the season, made by Snaps and Sunflowers, the floral side of Valley Dream Farm. For more information, visit snapsandsunflowers.com and click on the CSA link.

Alan Beard sold us the back chunk of his land in 2021, and it happened just as you’d imagine a land purchase of Vermont’s yesteryear would; there were handshakes, conversational negotiation and no banks involved. Bless his heart.

We got some more snow last week but no big snowstorms. Temperatures were in the 20s with 30s on the weekend, and the breeze felt cold.