Cranky and obstreperous, little February is neither cute nor funny. Flatly ignoring social cues, our second month stomps around pitching fits and wearing out its welcome in a matter of hours. Those who endure weather tantrums and stay the course throughout the year in Minnesota take a measure of pride in our fortitude. We mutter about snowbirds who skim the cream of north-country seasons while we, the intrepid, endure winter in all its moods. December beguiles us with greeting-card charm. January tests our mettle and pastes gold stars on our charts. February tries our patience and finds us wanting. Since there is nothing amusing about February, we are obliged to distract ourselves by any available means.

Catalogs, of course, are the premium distraction, the juicy novels of gardening. An enormous basket beside my writing table overflows with dog-eared, highlighted and annotated catalogs from a variety of sources. Some advertising copy informs while some stops just short of fiction; all of it paints gardens in the air around me. Each year the vegetables interest me less while roses twine their thorny little stems around my heart. Maybe my optimistic gardening friend is right: we don’t live in zone two-and-a-half; this is three-going-on-four. Gardening is a form of gambling anyway; might as well go down in flames. Conventional wisdom holds that the bitterest winter conditions will only strike during one year out of seven. I'll hope to plant the more exotic specimens at the start of the seven-year cycle and take up counted cross-stitching after that.

February is ax-grinding month. With insufficient diversion, I air my grievances with plant purveyors. A source that I once held in high esteem has failed me thrice and I complain bitterly. I am especially outraged to have received a much-ballyhooed rosebush for which I prepared the proverbial fifty-dollar hole. Too late last summer I found that the dormant bush I'd received wasn't even the kissing cousin of the specimen I ordered. (The elegant label it bore was correct, but the plant was an impostor.)

After venting my wrath in that direction, I direct a volley at another source which shamelessly mangles scientific names. It is inexcusable, I fume, to muddy the waters with misspelling and careless use of the very nomenclature which was implemented to reduce confusion. Despite the raging sleet outdoors, I'm beginning to feel warmer already.

A few days later, spring begins for me with the first sighting of pussy willows. Since my harbingers needn't be full-blown catkins, my husband and I begin scanning roadside ditches on January drives and announce the arrival of spring when the first polka dots appear at the tips of branches. Never mind that snowdrifts preclude the option of claiming a trophy it's still spring! When I can finally bring home a branch, I laboriously peel away each shiny winter jacket (no time to wait for forcing in water) and celebrate the end of winter. I thrust the pussy willows into a pot of paperwhite narcissus, perch a faux nesting bird within the greenery, and daydream.

A late-fall planting encourages early-spring walks interrupted by hopeful probing and peeking. Having longed for years to plant a poetic "host of golden daffodils," I finally realized that dream along the margins of twin ponds. Even as I try to keep expectations for my late-season project within bounds, I entertain visions of sitting on our stone bench in May to admire arcs of nodding blooms reflected in the ponds.

February, I'm beginning to realize, requires dissociative skills. Confronted with a metaphorical two-year-old, we need only leave town mentally for a little while and it will toddle off or settle down for a nap. At the very least, we can expect it to outgrow this ill-mannered phase and evolve into sunny sweetness. For that I am more than willing to cast my lot with the chickadees and grosbeaks; we'll withstand February for the privilege of watching spring tiptoe back day by day.