This weekend was cold and blustery. In fact Saturday morning we woke-up to a light blanket of snow on the ground. I didn’t think to take a picture of it till it was almost gone so sorry I missed the boat on that one. I had been dreaming of a nice warm weekend full of walks and playing outside and cleaning the yard from all that junk that didn’t get put away before last fall.

Instead we decided to go someplace nice and warm. Linder’s Garden Center is a bit of a local fixture around here. The main center on Larpenteur in St. Paul is literally minutes from our house and open all year round. During the spring and summer many grocery stores have smaller greenhouses selling flowers and other plants. 

I had visited the main center a few weeks ago while doing an article for Hmong Times. The children as usual went with me and were really intrigued by “Baby”

the Linder’s mascot. They really wanted to take Proeun to see Baby so this weekend that is exactly what we did.

I brought my camera and got some great pictures.

It was great fun to wander and absorb the warmth. Along the way I began to dream. Wouldn’t it be great to have a greenhouse attached to your house for all those winter blahs? We could grow oranges and bananas and mangos all locally (for personal use sorry all you farm customers) and Linder’s actually sells all those plants. Then I thought heh why not put our dinner table and a sofa in there for just hanging out?  Everyone has their dream for when we get to the farm. Two wants a dog, Avril a horse and me I want a green house, we’ll see.

 
The kids were all about the cookies and lemonade. Linder’s has been around for over 100 years so they obviously know something about customer service. Oh and they started small and stayed a family business. Pretty cool. Hopefully one day Crazy Boy Farm will be 100 years old.

How do you beat the winter blahs?