Now that winter is rearing its icy head, I am not one of those people who wax nostalgic about fireplaces and heating their homes with open fireplaces or wood/coal burning stoves or furnaces.

5:15 a.m.

Did you ever wake up brain dead? My wife would probably tell you that I do in nearly every day and that she has her doubts as to whether or not I’m ever, truly, wide awake. I can tell you, for sure, that I’m usually awake enough to refrain from arguing with her and smart enough to recognize most other lost causes.

And on this way-too-early-to-be-out-of-bed Monday morning with a newspaper copy deadline staring me down, my brain seems far less functional than even Loretta would claim it normally is. I’m simply caught in a situation where I’m unable to form an opinion or think of anything worth talking or writing about.

But I am, at least, aware enough of my surroundings to know that I’m not in a hospital bed surrounded by mysterious beeping and humming machines attached to my carcass with myriad wires and tiny hoses. There’s no evidence that I’m on any sort of mechanical life support system. I’ve even consumed an apple, two cups of coffee, checked my blood pressure and been to the toilet. Everything else seems to be working just fine, but my brain won’t turn on.

7:15 a.m.

Okay, since sitting down in front of the keyboard and computer monitor exactly two hours ago, I have been to the front porch to watch a sunrise that must have happened far above the clouds because I saw nothing bright enough to even hint at sunlight. All I know is that it gradually became light enough to see a drizzling mist and reveal the fact that it’s going to be too muddy in the garden to pick the row of Roma beans that, to me, taste slightly better than having no beans at all. Loretta loves them so I’m bound to grow them in the spirit of maintaining domestic harmony.

I’m anxious to get them out of the garden only because I want to try planting a late crop of heirloom “Little Ettes” from seed I saved from the first planting we harvested earlier this month in the same space the Romas currently occupy. If I can pull it off, it will be the first time I’ve grown two crops of the same variety using seed I saved from the first one. If it works, it will be worth far more than the effort it took. “Little Ettes,” a gift of seed from my friend, Cindy Williams in Blackey, Kentucky, are, by far, the best tasting new bean discovery I’ve made in well over 15 years. If the second crop works, I may even have a few seeds to share.

11:15 a.m.

Okay, I am hopelessly past the Letcher County Mountain Eagle deadline but maybe Ben Gish and Sam Adams will still find room for the column because they like to see their names in the paper.

In the meantime I have made a run to the post office to mail a package that may or not make it to its intended destination, 130 miles away, before the seeds inside it sprout. It contained fewer than 200 very small seed beans and cost $3.50 cents in the cheapest postage available. If I’d known this before daylight, I’d have had plenty to write about. And, sometime soon, I intend to do just that.

I’ve also taken another coffee break on the front porch and attempted to read my cat’s mind in case she was pondering some earth shaking matter worth writing about. I’m pretty sure, however, that the only thing most cats ever think about is how stupid everything else is. And that seems somewhat ironic coming from a critter that will spend hours chasing a little red dot projected from a laser light pen when they aren’t sleeping or sitting around looking stoic.

And just when it feels like my brain may be rising from the dead, I notice that my allotted word count is rapidly approaching the magic number — 700. Just remember that if you ever do wake up brain dead, it does not necessarily mean that the rest of your carcass is not still among the living.

12:15 p.m.

I’m outta here.

Reach longtime Enterprise columnist Ike Adams at ikeadams@aol.com or on Facebook or 249 Charlie Brown Road, Paint Lick, KY 40461.