Last Days of Winter

We had a blizzard here the day before yesterday. Well, at least they did up the hill. It was bad over where Miles works and he thought he might not get home if the roads were drifted but it turned out to be OK. Down in the valley, we had enough snow for Jake to leave his paw prints all over the BBQ as he went in and out the bathroom window and there was some wind. It was still really nice out though and I was out sweeping the decks in just a bunny hug. It certainly wasn't a blizzard inside the yard. It was a beautiful late winter day. We have been really lucky with winter this year. We have not had a chance to miss our ATV and shovel blade and I hope a chance doesn't come along now. I am thinking we are done with winter and spring is just around the next corner. I could be wrong but I really don't think so. I'll post photos if Jack Frost stops by.

Happy New Year !

It is almost all melted now but this was our belated white Christmas. The bird sanctuary was absolutely beautiful when we woke up yesterday morning. Even the piles of kindling for the firepit look pretty :) We had a great Christmas and Nicholas is here for a Harry Potter festival and is staying overnight. He is having dinner at his other Grandma's tomorrow so we will be on our own for New Years Day. It should be very relaxing and I am planning on doing some garden planning for the new kitchen garden. Miles has extra chain link from the dog runs and he is going to put it up around my vegetable patch. I am so looking forward to having a large kitchen garden. I have been reading about companion planting and have started my seed list. I have a lot of seeds here already and doubt very much that I will need to order any this year. There is so much to look forward to in my garden this year!

Happy New Year!

Solitary Man

Benedict always looks so solitary sitting outside in the cold all winter. In the summer he has lots of friends. Birds, squirrels and cats all stop to visit him and Wile E. often stops to chat with him - confused why he does not chat back! In addition to all of that, spiders love to live on Benedict. He has all kinds of nooks and crannies that are perfect for spiders to tuck themselves away into quickly. But in winter he is almost always alone, standing vigil. Except for today! I was out digging. Absolutely outrageous, I know. It is November 27 and I planted lily-of-the-valley underneath the weeping caragana in the sideyard today. This goes down as the latest date I have ever planted but the ground is not yet frozen and as long as that is the case, the littlest lily have a better chance being dropped in than sitting in a plastic bag in the basement. I hope they make it.

Mending Season

Sewing is another activity restricted to winter. I love to sew and always have. What I don't love to do is mend. Mending and sewing are just not the same thing. I have everything I need to make a Stanley Cup Champions quilt for Gordon and his Bruins and have been thinking about exactly what that will look like for months now. As excited as I am to finally get started on it, I have a hard and fast rule about the start of my winter sewing. Mending all gets done first. It is easy to find my motivation when creating something new but mending is a real chore. It takes everything I have to stay motivated to finish. One thing I learned from all my corporate years is that you do the things you hate to do first or they will forever be bumped off the list of things to do. Time for me to get patching.

Spring Cleaning

When I was young, the first nice days of spring were spent cleaning the house from top to bottom. My mother would throw open the windows and the cleaning would start. I actually enjoy cleaning and didn't complain because Mom would let me daydream all I wanted during the process. You could more often find me leaning out a window than dusting something. When I got older and didn't have my mother for motivation, spring cleaning was never something I could manage. I prefer to spend my first nice days of spring in the garden, even if it means poking around in muddy, half-frozen ground. So I do my spring cleaning in the dead of winter when my garden is sleeping. I started it today eventhough it was +4 and melting outside. There is snow so I can't dig and figured I might as well clean. So I did the shelves and thought of my mother and how I think she had the right idea... all this dusting would be more pleasant with the windows open!

Winter Passtimes

The forecasted snow did arrive on Saturday night. It started really late and ran all through Sunday. There was a lot of it. It took me all day Monday to get the decks, boardwalk and a path to the main pen gate shovelled. Tuesday was shovelling the path from the main pen gate to Mikaela's gate and another to the winter pit. I was going to shovel a path to the shop door too but the daytime temperatures have been beautiful the last two days and the snow is melting some. It is unlikely it will all melt before more arrives but it is already much less deep to walk through. If we get another warm day tomorrow, I am dropping the bulbs in. Meanwhile, I have been digging out all my winter passtimes. This year I added a new one... or Sean did. All the boys play Smurf's Village and Sean downloaded it to my phone, got the game started and connected it to Facebook. Now I can plant, grow and pick flowers all winter in my Smurf's Village. I can even take a photo of my gardens in the game and use it for wallpaper on my phone. I am actually really enjoying the game. It is the first game in years that I have enjoyed. Good, mindless fun. I think it is just what I needed to perk me up under the threat of -20 for the next several months.

Time for Bed

It is time to drop the last of the tulip in, get the few shrubs still sitting in pots into the ground and get the garden ready for its' winter sleep. All putting the garden to bed really invovles is watering everything really well and tossing all the leaves from the drive and lawn onto the beds. We had three days of rain though and eventhough it did not rain today, it was grey and overcast so everything is wet. Before the rain came, I got this catmint bed and one other by the drive completed. I need the rain to stop long enough to get the rest done. It should take about 2 days total so I should be able to squeeze that in somewhere between now and snow. The upside is that at least I can skip the watering part. 

Winter Rays

The little girls already do not like the winter weather. They stay inside a lot more than even a week ago. The only sunray they could find to share was on the dining room floor.

Beautiful Day with Frost.

+16 with frost today. It is a beautiful day although the birds are snowed in. They are saying now that by end of the week this snow will be gone and November is going to be warm. Here's to hoping they are right!

Oddity of Instant Winter

Normally, all these leaves would be long gone before we had this much snow. Instant winter has made the yard edges quite pretty for winter.

...and just in time!

Winter arrives in my garden.

Getting Ready for Winter

The box under Sol is full of books as well. Starting to haul in winter supplies and one of Judy's contributions to fight the boredom was books! Between you and her, I should be set for reading which is awesome :)