Safe from the snow

We actually went shopping with a storm coming — and it wasn’t so bad. How am I supposed to get a story out of that? Well, as part of putting the milk and ice melt and kohlrabi away, we finally dragged the Weber kettle to safety. And that’s a bit of a story.

Why Webers and winter don’t mix

Here is my Weber kettle sitting on the patio, right where it’s been all summer, all autumn, all winter. It’s not that I’m lazy. I don’t mind shoveling snow. I’ve got it down to a routine going up and down the steps and along the sidewalk and across the driveway and up again. But bringing […]

Another White Solstice

Welcome to another White Solstice. Unlike last year, the first snow waited until the solstice, a steady light snow that barely added up to an inch. Naturally, the evil cat insisted that it must be inspected. As you can see by the tracks, he did a thorough job of criss-crossing before declaring the snow a […]

Cloudy with very little chance of eclipse

This is why I don’t expect to see the total lunar eclipse coming up Monday night. Cloudy skies. The cold weather doesn’t have anything to do with why I won’t go out in the middle of the night to look for it. No. Nor does having to stay up past 1 am. Nope. I blame […]

Drinky birds

This is the view out my window, for a little while, after I pour a kettle of hot water into the dish.

Cold customers

The cold snap has melted, but there’s some still greenery in the garden. The snapdragons are looking a bit water-logged, but they’re standing up to the rain. With flowers even. Scallions are on the march. And the collards looked a bit lumpen this morning, but perked up by the afternoon. These guys can really tough […]

This is just too weird

There’s a story in Science News about brainlike properties in plant roots. There’s zillions of tendrils that connect with each other. They communicate chemically, and maybe even electrically. The article is vague about how exactly plants demonstrate behavior, but it’s more than speculation. I’ve seen what it’s talking about when digging up the evil Black […]

Signs of winter to come

This is the sign that greets the horde of sparrows in the mornings: a frozen water dish. They have to wait for me to pour a kettle of hot water to melt it. I hung out the first block of suet on Thanksgiving Day. But it’s not winter yet.

Snowlike objects

It snowed today, if you can call it that. There must have been no more than one cloud in the sky. In the bright sun, I could the flakes tumbling by the way they glittered as their faces caught the light. They flashed like tiny meteors, gone before you saw them. The air was so […]

Tomatoes, all red

Amazing. All the tomatoes I picked turned red, down to the littlest one. I wonder if leaving them more exposed to light made a difference this year. Or maybe I picked them earlier. Who knows? I guess I better get around to eating them.