Holiday Dance

Nah, I'm not talking about a winter formal or something. It's our weather this year...I'll explain in a moment. First, here was a sight on my way home Christmas Eve: this little Lutheran church near my home had these luminaries along the roadway. It was a nice, welcoming sight for evening services but I didn't go. (I was raised Methodist, and haven't been involved in organized religion in years.) It was pretty and set a nice holiday mood regardless.

On Christmas day, I awoke to lots of sparkling snow that needed shoveling...

....and I have about 100 feet of driveway! So I got to it...

....the cold temps kept the snow light and easy to toss at least....

...since it was so deep!

I took several breaks for "photo ops" (rest!)...don't these look like snow cones?

Once in awhile the wind picked up and knocked snow off the branches, sparkling as it fell.

Then on the following Saturday, the dance began as the temps rose above freezing...
...so I played outside awhile, and found some tiny bits of greenery....

....nice little patchwork of colors and textures.

The warmer temps brought my cloven-hooved "frienemies" back, too....

....all over the place!

Some green is showing along the foundation too, these perennial peas are "cold weather crops" to be sure!

Next came the rain!

Bringing with it some fog...

....then more as night fell...

....Sunday morning we dance back into winter again! Very pretty frosting covers the trees...

....very thickly! (I'm sure there's a nice layer of ice below it.) The wild birds are keeping the feeders busy.....

...in fact, it's "standing room only"! As the sun shines more brightly, the trees do too...

...and the snow is sticking to everything....

...looks pretty heavy on the trees. This turns out to be a major understatement...

...as I leave for work Monday morning. The trees are quite droopy...

....my road looks like some kind of not-so-fun funhouse tunnel...

...I hope none of these trees have fallen across the road...

....looking up, the branches are pretty anyway.

As I returned from work the scene is pretty much unchanged. This winters' weather may be a back-and-forth dance thus far with changing temps, "swing your partner, do-si-do"...

....but in my neck of the woods, it's more of a contact sport!

Have a safe and Happy New Year everybody!

Worm Bin Update/Summary

Between winter's wrath and kittycat antics, it's been awhile since I've posted about the worm bin. I started this bin November 2nd, 2006 and it has been very easy and fun...going much better than my first attempt. So way back on May 4th, I had discovered that the initial bin was getting full, so I added the second bin to begin the migration so the worms would all move into a new bin and leave behind their valuable castings. This image is from August 2nd of this year, when I thought the second bin was full enough for me to separate them...

....the bedding looks good, and the worms do too.
Remove the top bin...that's quite an indent onto the bin below! (At this moment I realized that it wasn't a good idea to let the cats lay on top of the bins! Ooops!)

Hey...there aren't supposed to be worms in here! According to my original bin plans, the worms should have all migrated to the top bin and the bottom should just be castings. Unfortunately I didn't actually read my plans again at that point, or I'd have realized that I was supposed to let the second bin get nearly full before separating them. So I forged ahead... ...and upon checking the under-bottom bin discovered a lot of liquid as well as sludge (of course, since the chubby cats were pretty much squishing the bin like a sponge!). So I poured it out to use on my plants. I've seen it said in various worm forums that this liquid is merely leachate, and not valuable to plants, but my personal experience says otherwise.
There! Clean and ready to catch more liquid... ....but I'm a bit concerned that I'm leaving too many worms behind in the bottom bin with the castings. So I put a couple handfuls into the "new" bin, added a food layer, and closed it all back up. (The bin is now kept in a room where the cats can't lay on it.)
Take the castings, worms and all, outdoors to use in various places to condition the soil. (This was last August.) That whole bottom bin of castings (14 gal. Rubbermaid tote) and the leachate sludge was used up much more quickly than I thought it would be...I'm gonna try to feed them more frequently in the next year to accelerate the process, about twice a month or so. (You can just toss in scraps daily or as you have them on hand also, but I like to layer them with bedding in one big feeding.) As I looked over my notes to summarize the worm bin experience: from 11/2/06 to 10/22/08 I have opened this bin 22 times, 15 feedings, with an average feeding/disturbance rate of @ once a month. The longest undisturbed, "oops-I-forgot-about-these-guys": 5 months! So, can a single person maintain a worm bin with minimal effort/available scraps: yes! Can you have a worm bin if you travel regularly and have to ignore it for long periods: absolutely! Is this one of the easiest, most satisfying ways to compost and have some "finished product" available, even in the dead of winter: definately!

Friday Night Fights

It starts with a dirty look....

.....then another, with maybe a growl or a hiss thrown in....

....more glaring and posturing...

...then a bite!

Next some ducking and "rope-a-dope"...

....locked in battle! C'mon now, break it up and fight fair guys!

More biting, some shoving, hissing, and growling!

Who started this? "What?! Are you kidding?! Did you see him?! I certainly didn't start this!"
Well Bentley? "Hey, I can't be responsible for what happens when Gizmo hassles me! You didn't hear what he said! You would have bitten him too!"

Submitted to Friday Ark.

December Bloom Day

Wow, there went December Bloom Day already! Did that seem fast to anyone else? Ah well, I'm only one day late so that's better than last month. :) I actually had 4 blooms, too! These two on my lipstick vine, 'Mona Lisa' (actually not the bloom, but close enough for me)........fuzzy and cute.......the other two blooms are on my begonia (still!). This time of year I should have some blooms (or at least buds) on my Christmas cacti also, but so far nothing. So this......and this are all I get thus far. I didn't even buy a poinsettia this year, though the one from last year is alive but not re-blooming. If you want to see how that's done, check this out!

Looks plenty "Christmas-y" outside...nice snow drift on the garage, eh? Well things started to change over the weekend....

...our temps shot up for a couple days, and the snow got smushy...

....and melty!

In fact, I can almost see some of my plants again. So I decided to play outside awhile...

...did some shoveling, now that the snow is extra wet and heavy :) ....

....toss some onto the plants next to the foundation...

....wow, it's so warm that the sap is running on this pine-and bubbling!

Nice lichens cover the bark. Chuck covered these in an excellent fungus post here .

Add some goodies to the composter, even though it'll just sit until temps go up in the spring...

...hey! Looks like woodpeckers are drilling in the side of my house again. I could have caulked these over since it was fairly warm, but I'll just wait until spring. You see, this warm trend is a nice break from our early snowfall...


...but things were due to change drastically Sunday night into Monday...

...when winter's chill returns with a vengence! Temps for Bloom Day were -6, with wind chills to -21!

The wild birds apparently knew this was coming, because Sunday the feeders had heavy avian traffic (which the kitties noticed, as you can see).
And the clearing skies brought in the frigid temps. Winter's back to stay!

Happy Bloom Day! For more Bloom Day fun (including warmer climates with more action), visit our Bloom Day founder, Carol at May Dreams Gardens.