Snowdrop statistics

The sun came out briefly the other day and I suddenly realized the perennial beds are full of blooming snowdrops. I'm always surprised by this: I notice the first green shoots and then all of a sudden there are white nodding flowers everywhere.

I got curious about the date - after all, it seems so darn early. What sane plant would be even poking its head above ground right now, never mind blooming? So I went back into the Mucky Boots archives and found each year's first post about snowdrops, and it turns out we're bang on schedule:

2012: February 13
2011: February 6
2010: January 19

On schedule except for 2010, that is. That year they were making up for their very late appearance (because of the horrible winter) the year before.



They are such a happy sight. Reassurance and anticipation all in one little white and green bundle.

Sunshine

Not only has it forgotten to rain for days and days, the sun has been shining. 

Is there anyone else in my neighbourhood who is as gobsmacked as me? Winters here are usually wet, wet, wet and gloomy, gloomy, gloomy. If that weren't bad enough, apparently our December tied for the fewest hours of sunshine on record for our area.

Mother Nature seems to be working overtime to make up for it, because it has been sunny and clear day after day. Crispy cold, with the temperature dipping below freezing every night and staying within a couple of degrees of that during the day. But with the sun shining, who cares? It makes me want to move to Alberta, the land of big skies and winter sunshine.

Everyone and everything is enjoying the sun, from the chickens to the vegetables to the bulbs starting to think about sprouting.

 The freezing temperatures every night have been hard on the greens still hanging on in the garden, but man, are those greens tough. This chard had no protection from the snow we had through December, but just look at it basking in the sunshine, gearing up for its spring resurrection.

The big surprise, though, has been the Bambi lettuce. I know I've gone on and on about how much I like this gem lettuce, and I've also written about how well it survived the first of the cold weather. But even after two weeks of freezing night time temperatures, with only a flimsy row cover for protection, look how well it's doing. Remember, this is lettuce we're talking about!

Most of the rest of the garden isn't looking so hot. I was a bit lackadaisical about my fall clean-up this year so there is a lot of work waiting for me once everything unfreezes. 

But as long as the sun keeps shining, who cares?

Miniature garden

It rains a lot here on Vancouver Island. Less than it does on the lower mainland (Vancouver, in other words), but during the late fall and winter a day with some sunshine is something to be celebrated.

Needless to say this can get a little depressing, but every once in a while I am reminded of the gifts a climate like ours can bring. Like this miniature moss garden, on the wooden disk at the top of a set of wind chimes. (Click on the photo to get a closer look.) Beautiful and perfect and miniature. Worth a little rain.

One for Alison

Warning: if you are an actual photographer you may just want to go to someone else's blog today, because this post is full of the blurry, badly framed photographs typical of an amateur point-and-shoot-er trying to take pictures at night in a very crowded venue.

If you haven't met Alison yet, you should. She is a warm, witty and wise woman who I think must single-handedly keep North Carolina tourism afloat. Her blog posts are full of wonderful photos about wonderful places to see, and one of these days I'm going for a visit.

Her post a couple of weeks ago about the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens was full of lovely photos of the light displays and the decorations, so when we made our traditional trip to the Butchart Gardens in Victoria on Christmas Eve I was inspired to take some photos of my own.

Alison warned me it would be difficult and suggested I bring a tripod. I didn't because I don't have one, and in any case it would have been really difficult to use because of the crowds of people. It was hard enough to get a clear line of sight, and almost impossible to move at any pace other than that of the mass of gawkers. But I tried, and here's what I got.

First, some contrast. This photo was taken during the day in February a couple of years ago...



...and here's the same area at night on Christmas Eve.



Day...



...and night.



There are lights everywhere. I am overwhelmed just thinking about how many person-hours it must take to put up all those lights, and then I feel even worse thinking about taking them all down again. Where do they store them? And how do they keep all those strings of lights from getting tangled?

Some of the trees have lights on every branch...





...and some have no lights at all, except for spotlights on the ground below and a ghostly moon above.

There is a brass band and an ice rink and a carousel and hot chocolate and of course carollers...

...but the main attraction at Butchart over the Christmas season is their Twelve Days of Christmas display. I'm not going to bore you with photos of every day's exhibit (by which I really mean I couldn't get good pictures) but here are a few.

The partridge in a pear tree...

...and the three French hens (note the Eiffel Tower in the background).

The five golden rings are spectacular in real life - big rings of light floating silently in a big pond that looks black at night - but I'm afraid these photos don't do them justice. Here's the serious attempt...



...and here's the goofy attempt to look artistic by moving the camera. (It was Kim's idea.)



My favourite is the eight maids a milking.

The nine ladies dancing caused a lot of controversy and a huge bottleneck, as everyone tried to figure out exactly who the nine storybook characters were. Some were obvious: Alice, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Bo Peep, Miss Muffet (complete with spider) and a generic evil witch (sorry, all you Wiccans out there). But was that Marie Antionette? And who the heck was the one in a green jester's costume, complete with silver shoes and Elton John's sunglasses?

Of course we whipped out our phones and did a Google search, only to find that everyone and their dog had posted a video on youtube of the nine ladies dancing, but nobody listed the characters. We were still puzzling over this at brunch the next day, so I called the gardens and barely got three words out when the operator interrupted me (politely, of course - this is Canada) and said she knew exactly what I was calling about. Marie Antoinette was really Cinderella (we should have guessed that one, except that we had mistaken Mary Mary Quite Contrary's rake for a broom and thought she was Cinderella), and the day-glo green girl was Dorothy from the book version of The Wizard of Oz (because the film version is copyrighted, dontcha know).

Mystery solved, and we all slept better that night.

The spookiest display was the eleven pipers piping, with marionettes modelled after Italian Renaissance characters. The music was playing softly in the background and the figures were moving oh so slightly and oh so slowly, and with the weird lighting making their faces look ghostly it was all just really creepy.

There you go, Alison. I didn't do it justice, so maybe you just need to come up here and see it yourself!

More snow

Oh, man...more snow.

When I got up I had no idea it was snowing because it was still dark outside. Until Frankie came in from his 90 second trip to pee and he looked like this.

Can I tell you how frustrated I am with our local weather reporting? You know, the same reporting that didn't predict the blizzard I was caught in on Sunday night. I have been trying for days to find out what the weather today is going to be like. We're planning a trip into Victoria to have dinner with friends, and I don't want a repeat of Sunday's adventure. Well, on Sunday the forecast for today was rain. On Monday it said we would have snow today. Yesterday it said we would have no precipitation today. Now it says it's raining - at this very minute it's raining. You know what? It's not raining!

I think I have an attitude problem...

Big snow. Big melt. Big mess.

We got our first significant snow last night, just in time for me to drive home over the Malahat from an afternoon concert in Victoria. Dark, fog, blizzard, winding mountain highway, very slippery roads. I thought it was just the Malahat, which has its own personal weather microclimate, but the heavy snow continued right into Duncan. But I had good company to keep me calm, and good tires on the car, and I made it home safely. Then I counted my blessings.

This being Lotus Land, the day after a Big Snow means a Big Melt. And a Big Clean Up. We had some tree and shrub casualties because of the weight of the wet snow. One pretty-small tree came down entirely, considerately falling right across the road instead of on an outbuilding. The largest rhododendron lost two large branches, and one big euonymous split right down the middle and will have to come down.



If you have been reading this blog for a while you may remember I have a love/hate relationship with our many euonymous shrubs. First came the hate part: they look like insects. Then came the love part: they are glorious in the fall and have pretty berries. Today we're back to the hate part: every time I shook a weighed-down branch to clear it of snow it would snap back and hit me in the face with its many twiggy frozen bits. First I tried standing in a better position and I still got whacked. Then I stood really far back and used a good kick to clear the snow and I still got whacked. Its going to take some mighty pretty berries to coax me back to loving...

With the sun out the snow is melting like crazy, falling in drops and wet clumps from all the branches overhead. Which can make for an unpleasant surprise if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's quite meditative, watching it fall in the pond - the pond almost seems animated, or stocked with really adventurous fish.

The chickens were understandably hesitant to venture out into the world this morning. The old girls because they know better, and the youngsters because they've never seen snow before. Every few minutes one would wander over to the door, peer down at the white stuff, look to the left to see if there was snow in that direction, look to the right in case it was different weather over there, and then wander back into the warmth and safety of the coop

Kim stood outside the chicken door trying to coax them out with a "Where are my brave little chickie-chickies?" and finally she just shouted at them "What are ya, chicken?"

Winter garden

My commitment to growing vegetables through the winter has been a little lukewarm. Our first winter here I tried to make use of a cold frame that had been left behind by the previous owners, dragging it into the vegetable garden and using it to cover one of the raised beds where I had planted some hardy greens. There were two problems with it. First, it didn't actually fit the bed, so there was lots of overhang around the bottom edge where cold air could get in, which made the whole undertaking a bit futile. And second, it weighed a frigging ton, which made it difficult to water, weed or harvest.

Our second winter I focused on root crops, like rutabagas, carrots and beets. I learned an important lesson that year: vegetables don't actually grow once the cold weather and short days hit, they just keep. So it's important to get the seeds into the ground way earlier than you think is necessary - in my case in late June or early July) so that the roots are big enough to harvest come October or so. At that point they get mulched to protect them from a hard frost and then the ground acts like a big refrigerator: when you want a carrot you just go out and get one. I didn't really clue into all that, that year, so all I ended up with were roots so small they were barely worth peeling. Except for the rutabagas, which don't get seeded until mid July anyway. They were great, that year.

Our third winter I didn't do much at all. No explanation, I just didn't. But it meant that this year I was more determined to get things right, or at least righter. I got the carrots and beets into the ground on time, and lots of them. The hard frosts we have had, plus the visiting nibbling rabbits, have done a number on the greens...

...but underneath the mulch the roots are big and tasty. A little hairy, and with a bit more bug damage, but really good for soups and stews.

The rutabagas, on the other hand, have been a bust. They developed nice big, healthy tops (at least until a band of marauding chickens got into the garden one day and demolished them) but the roots didn't bulb the way they should have. I'm guessing it was a soil deficiency of some kind, which I'll have to sort out for next year.

Cabbage is an interesting vegetable to grow. As far as I can tell there are cabbages you plant early in the spring for eating in the summer, others that you plant later in the spring for eating in the fall, others that are hardy enough to stay in the garden and harvest through the winter, and others that stay in the garden through the winter in order to have a head start in the spring. 

This year I tried planting a crop of red cabbage to harvest through the winter but my timing was entirely wrong, and they didn't grow big enough before the cold weather hit. They probably won't be in good enough shape to make spring eating, but we'll see. 

I also planted some January King cabbages that should hold their own in the garden through the winter. They got started too late, too, but unlike any of my other winter vegetables these cabbages seem to be still growing, and are developing heads - and beautiful ones at that. (There is a lovely one at the photo at the top of the post.)

The undoubted star of this year's winter garden is the Swiss Chard. I am developing quite an affection for this plant: it's hardy, good for you and apparently indestructible. Plus it looks lovely in the sun.

I decided to give growing under cover another try this year. In August Kim and I constructed a simple hoop house with PVC pipe and zip ties...

...and then in late September when the nights started getting chilly we covered it with fabric fastened to the pipes with these clever U-clips. We never did get around to covering the whole shebang with plastic, but so far the plants underneath have forgiven us and thrived. 

I planted two kinds of kale, more chard, bok choy, spinach and our standby salad green, Bambi. I have already gone on and on about how much I love this gem lettuce, and now I have even more reason. It's December, we have had plenty of cold weather, and it still looks like this.

The bok choy doesn't look as great, thanks to the visiting bunnies. We really have to see to our perimeter defences before spring.

I could get all perfectionist about this, but I think I'll just be happy I'm at least I'm in the right ballpark. Or as my dad would say, on the right side of left, and the upside of down.

Reading in the dark

We had our first power outage of the winter season last night. It didn't last long - only about an hour - but it was a good reminder that we need to be stocking up on batteries and candles, not to mention making sure we know where the matches are.

The biggest inconvenience was our CO2 detector, which started chirping at about 100 decibels as soon as the power went  - and we could not figure out how to shut it up. We read the instructions and followed them carefully, to no avail. Of course we thought about simply removing the batteries, but that required a screwdriver we were too lazy to go out to the workshop in the pouring rain and dark to get. So we buried the thing beneath a stack of towels in the laundry room, shut the door, and let it chirp.

I wasn't worried about water - we still have some stocked from our water adventures a few weeks ago. And a fire had been burning all day in the wood stove, thanks to Kim the Lumberjack, so we had plenty of warmth. There would be time to sort things out in the morning, in the light, if it came to that. My laissez-faire attitude was probably influenced by the fact that I'm just back from sinus surgery in Vancouver (not entirely pleasant, but enough about that) and wasn't feeling very ambitious about power outage problem solving. But the one thing that absolutely had to get sorted out was how to keep reading, in spite of the dark.

We don't have any oil lamps - I don't have any experience with them, and I confess they make me a little nervous, especially with animals in the house. So our first anti-dark measure was to light candles. Fortunately our friend Linda loves candles, and loves gifting her friends with them, so we had more than enough to give us light to see by. But not to read by, unless we were willing to hunker down over the flames.

So we gathered up all the assorted battery-powered lighting devices we have accumulated since we've been here and power outages have become a more regular fact of life.

My preference has always been the headlight on a stretchy band, even though Kim laughs at me every time I put it on. It's perfect when I need to be moving around doing things, but it's not at the best downward angle for reading. And need I say it's not the most comfortable thing for someone with a sinus headache?



Kim's first choice was the light she uses on her music stand, and I have to agree it's pretty much perfect. The gooseneck allows it to be angled just so, and the light is really bright. The only disadvantage is that the clip is quite heavy, and it can be tiring to keep your book upright.

We also have a hook-over-your ear reading light, but its batteries were dead. Finally I scrounged through both bedside table drawers and found the nifty little lights we picked up at Home Depot, of all places. They are small and very light, and clip onto the arms of your eyeglasses. Plus, they swivel so you can choose the perfect angle for reading.

By the time we had that all sorted out we got about ten minutes of reading in before the lights came back on again. So we kept them off for a while, just for the pleasure of reading in the dark.

Old dog, first snow

Frankie may be a little too stiff to go bounding through the first snow of the year the way he used to, and the flakes may blend a little more into his ears-turned-grey. But this morning's brief snowfall was still reason for our aging guard dog to assume his favourite position on the verandah steps to keep watch over the weather.

Our sweet boy is now on anti-inflammatories, which are helping what was troubling him in his lower back, but he is showing his age in other ways: he is quite deaf now, and sleeps much of the day. The time has come when I need to be sure I'm not letting worry over what lies ahead for him interfere with the joy that is still to be had every day.

Our dude. Our handsome boy.