2014

It's been a long time since my last post.  Life has been busy and blogging took a back seat.  Mostly I had nothing to say and was uninspired.  I'm feeling like trying to get back into it so here we go...

It's been beautiful today with the snow falling down.  A perfect way to start 2014 and wrap up my winter break.

I'm not big on resolutions.  And I'm definitely not resolving to blog more often.  But today I came up with my 2014 resolution.  

I've been doing my yearly recipe book organizing when you toss all those recipes you saved to try and you finally realize your never going to make them.  

I have a big binder with pocketed dividers.  Recipes I want to try go in the pocket of the correct category and recipes I've tried and like make it into a page protector behind the divider.  

Even with tossing dozens of recipes I still have enough to make a different one each night for months.  So I'm going to try to make at least 2 new recipes a week.  We will see how it goes.  Happy New Year!

Cardinals

At the Cincinnati Nature Center, where we went on our hike, they have an area set up as a bird preserve with numerous bird feeders.  We were surprised to see so many Cardinals.  Against the white snow all the brightly colored birds were beautiful.

Snowy Hike

Not much has been going on in our world other than work and living the routines of life.  After the recent warm up we had it then quickly got cold again and we got a light snow.  We decided it was the perfect weather for a snowy winter hike.

Winter Wonderland

We went for a walk tonight while it was snowing.  Everything looks prettier with snow.

Winter Arrangements

I love decorating the window box and hanging basket for winter.  You could pay a lot at garden centers for branches but I go and hunt them down for free.  The winter arrangements also mean I get months off from watering.  There is just something about the greenery and berries that just shouts out the holidays are here!

Ice

Last night we got freezing rain and ice, everything is coated in a quarter inch of ice.  If you don't need to go anywhere it looks quite pretty.  It doesn't look like it will melt today but tomorrow we are going to warm up enough.

 

 The ice makes the window box look gorgeous!

 The hive is also covered in ice and icicles.

Dead bees encased in ice.

Happy Winter

It is officially Winter.  Although I am a day late the Winter Solistice was yesterday I figured better late than never.  However we are having quite seasonable weather and no snow.  All week we are in the mid 40s.  But I am hoping that soon we are going to have a winter wonderland like the picture below, Andy and I are ready to snuggle up.

Winter Harvesting

 

The weather has officially turned to from Fall to Winter despite what the calendar says.

After being able to loosen the soil and get some leeks and parsnips I finally got around to taking some precautions to make sure that I can harvest them later in the Winter.  I planted both specifically because they can last in the ground through the Winter.  I would be thrilled to get anything from the garden in the middle of January and February.

The chard has seen their last days and did not make it through the frost we have been having.  I pulled them out and used their leaves along with the harvested leek tops to insulate the soil around the leeks still in the ground.  I then piled old leaves on top of the parsnips.  Hopefully both of these efforts will keep the soil from freezing and allow me to harvest through the winter.

Winter Window Box

Summer flowers might be long gone but that doesn't mean my window box is empty.  You can buy branches at a nursery but I hate paying for something that is readily available for free.  They may not have a perfectly uniform, polished look of store bought branches but I like them just the same.

More Ice

Last night the rain and freezing continued.  With the outdoor lights it was actually quite beautiful as long as you didn't need to go anywhere.

Freezing Rain

Sparkling

SNOW!

Newly fallen snow is beautiful when it catches the light properly.

Snow!

We had about six inches of snow this week.  One of my favorite parts of snow is how it coats branches and all horizontal surfaces.  Even on the rosemary in the garden.

Winter Garden

Winter Surprise

I started cilantro this Fall but it was so hot that the cilantro barely got going.  In my experiments with season extenders and row cover this Fall I covered the bed of cilantro and radish when I covered the lettuces and herbs.  With all the snow we had the lettuce did not survive under the row cover.  I assumed the cilantro and radishes had the same fate. 

All the snow recently melted and I was finally able to remove the row cover from the expired lettuce, herbs, cilantro and radishes.  The herbs fared well but I was surprised to find my cilantro has flourished.  It looks vibrantly green and has continued to grow.  I have covered them back up in hopes that the row cover will continue to protect them.  I can't tell you how ecstatic I will be if I get to have guacamole made with fresh from the garden cilantro during the Superbowl this year.

The radish leaves look a bit burned by the cold but the actual radishes look fine.  I will leave these in the ground for now since they haven't started to rot but have plateaued in their growth and aren't yet large enough.  Maybe we will have very very early Spring radishes.

Welcome Winter

Today is the first official day of Winter despite the frigid temps we have been having.  It is also the Winter Solstice and the shortest day of the year, it will be dark by 5pm here.  In celebration I finally got my Winter baskets together. 

Some people take their hanging baskets down, some leave them bare, and some people more lazily leave the dead plants in them until Spring (I unfortunately was one of those people until yesterday).  We like to put greenery into ours, its wintry and spruces up outdoor containers.  Last year the weekend of Thanksgiving we went around cutting all sorts of different evergreens and berry branches to arrange.  This year in an attempt to just get them done before it was too late I cut many branches from one tree.  We got a little snow last night which completes the look!