Luna - cy

Yesterday was a lazy Sunday.  I did a bit of housecleaning, ran an errand for Mom, and did some more baking (Click pic for details). 

Then, after dark, Luna (storm name dropper that I am) blew through leaving a lumpy glaze of crunchy ice over everything.  It's very treacherous out there so be careful driving on roads that aren't salted!

Good thing I don't really have to go anywhere today.  Hopefully the temps will rise as predicted (up to 40s) and the sporadic rains will melt the ice on the roads.  As for the sitting snow under the ice, I'm sure it will take the most of the 3-day warm spell to also melt away (good grief  57F Tue & 58F Wed then plummet back to 20F on Fri - I'm really not enjoying climate change.).  

This week looks to be busy what with needing some professional help with lots of household projects: replace innards of the main floor toilet, figure out why the water softener is leaving salt spots in all the sinks, clean/inspect furnace, and the chain on the garage door opener suddenly has a lot of slack which interferes with operation so now that'll have to be fixed to!  Jeeze, everything seems to happen at once.  Good thing I keep a repair fund for things I can't do myself.  Thankfully I've seldom had to use it for a good long time so it's really topped up.

Meanwhile, down in the basement, the window boxes of greens are coming right along under the lights.

Arugula, Swiss chard & Tuscan kale

(The later sowing of arugula on the right/front for some reason isn't germinating as well as those on the left.  Guess I'll have to oversow the last of the seed and buy a fresh pack.)

Wrath of Kahn

I like it that the weather channel (for better or worse) is naming winter storms.  It DOES make it easier to identify those that have an impact locally.  It's a lot easier to say, "Yeah, Kahn dumped 8 inches of snow." vs "Remember in the 4th week of Jan, 2013 when we got that big storm - you know - the one before the heavy rains came and made a big mess and that snow caused a lot of flooding...."  (You get the gist.)

Anyway - Kahn dumped 5" over a 7-hour period yesterday which kept me busy sweeping/ shoveling off the deck during the event, and then another solid hour snow blowing the driveway when all was said and done.

Unfortunately, Kahn wasn't done having invoked some lake effect snow and I woke up to another 3" of this morning. . .

Oh well, what's a girl to do?  I'll have to do the driveway again.  *aarg*

I admit - the snow is GORGEOUS.  But, alas, it won't last. 

We're supposed to get into the 50s after Sunday with rain.  All this beauty will turn into nothing but trouble. I hate rain on snow.  It's just the worse (except for ice storms - those are killer).

Anyway, beside shoveling and blowing snow, I spent some good time in the kitchen yesterday.

Click the pic to see how a chilly day turned out. 

Deep freezer

It was only -2F again this morning and it's only barely climbed into positive digits so far.  What a great time to defrost the basement freezer!

This is the best weather for defrosting.  Everything inside was loaded into carry bags (good grief that little freezer holds a lot of stuff!) and then hauled upstairs.  Originally I was going to stow everyone out on the deck, but then I saw that it was only 27F in the breezeway (and out of the wind) I decided to save myself a few steps and stashed everything there for the duration.

I don't defrost the freezer nearly often enough, maybe every 18 mos.  The freezer itself (a 30+ year-old JCPenney model - back when USA made heavy-duty, long-lasting appliances) works great and builds up very little ice, so I pretty much leave it alone and let it do its thing.

Anyway, once unloaded and the ice removed, it was no trouble to give the insides a good wipe with warm water and baking soda.  There.  Nice and clean and ready for reload.

 

Before reloading, I took a few moments and wrote up a list of items going back in.  Now no more guessing and/or fishing around for something down there.

The downside of this freezer is that there is no real easy access to anything on the bottom.  So I decided to actually sort the food (by items), leave them in the carry bags, and just lowered them into the freezer.  Now at least I can pull out the bags and fish through THEM instead of pushing through a lot of loose piles of stuff.

I ended up with nearly a full bag of some freezer-burned cooked meats (not much) and vegs from 2010/2011.  I don't mind about the veg - frozen veg make great starter for spring compost piles.

Bottom line - I'm good to go for another year or so. 

Say, do YOU have any tricks to help you find stuff in the freezer?

Deep freeze

It's only -2F this morning.  It's so cold the floor boards on the deck outside are making that low booming noise they make as they contract in the frigid temps.  Back in 1994 we had a spell of -20 to -25F nights and the little house I lived in contracted so much it was nearly impossible to get any sleep for a couple of days.  Now THAT was BRRRRR.

Thankfully this house is much more substantial so all the noise is limited to the deck and though I had to pile on the blankets against the chill, I got a decent 6 hours of sleep last night.  For me (especially lately) that is good.

Chicken stock under squirrel guard

During the day yesterday the clipper slipped by with temps in the low teens, so I decided it was a good day to make soup.  I simmered up a whole chicken, removed the meat, then put the bones back into the broth along with some veg and simmered the stock for another 3 hours. 

When it was done, I bagged up the stock (1 quart for immediate use, 3 for the freezer).   But instead of putting those 3 into the basement freezer, I used the really big freezer - outside - instead.  This time of year I cool a lot of refrigerator/freezer-bound food in the breezeway or, like yesterday, right outside.  Pre-cooling food makes it so the appliances don't have to work so hard, will last longer and I save $ on energy.

The unheated breezeway also makes a good storage place for canned/dry goods this time of year.  Apples do pretty well there too, if they don't get much below 40F.  Besides, using the breezeway (or like yesterday, using the deck)  makes me feel I'm getting some benefit out of this frigid weather. 

Do you find ways to use the weather to your advantage this time of year?

The war escalates

Last year I ranted on about the deer - how they either ate everything in bloom, stripped plants and shrubs before they could bloom, or otherwise trampled things down as they went after things just out of reach.  I will never have anything nice to say about deer unless it's whether to serve them with red wine or a nice rose!  Even now, as winter crawls by,  they roam every night, gnawing down my yews, etc. 

I was glad of one thing - deer can't climb trees.  Tall stuff was safe.

Until now.

Now another species has made it to my hit-list: squirrels.  I've never, ever had a beef with squirrels, until this winter.

For the past 5 weeks I've watched from the windows as they systematically stripped my shrubs of bark and ate next year's tree blossom.  It's not like it's 20 below and deep snow.  No.  The winter is mild.  The ground is friable.  The buried nuts are everywhere.  But I've never seen them dig them up.  Instead ....

The top:  more than half of all magnolia buds have been eaten by squirrels.

The middle:  there are only one or two flower buds left on the entire dogwood tree.

The bottom:  I hold out no hope for the mock orange shrubs.  Most of the mature limbs have been stripped of all bark - which will kill the plant.

As I type they are now in the magnolia.  Sure.  There's not much left anywhere else for them to destroy.

Yep, things are going to get a little more hard-line around here.  Relatives living in Louisiana don't have this particular problem, though.  But then, they enjoy squirrel stew - a lot.  (Note to self - email cousin for recipe.)

Just remember, they started it. :-(

January thaw

January thaw.

Yesterday was warm and rainy (.5").  Today at dawn it was still 50F and should warm up to near 60 today and tomorrow.

Sunny today, rain tomorrow.

All the gutters are free of their monster load of ice dams and the only snow left this morning are those piles from plowing (dumped on the shady side of the garage) and the once-towering pile just off the deck.

I expect that, before the big cold-down due on Monday, all of this snow will be gone.  Hopefully we'll get some nice new snow next week.

I don't like mild winters.  Totally screws up the following year's gardening as there is not enough moisture and too many bugs. 

Since it was so mild, I went out and did a couple of chores.

I took 5 pails of kitchen scraps out to the compost pile and layer them in with some reserved leaves.  Then, for a quick 'rinse' of the pails, I used snow from the big pile for a scrub.  Worked great.  Now they are clean enough to bring them into the basement for a really good wash.

The ground, while wet, was quite friable, so I pulled up a half-dozen dead clumps of Yvonne's salvia and 9-10 salvia subrotunda plants.  The summer drought had made the soil like concrete and there was no way I could pull them up in Fall.

Finally, I moseyed out to the garden and clipped a basketful of fresh Tuscan kale.  The deer have been at it, so I broke out the most damaged plant, then re-wrapped the rest with (now rotting) nylon net.  I'm going to have to get something more substantial for netting in future.


Finally I tidied up the privacy drapery along the driveway and then just stood (everything's too wet to set on) for a bit on the deck and enjoyed the mild temps.  I'm not ready for Spring, that's a fact.  But it was nice to get a preview of coming (hopefully much later) attractions.

January migration

A couple of years ago I found my neighbor's Christmas tree leaning forlornly against their trash can, ready for the garbage truck.  Ack!   So I hustled over there and dragged the tree to my place where I staked it up next to the bird feeder.  It made a wonderful shelter for little birds to hide from the hawk.  And it looked so pretty when the branches were bedecked with fresh snow. 

Balsam fir in winter roost

Not only was the tree pretty - but smart.  Somehow in the transition it had left a trail of breadcrumbs or something showing the way from that trash can to my bird feeder.  I know this for a fact since last year one evening just before New Year's, I found the neighbor's Christmas tree lying on the driveway next to the bird feeder, waiting to be roosted like the previous year's tree.  Well.  Great.  Up ya go, fella.

Now that I know the trees know their way, I was keeping an eye out for the annual migration this year, hoping to catch the move in the act.  Alas.  It seems that from one gaze out the kitchen window to the next this year's tree appeared once again lounging around the bird feeder.  Dang. I missed it.

Not to keep things waiting, I slogged through the snow this morning, pounded in a stake and tied the tree upright.  There.  Annual migration over.  Like the others, this fir will provide shelter for the birds and give me some nice winter interest until Spring.

And, by the pic below, you can see that the TREE gets a nice view too. :-D

The 11th day of winter snow.  Already SOME folks are tired of it.
 Really? Only 11 days?  Oh puh-leeeeze.