Winter Wonderland

 The weather is cold and the deer are hungry!  When I got up this morning, it was somewhere between -1 and +4F depending on what source you consulted.  By the time I got bundled up and headed out for my walk the garden thermometer said 8F which is just about nose-hair-freezing temps, but since there was no wind and plenty of sunshine it wasn't half bad.  The roads were bare at least.  The weather was clear last night with a full super moon and everything was covered with hoar frost and diamonds.

The deer are getting desperate already.  This is really early in the season to be so cold and snow covered.  Every Oak tree in the neighborhood has trampled snow beneath it as they rummage for acorns.  They visit our landscape at night and try to dig through my wire cloches but I have them pinned down securely.

They've made a mess of the myrtle ground cover.  I don't mind them eating it but they will not believe it is gone and at this point they start digging deeper and damaging the roots and throwing mulch everywhere.  We put some fencing around to see if we can discourage them.  In my experience the only real way to make them stop at this point is to roll out hardware cloth or woven wire on the ground.

In the shrubby edges of our lawn we can now see how many bird's nests we have.  They each hold a top hat of snow for the first few times and then will dissolve and fall.  I counted about a dozen nests in the immediate area between our lawn and the neighbor's driveway.

The road wreath is snow covered.  Next year I am going to work some battery lights into it.  I put lights on the sled wreath and they are still going strong.

The Neighbor's Barn

Footnote on Past Project: Dried Hydrangea

 Remember back in September when I pruned back my Little Lime Punch Hydrangea bush and set the blooms aside to dry? 

They turned out nicely and held their color well.  They have ended up in our living room because the colors are perfect there.

Today on Garden Answer's YouTube video, Laura is using Hydrangea blooms in one of her outdoor winter containers.  They look fragile but remember, they would still be out on the bush hanging on with the elements.  She touched them up with spray paint to make the color more intense.  I have done this in the past with Sedum blooms using floral paint but she is just using plain ole Rustoleum.  They look beautiful. Yet another use for dried Hydrangea.

Evergreen Wreaths

 Last year I did not get inspired to make Christmas wreaths until half way through December.  This year I had ordered my box of greens by early November.  In the past I have taken the time to forage for greens but that takes a surprising amount of time.  And you can't bring them in the house because of all of the Spruce spider mites that our trees are covered with.  Last year and this year I just ordered online.  I'm sure you could probably get evergreen through your local florist.  You could also buy a Christmas tree and cut it up.  I have had good luck with the Lynch Creek Farms box of greens.  It is just the right amount for what I need and a nice mixture.

Last Year's 18" Wreath

The box arrived yesterday so today was set aside for wreath making.  This is a twenty pound box of greens and from it I can get one large wreath, one small wreath and have enough little tips left over to make a centerpiece arrangement for the table.

They are very fresh and clean.

This has to be done in the garage.  It's a real mess.  

First I take everything out of the box.

Noble Fir

Cedar

Juniper

I prune the Fir into useable sizes and organize them into Wide, Narrow and Tips.

Assembling the wreath takes a lot less time if you get all of your bundles sorted out ahead of time.  I do three pieces of Fir and one Cedar in each bundle.

I made up twenty bundles to start with and it looked like that would get me most of the way around.  For several years I have been reusing an 18" form for the front fence.  I feel like that was just a little too small for the roadside so I got a 24" form for this year.  An 18" form fits fine on a door but I wanted something larger and I wanted to use up my greens and not have a lot of leftovers.

To start, you take a paddle of wire and wind it around your first bundle.

Then you lay it on the wire form and take two passes around the whole thing with the paddle wire.

To make the wreath full you want to orient one bundle outwards, and the next one inwards.  After you get a few bundles on the form this point in point out pattern becomes easy to follow.  This is where you control how thick the wreath will be by the amount of overlap between the bundles.  Two wraps of wire will secure them well and the pressure from the next bundle will help knit it all together.

Time for a sprig of Juniper berries

I used up the first twenty bundles and I was about half way around the form.  I had used up most of a paddle of wire and I had an "Oh Crap Moment".  "I've made this too full and I'm not going to have enough for the little wreath."

I tied off the wire and cut up enough bundles for a smaller, more rustic wreath.  This one is destined for the runner sled and is built on a simple coat hanger, not a store bought form.

Whew... I had enough.  I cut up the rest of the branches and set up my bundles to finish the big wreath.

Now that's a big wreath!  I was having trouble getting a good look at it so I hung it on the welding table.  There is definitely one thicker side.  The start and stop point is usually noticeable and is easy to disguise with bow placement.  I have to turn it a few times to decide which side is going to be Up.

Today has been a pretty yucky weather day.  It is gloomy and cold and blustery.  I've trudged through slushy snow back and forth from the house to the garage to the compost and back to the garage.  

My feet hurt.  I'm tired.  This bow looks like crap.

I was over it for the day.  I zip tied it to the fence and went in the house.  I got cleaned up, warmed up, got my hair out of my face and started editing photos for this blog.  Oh Hell no.  After looking at the pictures I couldn't even let that go until tomorrow morning.  I had another roll of ribbon that was wider but I had passed it up because it was more burgundy than red and I thought I needed something more eye catching.  There we go!

That's better.

I can't even adjust the color and exposure enough to make this day look less gloomy and slushy.

The more I fuss with the ribbons the more the wind blows.

Well anyway, the wreaths are done.  The mess is cleaned up.  The leftover tips are boxed up on the front porch staying cool.  I am quite pleased with the results but there is no way I have enough energy left to get the tree and decorations down from the attic.  Time to watch football.

White Friday

 The west wind howled all throughout Wednesday night and shifted to the north by daybreak.  Thanksgiving morning we awoke to only a light dusting of snow and then around 7am the Lake Effect Snow Machine turned on like flipping a switch.  It snowed all day and then blew all night.  It is still blowing a gale and snowing on and off.  We have at least a foot of snow.  It's hard to tell with the wind blowing everything around, but everywhere we walk the snow is "tall boot depth."

My husband took a pass at the driveways with the tractor and then went for his morning walk.  He returned with such a bad road report that I traded my four mile walk for half an hour of shoveling before breakfast.  It wasn't particularly pleasant as the weather continues to be awful.  I don't mind digging out when the sun is shining, but you have to stay on top of things.

I shoveled the walkway to the neighbor's and a path to my compost.  Then I checked on the Strawberry cages.  The 1/2" hardware cloth blocks a lot of snow and that means that sometimes the bed itself is bare when the temperatures are freezing.  That doesn't seem to bother the plants much, but last year the wooden frames that the hoops sit on heaved right out of the ground.  They needed the insulation of the snow to keep the ground from freezing and expanding.  I did not enjoy digging them back in and leveling everything, so this year I vow to stay on top of snow distribution.  I knocked as much of it as I could down into the bed.

My husband suggested removing the hoops for the winter, but if the deer or rabbits find those green strawberry leaves they will eat them right down to the roots or at least dig around enough to damage them.  That's one reason why we needed the cages to begin with.

I also shoveled off the Cold Frame to keep the weight of the snow from sagging the polycarbonate panels and found some of the walkways and steps around the garden shed.  We try to keep the doorways clear because the snow melting on the threshhold tends to rot the wood.  

My husband has already repaired this door several times in the last fifteen years and this past spring he put in a new threshold and painted everything up nice.   One year this corner heaved badly enough that the doorknob wouldn't unlock and turn.  We had a bugger of a time getting in to get the tools we needed, so now digging out garden shed doors is on the regular snow removal list.

See those light, blurry streaks against the brown of the door?  That is sleety snow blowing and stinging my face.  Brrr!  I also took the opportunity to get the old runner sled out of the shed and stick it into the snowbank next to the house.  I ordered a box of greenery that should be here on Monday and I can start making wreaths and decorating.

Last year's wreath

In my heart our entryway is always sumptuously decorated for Christmas...

But what would be the point?  It would all be buried in snow anyway.  There isn't any expensive, well thought out or AI generated decor that says Christmas spirit more plainly than a big ole snowbank on your front steps.

The Off Season

 It can be tough to adjust from an outdoor life to an indoor life each winter.  During the summer, if we have a nice day with nothing planned, we will often just go outside, sit in the shade and enjoy the surroundings we have created.  During cold weather there are still some beautiful days when we just can't sit around the house.  On those days we go outside and sit by a fire.  It's time to get some enjoyment out of all of those annoying dead trees.

My husband is not programmed for building small cooking fires.  The only suitable fire is a ceremonial bonfire.  Watching flames is mesmerizing.  They are even beautiful when they have burned down.

I have continued to walk around and check on the garden.  The deer have adjusted to shotgun season by migrating into town for a month or so.  Therefore, nothing has tripped over any cloches or stuck their face through any netting.  However, with the mild weather the racoons are still awake and looking for snacks.  I'm not sure what kind of snacks they are looking for, but they are pretty systematic...

Random hole.... what did they think they would find there?

Some of my perennial plants look just as nice now as they do in summer.  Like the Penstemon.  They put on a lot of foliar growth in the cool season and then in summer concentrate on bloom stalks.

For Thanksgiving we are having dramatic weather.

We live in the orange area expecting 15" of lake effect snow.  We're headed out to a local restaurant for dinner, then coming home for pumpkin pie.  Everyone have a safe and relaxing holiday weekend.

Edited to Add:  Look who else is not asleep!  A neighbor five houses down posted this on Facebook this morning.  This nice young bear was up the tree at 8am this morning. I assume their Pyrenees guardian dog ran him up there.  The Oak tree is in their goat pasture just a hundred feet from the house.  

Wild Rosehip Candle Ring and Holiday Tablescape

 I have often said that the chief joy that I have in decorating for Christmas and other holidays is in creating something new.  I am not the kind of person who puts out the same decorations year after year with no variations. Of course I do keep my decorations and add to them each year but I am always using new themes or trying to highlight some new find.  

For several years now I have had a table centerpiece with a pillar candle in a hurricane glass.  I raise it up on a cake stand and I can change out the greenery each season.  I have several rings made up that I can just swap out.  The cake stand gets it up off the surface so it doesn't take up much room and I can grab the whole thing and move it off quickly and easily.  I will probably put it back after Christmas.  But for now I am tired of it.  For one thing, pillar candles get harder and harder to light as they get older.  I want tapers this year.

I collected up all of these brass candlesticks several years ago.  I have used them a little, but not in a whole group.  It's time to let them shine.  First I cleaned them well and gave them a little polish.  Now to figure out some greenery.  You know, something simple like this...

This is a perfect spot for the rosehips.  As a base for the candle ring, I am using a three inch macrame hoop.  To keep the berries from spinning around it and to disguise the gold color, I wrapped it in floral tape.  I am using a finer gauge of paddle wire, but I cut a length of it off the paddle and wound it up tight to make it easier to pass through the ring.

I snipped the ends of the rosehips off of the bramble with kitchen shears.  The newspaper is to contain the mess.  There are a lot of pieces of dried rose petals and old pollen that fall off as a fine dust and this will also help keep the thorns out of my sock feet.

You begin like any wreath.  Take a little bunch of stems and wrap the wire securely around them.

There is an up and a down to each sprig.  

They are really quite pretty.

Take two or three more little stems and lay them on top of the first ones, securing them with your thumb.  Use your other hand to wrap the wire around and through the hoop.  It doesn't have to be too tight. The floral tape really helps quite a bit.

Keep going...

It doesn't matter if it is a little irregular.  You can make it as thick as you want as long as you have plenty of material.  When you get back to the beginning, you may need to place a gob of hot glue in the empty space and just sort of weave a few last sprigs into the bare spot.  Unlike a door wreath, you don't have a bow or anything to fill in where the end meets the beginning.

My big handful of hips made two matching rings.  I think I want a smaller (sparser) one on the candlesticks at each end.  

Time to go foraging again.  Like last year I ordered a box of evergreens for making the wreath for our front fence so when that arrives I will lay some of that incense cedar or fir tips in and around the candlesticks.  This won't be a very moveable arrangement, but it will be bright and cheery.