Winter Projects

 During the winter I keep a list of small projects that never seem to get done so if I have a day when I can't figure out something productive to do, I can refer to the list.  Things that make the list are things like cleaning the oven or cleaning and polishing winter boots... recovering the cushions on the porch rockers.  You know how it is.  There are always tasks both large and small that never seem to be finished.  Some of these things are still garden items.  

I have as many pests in the garden as anyone, particularly those that want to eat my food before I do and I am always brainstorming new ways to out smart them.  A few seasons ago I had trouble with sweet corn and then last spring I had a lot of trouble keeping mice (presumably) from eating my cucumber and summer squash seeds out of my germination tray.  I like to plant the seeds in 4" pots and leave them in the garden under a little hoop house to germinate and I get better results than direct sowing.  Usually.  

Last year I kept finding empty holes where seeds should be each morning. I tried placing a second row cover on top of the trays and then tried hiding it in the cold frame.  I even set mouse traps under the row cloth but they were only interested in fresh seeds.  And once they found the snack tray they kept coming back night after night.  After several rounds of seeds I resorted to bringing the tray indoors every night.  I have thought of something else that might work.

I used my largest tray as a size guide.

I will be able to push the edges into the soil and pin them down with earth staples to keep the thieves from just slipping underneath.

This should add one more layer of defense and be easy to water through.  The cage will also allow me to wrap the tray in a second layer of row cover without crushing the potential seedlings.  One more project checked off the list.

Feels Like Actual Winter

 Our past two winters were very mild for our area.  I heard many people say "I wish it would just get cold and stay cold" because the freeze/thaw cycle turns driveways into skating rinks.  Just when you get things plowed and packed down and manageable, it would all melt into a sheet of ice and then disappear completely and we would have to start all over again.

It is kind of difficult at this point to determine how much snow we got during this last cold snap.  When it started, the ground was still wet and warm and many layers melted slowly into the mud before the ground firmed up.  You have to look at a hard, cold surface to determine how much snow you actually got.  And a lot of that has either compacted or blown off.  I would say we got about a foot.

This is a good time to walk around and see how the deer protection is holding up.   I usually do this during the January Thaw, but when I looked out the window this morning I saw so many tracks I decided I'd better walk around and check things out.

Grids placed over the whiskey barrels protect the evergreen Heuchera

I was watching a gardening show on PBS once and the Southerner landscaping "expert" stated that white tail deer don't eat grass...  Its true that the bulk of their diet is "browse" or leafy ends of woody stemmed plants on the edges of wooded areas, but our white tails eat lawn grass all year 'round.  They have been hitting the lawns hard this week trying to fill their empty stomachs.

The weather is cold and they are HUNGRY.  The ground under any oak tree in the area has been ravaged as they search for nuts.  Every night they make the rounds and check to see if our evergreen shrubs are still fenced today....

Darn it... no False Cypress snack tonight.  Maybe tomorrow night?
We'll check back.

They check all over the landscape, including this Heuchera, which gets nibbled at the edges.

They tromped all over this Itoh Peony, freeing it from its igloo of snow, probably wanting to walk through and being stopped by the strategically placed section of hog panel. Foiled again!  Then they trip over all of the wire cloches protecting the Primrose from the rabbits.

It sure would be nice to eat a fresh, green, Primrose salad...

This morning it was officially somewhere between 10F and 13F depending on which weather service you consulted.  Because we are at a higher elevation , we are "warmer" at 17 degrees.

We are in for several more weeks of cold temperatures, but thankfully we are enjoying some sun.  November and December are always the cloudiest months of our year while January and February can often be clear and bright.  A little sunshine goes a long way.

Here it Comes Again

 We are off to a great start on an old fashioned winter.  We've had two rounds of significant snow already and we're gearing up for another

It had already started this morning when I headed out for my walk.  It isn't too cold but it is windy and the wet snow is being plastered against everything.  It's pretty.  Especially when viewed from indoors.

This time we are expecting 1 to 2.5 feet of lake effect from an Alberta clipper developing into a nor'easter, but this cold is going to dip down and also give much of the mid-west and some of the deep south a good chance of significant snowfall.  

Our forecast also includes 40 mph winds which will blow the snow around and suddenly we are looking at blizzard conditions.  We've had quite a bit of wind earlier this week with trees down and power outages in some parts of the county.  Of course we have to endure our share of downed trees.

This one fell Sunday night.  Thankfully it did not fall across the trail to the back property so it doesn't have to be dealt with immediately.  But naturally it did have to make a nuisance of itself.

The top hit the area where we have been storing some leftover pavers and bricks and some extra wire fencing.  It is only about fifty feet from our bonfire area, but they are fifty very muddy feet so we are hoping for some more cold but clear weather which will give us hard, frozen ground but no snow or wind to complicate things.

There will never be a shortage of campfire wood on this property.

I Have Storage Envy

Today's Garden Answer vLog has given me storage envy.  I do not have quite as much to store, but I have a lot and it is all of the same things.  For years we have stored my "garden stuff" in a temporary building. But temporary buildings have a life span and ours will not last forever.  Also, it does not have walls so I have to be creative to make use of the walls for hanging space.  It is not at all mouse proof either so I end up with overflow in the chicken coop which is mouse proof.  Since 2019 we have been intending to build a permanent structure, but then Covid hit and building materials went through the roof.  Then we fell into a pattern of paralysis by analysis and nothing has been decide on.  

 

"Mouse Proof" material storage for chewable things like frost covers and burlap

Anyway, today's video has me thinking about the size and layout of the storage building. It has given me an idea of using wall space as well as shelf space. I've never like Monitor style barn roofs, but having a clear-story for natural light makes a lot of sense. Here is the video.  YouTube isn't cooperating to the point of taking you right to the time stamp I want, so please Fast Forward to 19:31

Ready for Christmas

 I have been taking my good sweet time to get ready for the holidays this year.  On Tuesday of this week it was 41F and sunny.  I decided it would be a good day to go out and dig horseradish for my popular home made cocktail sauce.  Several times the New Year has found me out in the snow with a bucket of water (to thaw the ground) and a muddy shovel looking for roots while snowflakes drifted down my collar and into my ears.  

Digging this year was pleasantly dry and I found a couple of perfect roots.  I got my tools cleaned up and wrapped the still muddy roots in a plastic bag and stored them in the hydrator for later.  And it was a good thing I got it done.

Because Wednesday afternoon it did this.

I finally got around to making my Christmas wreaths.  I did this out in the heated garage on a table where I could scatter fir needles everywhere.  The one for the roadside fence is about 15 pounds.  Last year I foraged for my greens but this year when I got into the mood to make wreaths there was two feet of heavy snow on the ground and I couldn't imagine trying to find enough greens under those conditions so I bought some instead.  This has the added benefit of being able to include berries and textures I can't always find on our property.

My husband's father grew up in this house and we still have his runner sled.  I retrieved it from the chicken coop and plonked it down in the still soggy planting bed where it can freeze into place.  This wreath is made on a simple coat hanger base.  Behind the wreath there is one of his vintage wool scarves that buttons instead of tying.  

I always manage to have a touch of Christmas in every room, but it seems like we spend a lot of time together at the dining room table so the tree goes there.  I actually got the Christmas Tree up on Black Friday.  I keep several boxes of Winter/Christmas items in the basement now mixed in with my other seasonal decor so I began exchanging summer items for winter around the first of November.  

This table centerpiece gets changed several time throughout the year.  I made candle rings for each season and I change from Apple Blossoms to Summer Berries to Ivy and Acorns so the Winter Evergreens are ready to go and just needed some color added.  I only had to get two boxes down from the attic:  the tree, and the tree decorations.

Christmas trees are so difficult to photograph.  This tree has always been some variation of gold but this year I needed to replace the cheap gold balls that were losing their color and I started running across ornaments sets in shades of "tonal blush". So I upgraded to a burgundy/pink/gold color scheme which blends with the salvageable gold ornaments as well as the large burgundy ones I had on our all red living room tree in 2016.

The ornaments range from a dark burgundy which looks almost black through creamy cherry, dusty rose to rose gold, pink and plain gold which I think looks very up to date and classy.  Yes, Pink and Dusty Rose...  They look really nice against the drapes that I put up in 2023.

I searched for a new topper but didn't find anything I liked

Next to the tree is my Hoosier cabinet which has lately been featuring my collection of Uranium glass under black lights.  This didn't need much additional decoration so I just added bubble lights and a mistletoe garland.

I added a Santa here

I brought out all of my Christmas themed kitchen collectibles from Snowflake Crackers and Jack Frost Sugar to Yummy Cocoa mix and Nabisco Sugar Cookies.  We're ready for a Holiday baking session.

I always have a vintage Campbell's Soup ad hanging here in the kitchen.

I change it out now and then and recently purchased a Christmas themed one.  I enjoy looking it while I prepare our meals. 

Saturday Evening Post 1929

My horse drawn sleigh theme lasts all winter

I enjoy shopping for a few Christmas themed items to add to my collections each year.  A few years ago it was rounding out my collection of Reed and Barton carousel horses for my ornament tree.  This year I finally chose a beautiful set of saddle mounted sleigh bells.

I made the mini wreath out of a single fir tip

I remember an old family friend had a pair of these displayed on her coffee table each Christmas.  They had belonged to her family back when sleighs were the only available form of winter transportation.  This style of saddle chimes is readily available online.  Many of them come already mounted on a wooden stand, but someone took the time to have these beautifully mounted by a harness maker who included the appropriate harness hardware and an accent layer of patent harness leather.  This display elevates these bells above any I have ever seen before.

There are many types of sleigh bells from body bands and hip mounts to shaft mounted bells.  People have been using bells on their horses for millennia but they became associated with sleighs because of their use as a safety device.  Those of you who live in snow country know how quiet the snowy landscape can be with all usual sounds muffled.  Traveling by horse and sleigh there would be no tell tale hoofbeats and the sleigh glides silently over the snow.  It would be sort of like cruising silently through a parking lot with a hybrid or electric car before they started adding the fake vroom-vroom noise to warn pedestrians.  Bells were required so both pedestrians and drivers could hear sleigh traffic coming in the snow. 

 These saddle chimes would be mounted on the harness saddle and screwed down with the rein terrets.  I have only seen saddle chimes depicted on pairs of horses.  There was probably a protocol for what type of bells were appropriate to your rig depending on whether you had a one horse open sleigh or a pair, or draft horses with bobsleds.  If there was, that tradition has been virtually lost to time.

Centerfold engraving from Harper's Weekly 1888
shows saddle bells with a feather plume fastened on top

Full engraving
Sleighing in Central Park, NY

Sleigh and pair of Standardbreds in front of the Ahern Mansion Jamestown, NY
Showing appropriately sized Body Bells

Shaft Bells and Shoulder Bells

Hubbard, Spencer, Bartlett and Co 1895

Hubbard, Spencer, Bartlett and Co 1895

Have you ever given any thought to how roads were maintained before the age of automobiles and plows?  Both horses and sleighs require a fairly firm surface to travel on and this was achieved by packing the loose snow with a roller.

Oxen 1907
Now that would be slow going!  Oxen are never in a hurry.

The above photo comes from an interesting collection of snow roller photos

Snow Rollers: How Michigan Cleared Roads After a Snow Storm, 1800s-1920s

Growing up I had a couple of sleighs and used my great grandfather's sleigh bells many times.  

My Great Grandfather's Bells
We had them riveted onto a new strap by an Amish harness maker

Good sleighing weather was single digits when the road salt stopped working and you could get a good hard packed road with a layer of fresh snow for hoof traction and no bare spots.  If we had a snow roller we could have packed paths in the open fields because without packing the going is either too deep for the horse or the sleigh breaks through to wet ground which freezes ice to the runners.

My sister and I and Dandy Christmas Day 1985

Dusty and I at the Chautauqua Institution Sleigh Rally 1986

A few years later we purchased a calendar produced by a local artist and found she 
had used the exact same shot and changed the background to one of the quaint Victorian houses
that the Institute is famous for.  During the sleigh rally participants were encouraged to make use of the unsalted roads in the village.

Oliver Christmas 1989 or 1990

At this age I am grateful for my remote car starter and am glad that I don't have to bundle up under a buffalo robe and travel to town by horse and sleigh.  But nothing compares to the memories of gliding across the silent snow with the mellow sound of sleigh bells. Tomorrow is the winter Solstice.  In merry olde England this was referred to as "midwinter" even though it is actually the first day of winter.  Here in Western NY we feel like we have already had our share of winter weather.   It is a good time to snuggle up with a warm drink and watch the snow falling gently outside.  In the weeks to come we will begin thinking forward to spring and starting seeds and looking forward to warmer weather.

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring tingle tingling too...

Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you!

Dashing Through The Snow by Jeanne Newton Schoburg
prints available at Fine Art America

There’s a happy feeling nothing in the world can buy

When they pass around the coffee and the pumpkin pie

 It’ll nearly be like a picture print by

 Courier and Ives

These wonderful days are the things we

 Remember all through our lives!