We have had warm rain for several days now and although the ground is still frozen, I can see everything that has been happening under the snow. It is nice to be able to walk around without bitter wind or rain or wading through snow. It is a great opportunity to get out and check on the garden and my winterization efforts. My most particular interest is whether or not the field mice have set up camp under the deck and used my favorite Prima Ginger Echinacea as a snack bar. I amped up my protective efforts this fall but it doesn't appear that they are nesting there at all. We have been keeping the deck shoveled and that might account for their abandoning the idea because there is more activity and it as not as sheltered as it was last year.
There is activity over by the strawberry bed. You can see both tunnels under the snow and holes into the earth. It does not appear that they have tunneled underneath the boards to the strawberry plants... yet. The only way to exclude them is to create a raised bed with 1/4" hardware cloth on the bottom. These are the problems that keep long term gardeners rebuilding and improving their infrastructure each year.
My second goal was to check that this raspberry plant was well watered. It was. It has been snowed on and rained on of course, but foliage can divert a lot of that away from the soil so it is important that any container plants are kept watered throughout the winter as well. But you don't want it too wet either. This container is up on pot feet to keep the drain hole from being blocked.
I see that the deer are still walking up to the pear tree and challenging my defenses. I took the opportunity to rearrange the netting which had been somewhat weighed down by snow and needed to be pulled back up the poles so the snow pack doesn't raise the deer up to a level where they can reach over the top.
We had days of high winds last weekend. These London Plane trees purge themselves of their interior branches as they grow This makes for a nice airy canopy on the inside but pretty much guarantees that there will be sticks to pick up on a regular basis. I got a whole armload.
I noted the munching activity. The deer have eaten the tips off of every woody shrub. I don't mind this much as I consider it size control. I only have one covered because they worked on that one all summer too which is beginning to set it back.
I left the evergreen Penstemon uncovered this winter. The leaves that are green all winter will look dull and tired in the spring. They are not easy to clean up so I am trying the deer-pruning system this year to see how they react to that. If it turns out to be detrimental I will have to put hardware cloth over them like I did last year. If this is the extent of it I think it will be OK, but the deer will sometimes go too far and eat down into the growing portion of the plant as well. They have no self control.
It was a good thing I got my tour done yesterday because this morning we have a dense inch of powder snow over everything again and it looks like January.
I've taken down all of my Christmas decorations at this point, but I have still been working on one ornament repair job. Years ago, when we had chickens, I was so enamored with their first little poulet eggs that I blew them out and saved them, displaying them in a vintage egg basket. Some years after that I had the idea to turn them into Christmas ornaments. I kept to a very natural theme using Swedish straw ornaments and burlap and pinecones that I glued satin ribbon on. I have incorporated them into several other years' trees, whenever they seemed to fit into my theme.
They were very simply made with things I had on hand, floral wire, beads and sequins. The true focus is the natural beauty of the egg, I really just needed a method of hanging them.
It was pretty rudimentary.
Over the years I lost a few to wear and tear, There were some left that were barely hanging on. I had resolved to throw them away and had even put the two very damaged ones in the compost bin. But as I was searching through Etsy for additional jewelry making supplies for making a few of my own push pin ornaments from scratch, I began to see pieces that I thought would look nice on these eggs. I thought that if I glued some larger bead caps onto the ends, I could not only stabilize the existing cracks, but also run wire through the eggs without risk of cutting into the shells. I rescued the ones I had thrown out, used some broken egg shells from breakfast to glue over the larger holes and placed an order for "jewelry findings".
And here they are today. All repaired. I only lost one in the process.
The small one cracked from end to end when I was tightening the hanging loop but I was able to wrap it securely with double sided tape to save it and then cover the tape with gold thread.
These end pieces are set in clear Elmer's glue which centers them as well as can be accomplished and secures the shells from cracking. The biggest problem I ran into is that the holes on each end are not perfectly aligned. When I blew them out I had no inkling of using them for a craft project. If I were to make more of these I would be much more careful about my hole placement. Still, they look a whole lot more intentional than they did with green wire and sloppy holes.
There are no two exactly alike. I found that certain pieces worked better than others. I got a chance to work with different bead sizes and get design ideas for the push pin ornaments.
I also built up a collection of necessary tools and supplies.
My sister brings me her farm fresh eggs every other week. I showed her the ornaments and we will be on the lookout for appropriate and interesting eggs. I would like to get back to an even dozen.
Today I am prepping a brine for the New Year's turkey. The next door neighbors have a nice smoker, and we have a $10 turkey so we are going to brine it and smoke it and pick it apart and be home early in the evening on New Year's Eve. That means it has to go in the brine tomorrow. I wanted "fresh" thyme and sage and I need horseradish for my homemade cocktail sauce. I chose today to dig that because it has been the warmest day on the forecast for quite awhile. Of course, there is still a layer of snow encased in ice. This is by no means the first time I have dug horseradish in the freezing mud. Last year I was able to dig it on a warmish, sunny day. Today... not so much.
It doesn't really feel cold out but it is melty and it sounded like it was raining when I went out because everything as far as the eye could see was thawing and dripping ice. Now, a couple hours later, it is actually raining and the ice is gone. The snow, however, has turned to glacier.
I knew there was a nice bunch of thyme ....there.....
And sage.... there....
And I had the choice of a couple of spots to dig horseradish.
It wasn't hard to find and the ground is not frozen. The most challenging part was that my kettle kept trying to skate away from me on the ice. It wasn't even really muddy.
Whatever you dig up that you don't want you just throw back in the hole and cover up. It will grow again in the spring. I gathered that mess into a plastic bag and stuck it in the hydrator. I will shred it Wednesday afternoon. There is nothing better than cocktail sauce made with fresh horseradish.
We got a quarter inch coating of ice which is enough to be pretty but still keep the accidents and the power outages to a minimum. This morning when we awoke it was 27F 26F 25F (and dropping fast) We are expecting deliveries so we were out before breakfast spreading sand on the driveway. The bare gravel is actually more treacherous than the aerated ice pack we had created by sanding earlier this week. I have Yaktrax on a pair of my tight fitting garden clogs so whenever I go out I can wear those and carry "good shoes". They really are amazing. I've been clippety-clopping all over the ice in my cleats.
Here are a few scenes from this morning. Every nature photographer in three counties is hoping for some sun before this melts but I fear they will be disappointed. It is actually overcast and foggy out.
At least the deer won't eat them unless they like popsicles
We are in the middle of a rare Great Lakes ice storm. Currently 30F and raining with gusto. Landing as ice. It makes for a colorful radar map.
I can see from the window that the shrubs and trees are well coated. We're fine because we have a whole house generator, no place to be and plenty of movies on DVD. I just took a batch of Tollhouse cookies out of the oven.
I do love dramatic weather, I admit it. But I also realize that it can be dangerous and inconvenient for a lot of other people. I've got a pair of shoes with YakTrax on them and we have plenty of sand to use on the driveway. We have already sanded twice this week which melted everything nicely. Now we will have to start all over again.
The earth has tilted back and we are officially on our way towards spring. But before those seed catalogs start rolling in let's take a quick look at some cozy Christmas touches. I used to go all out with the Christmas decorating. In addition to the tree I would put up decorated and lighted garlands and then walked around the house squinting to make sure that each room glowed from every angle. I spent a day or two adjusting timers so that everything came on within a few minutes of each other. I hauled boxes up and down from the attic and in and out from the front porch until it looked like we were moving.
Every room of our house still gets a holiday touch, but somewhere along the line I remembered that back in the day we did not have to have decorations covering every surface to know that Christmas was on its way. All you had to do was close your eyes and breath in the scents of holiday preparation.
My grandmother prepping a turkey on the wood stove in the kitchen
The only decorations my grandmother put up were a tree, a candelabra in the window next to the door and a Nativity. And those didn't come out until about a week before because of the life span of real trees in a wood heated home. You could smell cookies and pumpkin pie, greeting cards lined the doorway and Christmas music played quietly from the old radio in the kitchen. I actually smelled that Christmas smell the other day when I came in from shoveling snow. Our house still smelled of breakfast pancakes and cinnamon from Glögg and molasses from cookies.
And snow has a smell. It really does.
So anyway, here are the decorations that made it up this year.
This is how the table centerpiece turned out. We enjoyed it every suppertime until the tapers were used up. Now I've swapped it out for my single pillar candle which takes a lot less time to light and blow out each time and doesn't risk setting off the smoke detector.
The greens dried up and berries faded, but we had it every meal from Thanksgiving through yesterday when I switched it back to this.
On my dresser
Last year I made a tiny evergreen wreath for the sleigh bells. This year I got out the rings and was going to tackle a tiny rose hip wreath when I decided to go modern with a wreath interpretation instead. I already have a new idea for next year.
Side Porch entry
My husband even has a lighted village gas station on his desk.
This is the Christmas craft I have been brainstorming this week. I started out by setting aside any older handmade ornaments from past years and hot gluing and trimming and repairing... or just tossing. I cleaned out old boxes, faded cheapo ornaments with the paint flaking off. Working with my Christmas stash is part of my fun. I love to organize and tidy up.
A few years ago I purchased a set of these Victorian styled push pin ornaments. I hadn't put them out for a few years and I was looking forward to using them. These were a popular craft back in the sixties and seventies. We had some growing up. You can still buy some of the vintage kits and make your own, but in the past couple of years they seem to be more popular and there are new kits you can get (a bit pricey). Or you can purchase vintage ones. You can go back to the roots and make your own out of costume jewelry and corsage pins.
^This^ is one that I purchased online. It looks great on my tree.
There is a really wide range of styles and color schemes to be had. Some are way too prickly for my taste. They look like angry porcupines.
There are some that look too gaudy... Although I bet they look nice on a tree.
A couple of winters ago I was at lunch with a friend and we were discussing vintage ornaments. I described the push pin ornaments. "Oh I have some of those that a friend gave me. I'll go get them...."
They were in pretty good shape but my gold ornaments are more of a champagne, and these were reallygoldyellow. And there was a lot of satin showing. Not really my taste. I made some changes, replacing yellow ricrac hangers with ribbon. But still... I didn't love them.
This year as I was going through my decorations I thought "I need to make a decision about those." Either throw them out or use them. These were obviously hand made with costume jewelry and things that were on hand and I just couldn't bring myself to toss someone's creative effort. Not when I knew they could be nice with a little work. I dug out some old pins and sequins and stuff. Maybe some ribbon would help. Or upholstery trim.
I got up on Etsy and ordered an assortment of gimp trim. Amazon had some good champagne colored pearl headed pins. I dug around in my Christmas drawer for gold string and other whatnots. I watched a YouTube video for some constructions tips.
This one didn't need a whole lot of help. I had a vision. It just needed to be covered with some texture and color.
That's better. I may still swap the pearl pins for regular pins which will disappear.
It looks much nicer. It isn't easy to get the gimp straight all the way around, but there is a whole lot less yellow and a lot more subtle glimmer. And you don't really notice its flaws when it is on the tree.
Now this one.... this little cherry red one. I'm sorry but that white ricrac just has to go!
I pulled all of the pins out. I will break these down and save the components. A magnetic tray is a huge help, as is the black Velor work surface.
I wasn't as inspired by this one but after searching through internet photos I got some ideas for a starting point. I went through my sewing supplies for some green headed pins.
It needed the fuzzies singed off with a lighter and I replaced the red beads with some clear ones I had. I had to improvise on the hanger because I need to get some cap beads,
It looks so different now. I like it. It no longer resembles a fake cherry.
Now that I've picked up a few supplies, I need to figure out some improvements for the other two. Then I may make some more from scratch. You can buy satin covered foam balls in several sizes and a wide palette of more subtle colors.
I need to get some cap beads to finish off the tops and bottoms.
Some teardrop shaped pearls...
And I can add to my collection...
My tree this year ended up having sort of a raspberry palette. Not really red. Not really gold. I have pink and white and swirls. This is only the second time I can think of that I have used more than one color of glass balls (or more than two sizes) at a time.
Last year I found a set of "tonal red" ball ornaments which had some shades of pink and then I found this photo and I loved the many sizes and colors and the way the ornaments were hung so they created brushstrokes of color with no set pattern.
I stuck with the colors that I already had, but I dug through my bins of random ornaments and brought out anything that would coordinate. And all I used was glass balls and a couple of bead garlands.
So this is what it looks like this year. Every year it is quite different, and each year I think it is the best I've ever done. But that is just because it reflects my current inspiration. Next year it will be different.
