Well we had our December thaw...

Our thaw was short and to the point. We had two days of 40+ temps and a lot of the snow melted. Oh, did I forget to say that we also had almost an inch of rain. Oh well, my roof was raked and most of the snow melted. Can't say the same for the neighbors. They have a large ice block on their roof now.

We had another 3" of snow last night with more expected on Tuesday and Thursday. December was a record with over 40" of snow. It is going to be quite a winter.

Stay warm.
Bill

Rain in December...welcome to WI

40 degrees today and raining. The snow will stay, but I'm sure the impending cold front that will come through tonight will make for some interesting traffic tomorrow. Slush and salt will be the order of the day.

Curious to tell if Detroit and Washington are going to get their little spat over with. Seems like everyone is in the sandbox but nobody is playing. Perhaps the best thing is to let the whole shooting match go down the drain into bankruptcy. If that happens, there will be testing of the financial systems. A test yes, but not the end. There is strength in all of this mix.

We shall see tomorrow.
Bill

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....

You might think this is going to be about snow. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Just got back from Hawaii. Thought I would tantalize you with a little shot of heaven. This is the sunset from the north shore of Oahu. We saw a great day of surfing at the Bonzai Pipeline and spent the time watching the sun go down. What a sight to see.

To put this in perspective, the temps were in the 80's with a heavy dose of sunshine. If it did rain, it was not for more than 5 minutes and then the sun came right back out.

We left the cold and the snow in Wisconsin. The change of weather was great, but as the week wore on, it was a good thing to remember that home was where it was and Hawaii was vacation. The airlines ran great, O'Hare was tolerable, and we did see 3 deer playing in the snow in the front yard when we drove in the driveway on Friday morning at 0315.

Welcome home.

Winter is starting to get here......

Cold today, quite a change from the balance of the week. Hard to believe that we had over 70 for a high and now we are struggling to get over 40 for a high, all in the same week. Snow showers have deposited a hint of white on the roof and lawn, but by mid afternoon it will all be gone.

Still have brussel sprouts to harvest this year. All in all,we have had better results from the garden. Hopefully we will have more next year.

Went Denny Crain (Boston Legal) this week. For those of you that know me, quite a shift in politics, but what the real issue called for was change. Time will tell.

It has been a while.....

Time to get a little caught up. It is now 8.5.4 and the snow is finally done (hopefully). We have now got brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, broccoli raab, and lettuce planted. We got a frost last week but it looks like the plants are still going to make it through.

The first planting of peas are up with two plantings of greens and a planting of broccoli raab up. We shall see.

Waiting for 8.5.17 and the plant sale at UWGB. I will be there this year to get my peppers.

Will post another update this week with advise as to how the berry plants have made it through.

Well the snow had continued, but it is warmer

Getting up to almost 25 today. Spent most of the morning shoveling snow and roof raking. By 1400 most of the raked roof was already warmed down to the shingles. The downspouts are running and the runouts are clear. Didn't look like much ice dam action but... it will do the roof well to get it open. Probably in excess of 14" on the roof.

The leaf piles continue to shrink and compress. It is hard to believe that with it as cold as it has been that the heat from composting can still be happening. There will be some very good leaf mold in the spring. The compost bins are sill working well and room is still left to keep adding. Again, looking forward to some good compost come spring. Probably will have to do some additional turning and watering.

Sunday will be the day for putting wire around the blackberries and taking a hard look at the reds/purples.

Should be getting cold again later in the week, but until then rain is in the forecast for Monday. Hard to believe that we go from -25 to almost 40.

Spring is coming.

Snow and bitter cold

We have gone from the too warm to the too cold. About a week ago it was raining. The past two days we have awoke to -15. At least we have snow on the ground.

Took a look for damage to plants. Looks like the bunnies are having a field day with the black berries. I will put up some fencing to prevent anymore damages. Doesn't look like they like the currants. Need to take a look at the red/purple raspberries to determine if there is more damage than just the blacks.

Snow load on the Carol Mackie daphne is large. The limbs are frozen in place so will leave them to thaw out. Will need to prune back in spring, probably pretty hard. Doesn't look good, but haven't found more around the yard.

The snow cover will do us good. Looking around the neighborhood I see the beginnings of ice build up on roofs. Glad we have used the roof rake.

Oh well, garden time will be in 90 days (at most). Spring is near.

Another catalog

It is probably easier to talk about the mass catalogs that are starting to show in the mailbox at this time of year but I really want to talk about one today. That would be the Nourse Farms (www.noursefarms.com) folks. We have had a great amount of success with their products and would heartily recommend them. The raspberry, ribes (currants), and asparagus plants have been the healthiest and most productive. We did have a very tough year in 2006 with establishing some raspberry plantings and lost about 35% of the new plants. The folks at Nourse stood 100% right behind them. The new plants went in early May 2007 and came along just fine.

I won't be planting anything new from Nourse this year but still like to get their catalog and think about the next changes.

The last few weeks have seen some good snowfall and relatively cold temps. Today, and for the next few days, the temps should moderate into the high 30's and melting should take place.

Saw a neat diagram for a mini-greenhouse for putting over the raised beds. Pretty much a PVC frame that a spun polyester sheeting fits over. Will do some thinking of how to make this fit for what I need in our garden. Stay tuned for more updates.

Remember, spring is now only 5 months (150 or so days) away. The snow will leave eventually.