winter in the backyard

winter has put in another appearance in my backyard...the perennial grasses are coated with snow and the raised bed of winter wheat finally has its insulation ( you can just see a few blades of wheat poking up through the snow )...my notoriously inaccurate garden thermometer which was showing temperatures around sixty degrees recently is struggling to make it to twenty and the burlap wrapping on my apple trees has a couple of inches of snow on top...and yet i'm reading extended forecasts that call for temperatures above freezing in the coming week so the wheat isn't in the clear yet...for a crop that i planted in mid-october the wheat in the raise reached about ten inches in height...which means a well developed root system and, at least, a chance of a fair crop come june...goofy weather will also play fast and loose with my jerusalem artichoke storage experiment...i need temperatures below freezing for a while to obtain a realistic assessment of how well it does ( or, more likely, does not ) work...i have obtained my seeds for spring planting and i ordered a few more pounds of seed potatoes to plant a patch in my daughter's back yard ( they asked ) and i got an email from the usda potato introduction station in sturgeon by wisconsin saying seed clones from their fall harvest will be available ( for free )for spring planting so we will have an abundance of potatoes this coming year...diversity is good so a second strain won't hurt...lots of work going on in the asement and more to come outside in a few short weeks...ten weeks to planting teosinte and wild potatoes...and about thirteen to cutting, callousing, and planting red nordlands...sunflowers, scarlet runner beans, snow peas...it will be here soon...can't wait!