first day of winter

dormancy is an elusive quantity in my back yard as well apparently...the intermediate wheat grass was never completely covered by the last snow and now that there has been a melt it is exposed and still fairly green ( top photo )...the winter wheat in the fifth photo was submerged for a few days but has reemerged unbowed and undormant...this has been my experience with both these plants over the past few seasons and so far it is holding true this season ( hard to extrapolate out very far since this is the first official day of winter but it is true to form so far )...there are a few months of winter ahead so we will see...the second third and fourth photos are of teosinte ears because 1) this is my blog and ...2) i have never left any ears out all winter and i am curious to see if the seeds are viable...i will be looking for the telltale purple stemmed grass shoots in the spring...the bottom photo is of the ancient grape rootstock that spawned the grapes in the elm tree and so provided us with the grape tree jelly ( still have frozen juice and am contemplating a christmas or new year's batch )...so winter is in the yard..we expected it...we are prepared...we are doing okay.