what could be more natural...

...than temperatures twenty-eight degrees above "the average for this date"...

and nearly a half an inch of rain ( with more on the way...no snow forecast ) three days before the end of one of the warmest years on recorded and the deniers firmly in control of the political apparatus...if we look to the past for definitions of "normal" we may find ourselves seriously confused about what is going on...

bright green lichens seem out of place in december at the south end of the inland sea...

the local berries...

and the new york imports in the yard and in the bed of my truck are all cold hardy so their verdancy is not a surprise...

neither is that of the winter rye...

ot the winter wheat...although some of the wheat seems to be tinged a bit yellow...it is, perhaps, not accustomed to rain rather than snow this time of year...

some of the onions and the berries cohabiting in the south bed seem to be yellowing as well...

while the population of dryad's saddles and lichens slowly consuming stumpy seem to be robust and expanding...

and on anther "robust" note...the spuds in the basement are doing fine.

out back solstice plus one

the first full day of winter is unseasonably warm here...something like thirty six degrees ( farenheit ) above "the average for this day" ( i know, averages lie )...whatever the averages say there is no real possibility of snow for christmas...and, while this may not trouble some, it aint natural...( or, nature isn't what it used to be and there is a "new normal" afoot )...

the berries in the bed of my truck are not complaining and are basking in the sunshine...

as are the native berries on the east side...

and the new york imports and the egyptian walking onions in the south bed...

"cold hardy" is a fine designation for all these plants as i discovered when i made an effort to dig up a jerusalem artichoke and found the ground frozen solid a couple of inches down...no tuber retrieval without a pick-axe...it is warm today however there has been snow and a week of below freezing temperatures in the recent past...late autumn was colder than early winter...

the winter wheat and rye are soaking up the rays today as well...fine for now...we will see if the snow cover is deep enough to get them through the real cold ( one presumes it will arrive )

beyond that all is quiet in the ramp bed ( undisturbed mulch is fine with me )...

there are still a few seeds hanging around the mostly shattered teocintli ears...

and the dryad's saddle that has been quietly consuming a dead portion of an elm back there has seem better days...

about the only other color in the yard is the berries in the hawthorn tree...with the berries, onions, and grains they are in tune with the season...and the birds will be spreading a source of winter food as they move the seeds about.

spuds again

mostly because that is all that is going on at the moment...

in the two days since the last post this...

has become this...

and these two...

have progressed to this...still sticking to more dark time as a way to proceed...if this pace of growth continues we will see transplanting to larger containers and the beginning of hilling to stimulate tuber growth.

spuds

when i planted these happily chitting basadres two weeks ago one had a single sprout and one had two...

in two weeks the single sprout's...

original sprout seems to have stalled and a second has appeared which is beginning to leaf...

in the ensuing fortnight i have covered the spud with two sprouts more thoroughly with soil...

and both sprouts have responded with nascent leaves...i have not been giving them less light as rather more dark...turning the grow lights on during the day and off at night rather than all day light...seems to have slowed the process down a bit which is what i want...slower development...less "leggy" plants...more root, less leaf...we will see if the results in tuber terms are any different round about march.

friday the thirteenth...so what's green?

it is somewhat on the warm side for december thirteenth...not that the lows haven't gotten down to near single digits so far this season...that did not preclude a warm-up...so i decided to see what was still green outside...

the new york imports in the beds...

and the daughters and granddaughters in the bed of my truck are greening away...

so are their native berry cousins...

the lichens growing on the rocks and the nurse logs from the old wild cherry tree seem ignorant of the season...or, perhaps, indifferent...

there is still a hint of green in the asparagus...

both the winter wheat and rye have produced a third ( at least ) leaf which means they are sufficiently rooted for the onset of winter...if the snow cover is sufficient enough they should be fine come spring...

the second year egyptian walking onions...

and those taking root form this past season's crop of aerial bulbs are verdant...and will continue to be so even in the snow ( should there be much )...

finally, back down in the basement those basadre spuds i planted eight days ago are beginning to show some hints of greening up and producing leaves...the basement is at a good temperature for winter keeping potatoes which may be inhibiting them a bit...given the forecast the heat may be on down there soon enough...we will see where we are at a few days before the holiday.