Snow!

Everything cool (as it were) seems to happen on a Wednesday. Woke up to that heavy quiet that says there's a good blanket out there, and that unmistakable glow through the bedroom window.  Snow, snow, and more snow! And cold, too, so it was lovely powder.

Of course, not everyone at our house was pleased by this.

"Harumph"

Oz kinda wanted to come in, but I think he also really needed to pee.  Just after this, he took off through the snow drift, like Snoopy in the tall grass, to get to clearer ground under the oak tree.

I headed out to try out my turquoise shovel and admire the scenery. Here's the back deck, looking toward Ted and Mary Anne's place. 

 Here's the view up through the cherry tree branches in the front yard.

And looking back at the house from the driveway as I was shoveling.

Or not. Such a pretty shovel!

And when I finished up and went back inside, here's who I found. I guess that was enough leaping through snowbanks for one, um, year?

What Oz saw

I am rushing around the kitchen, Wednesday morning, getting ready to leave, when I notice Ozzie sitting on the table on the deck, looking all pretty against the little pot of primroses. Aw, just gotta get a photo, so I grab the camera and snap.

Then I realize the reason he is sitting so still, and wasn't distracted by me in the window, is that he is Looking At Something.

Seriously, watching closely!

 

And here's what It was:

 

No, that is not Harriet. Raccoon traversing back yard!  Huge! Deserving of kitty respect and close attention!

But wait - Oz is still watching:

Second raccoon!  Equally huge!

"WTF?"

Frosty croci

We had some lovely heavy frost.  That, along with the rich brown compost that Andrew brought to dump all over the razed garden, made these very first crocus blooms really pop into view as I was taking out the recycling last Wednesday.

Aren't they sweet?  And the cotoneaster was all frosted too.  And the cats, who did not accompany me to the curb, you'll notice. No cats in these pics, no sir, they're inside on the part of the kitchen floor that has a heat mat under it on a timer until 7:30am.

Happy New Year!

So far, it's looking pretty similar to last year.

Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca Pendula'

Helpful blog reader (aka Mum) went off and looked up the tree I referred to as "the weeping, umm, oh help, what is it?  Something pacifica."

I knew it had an ocean in it somewhere.

In her email, Mum also included the rest of the entry from the reference book: "Dirr describes it as "a weeping form with bluish foliage; the branches cascade like water over rocks; must be staked to develop a strong leader; truly a beautiful clone; have seen many in gardens and each is slightly different due to training, pruning, and staking in the early years.""

Is it just me, or is this not an urgent request to get out there and stake the damn thing?

OK, I am projecting a little bit, since we did have this conversation last March. "You know, you need to help it along if you want it to go taller. It needs to be trained - just pick a little branch and stake it upright."  And, later in the week, "I just found this little piece of wire.  I'm putting it in the tool shed with the other garden stuff, because it would be the perfect weight for training a leader branch on the cedar. You know, if and when you feel like doing that."

Sheesh.  Alright already!   Here we go.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

And:

And finally:

 Ten-shun!

Yuletide

Does it get any better than this?







Hell yeah!

(flash worked)

And....

(-click to see full detail-)

And then it was Christmas morn....

Polish garden cleanup

As I was getting ready to leave the house yesterday morning, I heard the trimmer's motor out front, and thought I'd spotted Andrew lurking in the shrubbery in front of the porch.  Oh-ho, thought I, perfect timing - I can write up his Christmas card and deliver it to him in person. Except when I went outside, it wasn't Andrew, it was yet another of his compatriots, an older man I'd not seen here before.  "Are you with Andrew?" I asked, stupidly, because why would anybody else waltz into my garden and start tidying? In broken English, he explained that Andrew had dropped him off here to do some cleaning, and would be back to pick him up later in the afternoon. "Wow," I laughed. "He's leaving you here for the whole day?!"

So I left the card for Andrew on the mailbox and went off to work, and forgot about it.

I got home after dark and went straight into the house, where I was met by a wide-eyed geek. "Some guy came and cut everything down!"  "Sure," says I, "that was Andrew's sidekick, come to do the garden cleanup." "But he cut everything down!"  

OK, this was really something.  For the geek to even notice that anything had changed in the jardin was highly unusual.  So I braced myself for the morning's revelations.

"Holy shit!  Where did it all go?"

 Wow!

 He really did cut everything down! I was gobsmacked - never seen anything like it!

It's actually really fascinating to see the bones of spaces so clearly. Here's the front border, with camera pointed right at where the goldenrod was in all its glory in October:

And here's the Christmassy yew, still all neatly trimmed from an earlier Polish cleanup:

(Bit blurry, light was getting low.)

Mum's spring training this year is going to be a very different experience from previous years, that's for sure.  Watch out, weeds, we can see you now!

Merry Christmas!