One of my Christmas gifts was the 2019 edition of the Old Farmer’s Almanac. One of my first tasks each morning, after feeding Spots, is to check the weather on my iPhone. Highs winds are sweeping across the land this morning, a precursor to the winter that will blow through later today and tonight. The snow pack is currently at 67 percent of normal; the storm should help to build it up for the spring runoff.
I had a brief time in the yard this morning Not much can be done in the cold and wind, although I was watering as the rain began to fall. A novel concept, I know. The geraniums on the far end of the front garden are blighted from the recent cold. I also trimmed back the potato shrub in the triangle garden. The established stalks on that plant were blasted, presumably from the cold, but there was new growth around its base. I also trimmed the begonia whose blooms were wilted if not gone altogether. Time to hunker down and wait for spring to come. The plumbago is sheltered under the porch and will not take in much rain, even with the high winds.
The great surprise and joy is the camellia in the border garden along the front of the house, south side. The soil in that bed is poor and only a few inches deep. I remember that Bob Fyock jack hammered the ledge under that bed in order to plant the dwarf oleander and other shrubs. I had just about written off the camellia that was stunted from the intense sun on that eastern side of the house. That sun could beat down for seven hours a day during for three or four months of the height of the summer. Despite feeding and supplemental watering, the camellia did not seem to thrive. It is now the first of the three japonica camellias to bloom. Not only does it have three magnificently large blooms but new buds seem to have appeared overnight. There is a metaphor for life here. Jesus would have a parable about not digging up the camellia, but nursing it along and allowing it another chance to bloom.
I need to rescue a trash can that is blowing around outside the window of the office where I work.
A Year at the Snake 