Single digits last night with howling winds. You can't even tell where I blew snow on Saturday for all the drifting. We got less than an inch of sugar snow. Today is very sunny and beautiful, but brutal to be outside. I've got 11 on the thermometer, but with the wind chill it's got to be around zero. I brought both the cats in last night because the snow was blowing all over the animal bed on the porch. Curly got up with me at around 3 and just had to go out. I was going to try to coax her back in when I went back to bed, but her footprints on the deck went to the top of the stairs and just ended. She was nowhere in sight. Abducted by aliens I guess, but back out there this morning. Supposed to hit -24 tonight.
We got about 4" of snow today. We had an inch or so a week ago, but it went away. I spent the day picking up stuff out in the yard and sweeping, shoveling, blowing snow.
I planted Hyacinth and Daffodils in the Zone 5, Hardy Glads and some kind of Iris in the Knick Knack. Very frosty this morning, but sunny and dry. I ran the lawnmower around to pick up the leaves one last time and they picked up well. I'm trying to sort out what's alive in the pots and get them into the pumphouse. The Angel Trumpets didn't make it, surprisingly, and neither did the coleus. No loss - both easy to start from seed next spring. The coleus was getting big and bushy, but oh well. The Angel Trumpets never even bloomed this year. I dumped the pot and it had a 2 year old ornamental cabbage in it, still going to beat the band. Didn't know they were perennial.
We left the garden gate open and the deer got in there and blew out through the fence in 2 places. Dang.
Stacked a mountain of firewood Saturday. I had the wagon and the yellow wagon both set up as a train for hauling wood until we broke the wheel off the yellow wagon. We will need a new one in the spring. That old thing was a workhorse!
Had a hard frost. Everything is done. I didn't get my pots moved into the greenhouse in time, we'll see..
We had a light frost last week - not a killer. 38° this morning, sunny and beautiful. Yesterday was pushing 80° in the afternoon and the evening was quite comfortable. Greg got the tomatoes covered before the frost last week and those bushes are still loaded. I really need to make salsa!
We had tons of company all summer and everything is very neglected. I don't think we weeded the vegetable garden at all. We've had the last two weekends to ourselves and I've been trying to spruce things up a little bit. I got the windmill garden weeded and it looks clean. I put bark on it last year and it really helped with the weeds.
To do this week: More weeding, plant grass seed next to the RV spot, clean out greenhouse and bring tenders in, empty and refill hot tub, feed birds.
The raccoons are back and we've lost a couple chickens. Greg goes out with a gun some evenings, but we haven't spotted them yet. We've still got one sentry chicken - "Live Free or Die" - as soon as the current one gets eaten, another one jumps the fence and takes its place. The last one was smart enough to head back into the pen at night, but the new one is one of the young ones and I don't think it's long for this world.
I got a new computer - Yay!
