Eating Seasonally versus Growing Your Own Food

You would think that growing your own food would force you to eat seasonally. Of course, it's a great idea to eat seasonally even if you don't grow your own food. Eating strawberries and asparagus in spring, peaches in summer, and winter squash and apples in fall makes sense because if you eat things out of season, where is that food coming from? If you buy strawberries in winter, that probably means they've been shipped from a long way away where the temperatures are warm enough to grow strawberries at that time, maybe even all the way from the southern hemisphere, where the seasons are opposite ours. That long distance shipping results in higher prices, higher amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, and less freshness since it's been sitting in a truck, boat, or train for a longer time.

Since it used to be that you didn't even have the option of getting food out of season, a lot of our food traditions evolved around this reality. After all, you eat pumpkin pie and sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving, and strawberry shortcake around Easter, not the other way around, right?

Right?

Well, not if your winter squash and sweet potatoes are still hanging around come Easter!

These are the sweet potatoes I have left in the garage. To the left are some Nancy Halls, in the middle are some Vardamans, and to the right are White Yams. The first two varieties are starting to sprout. I think that was triggered by some warm temperatures we've had. I have more potatoes that I've been keeping in the house to sprout on purpose, so I might not need more. I wonder if I can still eat these sprouted ones.

By the way, I intended to do some sort of review of the flavors of the different sweet potato varieties I grew once they cured, but never got around to it. I'll just tell you what I've been able to figure out so far. The first thing I cooked them in was a dish of Bourbon Sweet Potatoes for Christmas dinner. Oh man, they were yummy! My family was a little confused because I mixed the different colors together, so at first they thought I had mixed sweet potatoes and regular potatoes together. They didn't know that white sweet potatoes existed, and it became a "teaching moment". Even though all my varieties were mixed together, I did notice some flavor and texture differences between them. The one that standed out the most was White Yam. It cooked up much firmer and drier than the other sweet potatoes. I made a big dish of these, and ended up with leftovers, which I froze for later use. We'll get to those later.

With the knowledge that White Yam was unusually dry for a sweet potato, and being bright white in color, I used some more of them to make sweet potato fries (to go with some delicious grass fed beef burgers). Sweet potato fries seem to be a popular food trend, and I've eaten them in restaurants and made them myself with store bought sweet potatoes. However, I have had trouble with homemade sweet potato fries being too soft and mushy compared to regular potato fries. Still tasty, but it's hard to get them to crisp up at home where I don't have the luxury of a commercial deep fryer and am doing them in a cast iron skillet.

White Yam makes excellent fries! Just as I thought, the dry texture held up much better and resulted in crispy, golden fries that looked just like fries made from a Russet. They still tasted a bit sweet, though. I'd like to find some more dry, white sweet potato cultivars that are less sweet and do even better as a Russet substitute. Not that there's anything wrong with Russets, but sweet potatoes grow much better in my climate.

Now, back to my frozen Bourbon Sweet Potatoes from Christmas. This is the cake that I made for the Spring Equinox. I got the idea that I could make a sweet potato cake using a recipe for carrot cake but with sweet potatoes instead of carrots. I thawed and then mashed up the Christmas sweet potatoes and used those. Yes, sweet potatoes for spring!

I would say the sweet potato cake needs some tweaking, though. I subsituted 2 cups of mashed sweet potatoes for 2 cups of shredded carrots in the recipe, baked it the same, but also tried to make a layer cake rather than baking it in a 9 x 13 pan. Even after passing the toothpick test, when we cut the cake it had a very dense, almost pudding-like texture (like an English baked pudding, not a Jell-O pudding), and it was VERY heavy carrying it in and out of the fridge. My fiance, Daniel, loved it, and would scarf down huge slices and make himself sick on it. I thought it was tasty too, but I think I would like a lighter texture. Carrot cake is supposed to be dense anyway, more like a muffin than a cake, but this was a little too far. I think it might be because 2 cups of mashed sweet potatoes does NOT equal 2 cups of shredded carrots in texture or density. Maybe next time cut it down to only 1 or 1 1/2 cups?

I think I did do well to reduce the amount of sugar in the original recipe by half a cup to make up for the leftover sweet potatoes already having sugar in them. Plus, even before when I made this recipe with carrots, it was still a bit too sweet for my tastes.

Also, for purely aesthetic reasons, this cake would have done better in a 9 x 13 inch pan. The cream cheese frosting from the original recipe was not enough to cover a layer cake, and would have to have been doubled. It probably would have been enough to just cover the top of a rectangular cake left in the pan. Also, wrangling such a dense, moist cake was difficult, another reason to just leave it in the pan. I tore it up a bit trying to unmold it and stack it. I did put some Easter-themed sprinkles on top to try to make it at least a little pretty!

Overall, a worthy baking experiment, but not a total success. The flavor was good, but the texture needs work.

I've also still got a LOT of cushaw squash left! I almost made yet another pumpkin pie for Ostara instead of the sweet potato cake, but I make three or four pumpkin pies last fall and winter and am still kind of sick of them. Here you see two of the squashes I still have, plus a couple of jars of seeds I've also been collecting. Each squash has 1-2 cups of seeds in it. I've set a few aside for replanting (a few each from the nicest squashes), but that still leaves an amount of seeds that I could never replant again in my lifetime!

So I'm going to eat them! Most people know about roasting the seeds out of your Jack-o-Lantern pumpkins, which I have done, but I think I want to further explore the culinary possibilities of pumpkin/squash seeds. They're popular in Mexican cuisine, even more popular than the flesh of the squash itself. They have some squash varieties (also in the cushaw species) that are grown just for the seeds alone, which are called "pepitas" in Spanish. Pepitas are ground up to make a delicious green sauce called pipian. It's not that well known north of the border, but I've had it before in some nicer Mexican restaurants and would love to try making my own. It goes well with chicken.

You can also use pumpkins seeds as a substitute for nuts or sunflower seeds in many recipes. Alton Brown's pumpkin bread recipe uses pumpkins seeds instead of the walnuts found in many other recipes, and I seem to remember him mentioning on one of his shows that you can make pumpkin seed brittle instead of peanut brittle, which sounds great.

The main obstacle I can see here is that the pumpkin seeds are supposed to be shelled. You can snack on pumpkin seeds with the shells on and either bite them off one by one, or eat them shell and all, but I don't think that would work with making pipian or any sweet confections. The shells are very fiborous. I've heard that they used to be used as a cure for intestinal parasites! All that fiber scrapes your insides clean!

After much Googling, the only method I can find is to put the seeds in a bag and pound them with a rolling pin. This is supposed to crack the shells. Then you put them in a bowl of water, and the shells are supposed to float while the kernels sink. Except all the references I've found for this method seem to be from people who just heard that somewhere and haven't tried it themselves. I hope it really does work. I'm afraid the shells might not seprate as easily as they're supposed to, and that the kernels inside might be pulverized to bits. I guess I'll find out, but I'm not shelling my seeds until right before I want to cook with them. The shells keep them fresh longer. I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I've still got 12 squashes left in the garage. They still seem perfectly fine, and I wonder how long they will last until they finally rot. They will rot eventually, right? The garage is still cool now, but by summer it gets very hot in there, into the high 90's. It may work as a vegetable storage area for now but not forever, so I've been working on roasting, pureeing, and freezing the rest of my squashes. I can only fit two in the oven at a time, so that's why I'm getting started now. I guess I could keep one around and see how long it takes to rot, but I'm probably too chicken to. The thought of one of these large squashes going rotten in the garage does not seem pleasent.

Here's the squash puree I've already done. I've been putting it in these reusable plastic containers that some brands of lunchmeat come in. I like being able to buy that brand and then reusing the packaging. They work great for freezing things in. I get around three of these containers per squash. That is a LOT of squash puree. I am never growing nine cushaw vines in one year ever again!

Actually, it may be a while before I grow cushaw squash at all again, with how much squash I'm going to have in the freezer. This year I plan on only growing summer squash and maybe butternuts. Summer squash is a completely different food, and butternuts are more useful in different recipes than cushaws. Cushaws are very sweet but very stringy, so they're good for things that need pureed squash, like pies and muffins. Butternuts are not very sweet, but have a nice smooth texture, so they're better in savory dishes where the squash is left in chunks.

Yeah, I think I'm good on squash puree for another year, if not for a few more years!

More Signs of Spring

Last year at this time I did a blog post with pictures of all the bluebonnets and other flowers in bloom, but this year they seem much less impressive. I wonder if it's because of how dry it's been. I actually planted some bluebonnet seeds in the front, but only a few came up, and they didn't make it. At least, I can't even find them right now, so I think they dried up and died. The neighbors across the street only have a couple blooming in their yard so far this year. I also had a lot more spiderwort and dayflowers blooming in my yard last year, but this year I've only seen a couple of puny ones.

There are a few spring-like things I have noticed. In the plant world, at least the trees are doing their things. The elm and ash trees in my yard are putting out nice, fresh green leaves. The live oak trees are losing their leaves and growing new ones, like they do each spring (live oaks are called live oaks because they keep their leaves through the winter, then lose them and immediately grow a new set in spring). The mountain laurels have also started blooming, with their large, sweet, purple blossoms. I don't have any in my yard, sadly. When I get my own place, I certainly want to plant a few.



There are also some new birds at the feeders that haven't been there before. Just about every day a flock of Chipping Sparrows has been hitting the seed feeder. There can be up to a dozen there at a time, with some of them on the feeder, and others underneath getting the seeds that fall on the ground. They're really cute, very small sparrows with a rusty-red cap on their heads.

This is one of the few times I've actually been able to identify any native sparrows, which have got to be some of the hardest birds for birders to identify. There are several species of sparrows that live around here, and all of them are streaky brown birds that usually like to stay on the ground in tall grass, where they blend in very well. Usually the only sign of them I get is hearing their "seet" calls, which sounds like some kind of insect (in fact, one of our sparrows is called a Grasshopper Sparrow because it sounds so much like a grasshopper). They make those calls to keep track of the rest of the flock while they're in the tall grass and can't see each other. If I hadn't been told those were birds I would have kept thinking they were insects. Then if they're flushed, well, then I just see a flock of little brown birds in a blur and never get a chance to get a good look at them. My ornithology professor was able to identify the species just by their "seet" calls, saying that some of them sounded more like "seet" and others sound more like "zeet", but I could never tell the difference. Usually the best I can do is just know there's some kind of sparrow out there in the grass and that's it.

The House Finches are have also started showing up at the feeder. I used to have a lot more of these on the feeder at my old apartment complex, but here on the edge of town they seem to be less numerous. Maybe they like more urban areas better and that's why they call them house finches. In the picture, the male is on the top, and the female is on the bottom. the females are more streaky brownish-grey birds and would be hard to identify if they weren't usually accompanied by their mates, who look like females that have been airbrushed with a bit of rosy red.

And of course the Golden-fronted Woodpeckers, Carolina Chickadees, Black-crested Titmice, doves (both White-winged and Inca), wrens (Bewick's and Carolina), and cardinals are still regulars at the feeders. I'm also still seeing a few Golden-rumped and Orange-crowned Warblers from time to time on the suet, but not any other warblers. I was hoping I would see some other warblers now that things have warmed up and other species should be migrating through, but no luck yet. I also haven't seen a Ruby-crowned Kinglet in a long time, so I think they may have moved on (they're supposed to only spend the winter here and then leave for summer). I've also seen blue jays and mockingbirds pulling up grass for nests and drinking at the birdbath, but they never eat any of the food from the feeders. I guess they're waiting for my tomatoes to ripen, so they can start pecking holes in them and then leaving the rest of the fruit to rot!

The Vernal Equinox and Super Full Bluebonnet Moon

Tonight we've got a Super Full Moon and then tomorrow is the Spring equinox, when the hours of daylight and darkness are equal. I'm going to try to spend most of tomorrow celebrating and reflecting on the new beginnings of spring, but first here's another update on the garden, which is also passing into a new season!

The fava beans and snow peas are both in full bloom. The peas are even starting to put out pods, while the favas, shown above, just have a lot of black (?) and white flowers on them. I'm glad they recovered from the February snow storm.

Some of the lettuce has been bolting, which I thought was strange, since it's not THAT hot yet. I guess it has more to do with a change in the temperature than the actual temperature itself. I've been pulling out the bolted lettuce and replacing it with more escarole, which I want to save seeds from. I just started eating some of my mature escarole, in the form of Escarole and Beans, but the escarole is very bitter. Is it supposed to be that way? It's not too bad if the dish has enough other flavors to offset the bitterness, but it wouldn't be very good on its own. (That recipe I linked to is good, but better with some lemon juice and PLENTY of salt to cut the bitterness of the greens.)

These are sweet potatoes! I've started snipping slips off the roots I had planted in pots and then rooting them and planting them. It seems warm enough for that, though it's still very dry, and I have to water frequently. I am not looking forward to the next water bill. The rain barrels have been empty for at least a week.

And tomatoes too! Isn't spring exciting? I've got about two-thirds of my tomatoes planted by now. Haven't gotten to the peppers, eggplants, or tomatillos yet, but they'll come next.

Here are my pole beans coming up nicely along the back fence. I planted three varieties so far: Cherokee Trail of Tears, Blue Coco, and Turkey's Craw. I wanted to plant Rattlesnake too, but I ran out of room. Maybe I can sneak some in once the snow peas are done.

A lot of the stuff I planted right after the freeze didn't make it, but I have been harvesting radishes now. In fact, this morning I had radishes on buttered French bread for breakfast. The carrots, dill, cilantro, beets, and turnips all seem to be doing ok too. The cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower never manifested, though, and something seems to be munching on the chard.

Also we've been using the air conditioning a bit lately, which means winter is definitely over and summer is just around the corner. I basically see the Feast of Ostara as the last chance for comfortable weather before it gets HOT. I just wish it would rain more.

Getting a Soil Test

Finally I'm getting around to doing something I've been wanting to do for a while - getting a soil test done. Being in Texas, I'm using Texas A&M's soil testing lab for this. There's my plastic bag of at least two cups of soil.

I'm doing this mostly out of scientific curiosity, and not because I think there's anything wrong with my soil (though I guess I could be surprised). I just thought it would be kind of interesting to get some sort of baseline, and maybe even later have it tested again to see if I've at all improved it (if I do end up living in this house for much longer).

It doesn't cost all that much. The actual fee for the sample ranges from $10 - $25 depending on how many things you want them to test. I am tempted to go all the way and get the $25 test done, which measures pH, N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, S, Zn. Fe, Cu, Mn, conductivity (I'm not sure what that is), and organic matter.

Then this shipping will cost about $5 because soil is heavy. I'm trying to cram it into a Priority Mail small flat rate box. It looks like it will just barely fit.

I didn't quite follow the directions on how to take a soil sample given by A&M. They say to take soil samples from different parts of the area you are testing and mix them up, being sure to get samples from areas of different soil types. I'm more interested in what my baseline soil is before meddling with it, so I was careful to sample an area that I have NOT messed with much yet (by adding compost, fertilizer, etc.), and I also avoided the areas of my garden that have a lot of sand, due to once being under an above-ground swimming pool.

I hope the results are interesting. Texas A&M gives the recommended NPK amounts for various crops, which is interesting in itself to compare different crops (like how regular potatoes apparently need way more nitrogen than sweet potatoes), and should be even more interesting once I get my results.

Full Eagle Moon

Well, the blog has come full circle. With it being February 2011 I've had it for a year. I'm going to try a new thing with my full moon updates. I had mentioned before that I wished there were full moon names that better corresponded to Texas. The only ones I'd seen around were English or Algonquian. Well, a friend of mine has passed on to me a full moon naming scheme invented by the high priestess of his former coven. He only asks that I give credit where credit is due if I distribute the names to the public, so the names I'll be using for the next year all come from Phoenix Moon Grove.

The moons are named according to Zodiac signs rather than the calendar months, and are all named after something Texas-related. Last night's full moon was in Leo, and the sun is in Aquarius, so this year the full moon of February was the Eagle Moon. This name was chosen because this is the time of year that Bald Eagles migrate through Texas.

Personally, this is one of the few names on this list that I don't like that much. Bald eagles are cool, but I've never actually seen one, and I've lived in Texas all my life. I only recently found out that they're even found in Texas at all. From what I've heard, they're mostly found around large lakes and along the coast, which makes sense since they're a fishing eagle. There are even eagle tours you can go on to see them.

I think moons should be named after something more obvious than a rare, seldom-seen bird. If we're going to name this moon after a bird, I would have named it the Mockingbird Moon. I think there should be a moon named after our state bird, and mockingbirds are ubiquitous. You don't have to travel to a lake to find them. There's probably a pair nesting in your yard right now. This is also the time of year they start singing, which for me heralds the beginning of spring. It also goes well with next month's moon, the Bluebonnet Moon, which is our state flower and indicates that spring is here for sure.

Well, whether February's full moon makes you think of mockingbirds or eagles, it certainly feels like spring now after that hard freeze at the beginning of the month. We've had drizzle and light rain for the last few days, and I've had a chance to assess the damage done by that freeze and have been planning out my spring planting.

We haven't had another freeze in a while, so I've had my nightshade seedlings out on the porch all the time. The tomatoes are doing great, but not the peppers, eggplants, and tomatillos. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with starting pepper and eggplant seeds, but they never seem to do that well. Even the Lemon Drop peppers, which seemed to be doing great before, are now shriveling up. I don't get it.

Sweetie the Potato now has some friends. It looks like growing new sweet potatoes from slips is better than cuttings after all. Most of my cuttings didn't make it, so I've been sprouting roots for slips. They grow much more vigorously than cuttings, probably because of the food reserves stored in the roots. In the top left of the picture is the original deformed Vardaman potato that sprouted in the kitchen, and then to the right of that is a Porto Rico, then on the bottom left is a Beuregard, and the bottom right is a White Yam. I have a few more sprouted White Yams and Porto Ricos I haven't potted up yet (ran out of potting soil). The one variety from last year that isn't represented is Nancy Hall. I have two Nancy Hall potatoes that have been sitting in cups of water for at least as long as the other varieties, and they still aren't sprouting. Don't know what the problem is.

Out in the garden, a lot of plants didn't make it through the hard freeze. The lettuce and endive were only slightly damaged.

The leeks, garlic, potato onions, and shallots also seem fine. The bulb onions are another story, but I'm not surprised. I've still never been able to grow those successfully. I'm wondering if I should just give up on having homegrown onions this year, or buy some onion starts from a nursery.

The fava beans and peas were badly damaged, and I was afraid they weren't going to make it, but it looks like at least some of them are re-sprouting. Good! Those were my only seeds, so I wanted to at least be able to save seed to make a big planting of them next fall, even though it now looks like I won't have enough to eat.

Everything else, the brassicas, beets, carrots, chard, etc., all ended up looking like this. Frozen to death. That green you see? Those are weeds. The weeds did fine.

But in the garden, there are always second chances and new beginnings. Looking at the planting guide for San Marcos, it looks like I have enough time to try for another quick crop of cool-weather vegetables, so I replanted a bunch of stuff. I just direct seeded everything this time. The turnips here are already coming up. They sprouted fast in this damp weather.

I've also been doing a little "remodeling", because gardeners never have enough space! After calculating that I actually had more path than bed in the garden, I'm merging some of my beds and expanding them out a little. I don't need that much path anyway, do I? So instead of 15 beds that are 4 by 8 feet each laid out in a 3 by 5 pattern, I'm going to have 5 beds that are 4 by 8 feet, and 5 that are 4 by 20 feet. Now maybe I'll at least have more bed than path.

Snow Day!

The big Imbolc winter storm last week ended up delivering on its promise of snow! Even a little snow is always exciting here in south-central Texas.

Basil was not sure what to make of this dramatic change to his environment.

The birdbath full of ice and snow.

The garden dusted in snow.

Frozen fava beans.

Frozen garlic.

The Dwarf Grey Sugar peas.

When Basil saw I was walking around in the yard just fine, he decided it was safe to join me and do his impression of a miniature Siberian tiger.

Lots of action at the bird feeders, replacing all those calories they burn to stay warm.

The blue agave plant in the front with snow.

Daniel and I decided to take a walk to the nearby park to see how it looks with snow. School was cancelled that day, and a lot of people stayed home from work due to icy roads (Texas is just not equipped to handle ice on roads), so there were a lot of people out there with us. Of course there wasn't enough snow for the neighborhood children to make snowmen, and it was too dry and powdery to even hold together for good snowballs, but at least the snow on the driveways was adequete for snow angles, even if the heads look like they were drawn in.

The juniper trees looked especially pretty with the snow catching in their shreddy bark. Here's one surrounded by snowy yuccas.

The remnants of last year's bristlegrass was also beautifully frosted.

Here's the main trail in the park. By the time we got there it was already covered with the tracks of shoes, bicycles, and dogs.

We decided to take a detour onto one of the side trails through the woods, where we could see more wild animal tracks. Snow is a great opportunity to be astounded by just how many wild animals walk to and fro during the night at the park. First we found several trackways where whole families of raccoons had passed by.

Prickly pear cactus with snow.

Snowy juniper woods.

Here's some deer tracks where it looks like the deer slipped a little as it ran across the trail.

Here's the meeting circle at the park covered in snow, with dog and human tracks going across.

Another pretty snowy juniper.

It's hard to tell the difference between the tracks of a fox and those of a small dog, but after a while I decided that at least some of these tracks were from foxes. Dog tracks would be going along the trail and would be accompanied by human tracks going the same direction, but some of these tracks were going across the trail and back into the woods, and some were going in the opposite direction of any human tracks that were on the trail. Those must have been gray foxes.

We were puzzled by tracks like these for a while. I've never seen rabbits out here, just squirrels, foxes, and raccoons, so I wasn't sure about these at first. Daniel had a track guide, but it wasn't very helpful. It just showed isolated single tracks, where they really should show whole trackways, so you can see the pattern the tracks make.

There always seemed to be two big feet, with two smaller feet falling roughly between the bigger ones. We finally concluded that it's got to be from rabbits running across the trail, and as they run they bring their back feet up to land on either side of where their front feet hit the ground. So now I know that we do have rabbits here even though I've never seen one.

There were some other small tracks that we think must have been squirrels. They were shaped differently than the rabbit tracks and had more prominent claws. It was surprising how far a squirrel could bound, looking at the distance from one set of footprints to the next.

Here's the snowy side trail through the woods. The rocks that protruded out of the snow were coated in ice and very slippery. We both slipped on them a couple of times.

Here's another red yucca with snow. I just think it's especially neat to see the more xeric plants we have here with snow on them.

Here's the big old oak tree right next to the trail with snow on him.

Lastly, before heading home, we snuck over to the pond by the park, and were surprised to see it completely iced over. I guess that's what being below freezing for three whole days will do. The ice wasn't very thick, though. My camera ran out of power at this point, but upon closer inspection we found a couple of places where either a deer or a hog had walked down to the pond, perhaps to take a drink, broke through the ice right near the bank, and then lept back out. See, it's not just us silly humans. The wildlife aren't used to this either. The pond was still very shallow at the break-through points, so no worries that the animal may have gotten trapped or drowned, but they must have gotten quite a chill spashing into that icy water.

By noon or so the sun had come out and was melting the snow, so it's good we went out when we did. It got up into the low 40's, which was warmer than it had been in days.

There were losses in the garden. I'm still waiting to see what will pull through, but several days below freezing, much of that without a protective blanket of snow, has taken it's toll. The fava beans, lettuce, garlic, and snow peas, while damaged, look like they will pull through. Everything else is iffy at best.

Finally, I thought it was neat how the sun melted all the snow in the front yard, except a perfectly birdbath-shaped patch in the shadow of the birdbath. The birdbath itself held a solid block of ice that took much longer to melt than anything else.

A Cold Blast for Imbolc

I have a feeling the groundhog won't like getting out of his burrow tomorrow. Over the last couple of days it's been unusually warm, with highs in the high 70's. I had my tomato and pepper seedlings out on the back porch enjoying some natural light and warmth, and I needed the air conditioning in my car when I drove anywhere.

Well, this morning Winter decided to make a final stand. A big cold front came through just before dawn and temperatures have been dropping ever since. When I woke up around dawn it was in the 50's. Now it's around freezing. The low tonight is forecast to be 17 degrees!

Yes, I brought all my seedlings in, and the citrus trees, and even my potted herbs, just to be on the safe side.

The good news is the front had a bunch of rain before it. Ok, I guess that's not good news if you're afraid of ice on the roads, but it is good news for the plants that I couldn't bring in because they're growing in the ground. Plants survive freezes much better if they're wet than if they're dry. I can't remember exactly why, but I think it has to do with how water cools down (and heats up) much slower than air. Being wet sort of insulates them. That's why citrus growers in Florida always turn the sprinklers on when they get a freeze.

It's supposed to be freezing every night for the rest of this week, and hard freezes at that, so the plants are going to have to stay in the garage for quite a while.

I admit it. I think big weather events like this are kind of exciting. It reminds us of how big and powerful Nature really is.

We have small chance of snow later this week. Oh, I hope we get some! I'm trying not to get my hopes up, though. It hardly ever snows here.