Winter Garden

 

January and February are traditionally the coldest months of the year in Michigan, but in comparison to what February has been throwing at us, January was an amateur. The lowest we saw last month was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 degrees F (-7 C), but that didn't feel very cold because the air wasn't as dry then.

But now that we've had sub-20 temperatures for over a week now and the humidity in the air all escaped to Mexico with the geese, it's feeling bone-chilling. And the wind isn't helping. Add the wind chill to a bit of the cold, dry air now and you're racing back indoors to warm up by the refrigerator!

Towards the end of this week, I gave up trying to scrape the ice off the driveway and just reminded everyone to be extra careful because the once-pretty snow which had delicately covered the ground with a thick blanket of unblemished powdery white was now a shiny downward-sloping ice rink just waiting for an opportunity to take the grip from your shoes and the wind from your sails. I had spent over an hour trying to pry the ice from the concrete but it refused to give way; and the constant pressure of the cars riding over its surface had compressed it all to near diamond hardness, refusing the pathetic attempts of even my large ice axe.

I'll give it one more try tomorrow when the sun comes out, hoping that it might melt a little bit of the top layer and give me something to start with, but I'm not hopeful. And while there's no point in sprinkling salt on top of it, since the salt loses its effectiveness somewhere around 28F, I might be able to throw some sand on top just to give the cars -- and feet -- a bit of extra friction.

Mother

The plants in the house haven't been doing all that well, owing mostly to the fact that I'm not a particularly well-informed gardener (and in truth quite a lazy one), but the strawberries seemed to be really struggling this last month. I didn't know whether to blame the lack of sunlight, the infrequent watering (or over-watering), the infertile soil (although it was working fine last summer), or just the overall lack of a green thumb; but then I read an interesting article about strawberries which said that they are supposed to go dormant during the winter. In fact, the article said that if you attempt to keep them going & growing over the winter, you'll wear them out, using up all their precious nutrients that they'll need once Spring comes around again. Boy! did I feel stupid. Can't run counter to Nature, you know.

Junior

So I took both of the strawberry plants (one called Mother and the other called Junior) and put them out in the garage where they will be able to go into hibernation safely.

I hope it works, and they come out in the Spring all ready to grow some serious fruit. They weren't exactly doing wonders this past Spring, probably owing to the fact that we kept having to move them to avoid the eager jaws of our visiting critters, but I'd sure like to get a few of them going so we could get a good crop this year. Cheryl really likes her strawberries! And I like to watch her eat them!

Other than the extremely cold weather, it's been a quiet week. And it passed much too quickly for my taste, especially as I've been falling behind at work again. Mary had a couple days of Training at school and found out through the grapevine that in her absence her students were wandering disconsolately past her classroom door, wondering when she'd be returning. Apparently they have grown rather fond of her. And Deb is still in the early stages of Wonder and Delight as she experiences all the weird little challenges that go along with her condition -- including that feeling of constant exhaustion coupled with exhilaration that will only get weirder and more wonderful as things progress.

Cheryl and I worked on an Israeli salad last night for a luncheon she was attending at school today. We must've cut up about a million tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and onions. It took us from about 7:30 until nearly 10 pm and we were quite tired when it was done (especially since we had to do the cleanup, too!). But apparently it went very well today and everyone -- there were between 40-50 teachers and staff in attendance -- was able to enjoy it. Some even asked for the recipe! The best part was, there was enough left over for us to toss in a little chicken and make a dinner salad tonight. That dish is always a winner here at the house.

Then Cheryl also had a Women's Dessert meeting over at the church tonight with a speaker and a lesson and lot of good fellowship, so even though she was tired from the week of work she had a bit of a recharge. Tomorrow she's heading out again to spend time with some more friends at a local pastry shop.

I'd go, too, but there's this icy driveway to deal with, and think I'll spend some time "breaking the ice" with my good old long-time buddy, Mr Ice Axe. And maybe by the time she gets home, it'll be to a clean driveway..

Speaking of driving (in a kind of roundabout way), we had to replace the battery in the Rav today because it has been acting sluggish on starting lately. And if there's one thing you do NOT need here in Michigan in the winter-time, it's a sluggish battery on a cold morning when you're already running a bit late.

I can't believe the prices of batteries these days! And while the prices have gone up, the warranty period has gone down! Didn't they use to say batteries were supposed to be good for five years? Now they're only warranting them for 2 to 3 years.

I wonder how long those Tesla batteries are warranted for?