Notes From Zone 4

I’ve updated two of our galleries to version 1.4.1 in preparation for starting to run banner ads. I’m very pleased to report that following the directions worked. I’m also pleased to report that version 1.4 is a nice step forward from version 1.3. The code is much cleaner, and much more of the styling has been moved into CSS. It certainly makes maintaining the site much easier.

After almost a week of waiting, all three blooms on my amaryllis are open. I’m still giving all the credit to the worm casting tea. I don’t follow any of the rules for caring for this, such as an enforced period of dormancy, and still, this is my third year of happy blooms, so I

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Another eighteen or twenty inches fell on us this morning. This time it was a heavy wet snow, and I’m absolutely dreading shoveling the deck. We didn’t cut down our own Christmas tree this year, for the first time. Usually, we make a point of picking a pretty day to go hike in the woods to find the best tree. This year, though, I didn’t want a big tall tree, so I didn’t see the point of going out with the big storm coming. We got a little tree for $10 at the nursery in Alstead, and I’m very happy with it.

We headed over to just north of Concord today to pick up the new bucket for Frank’s tractor. He’s very psyched to get it, and we’re not quite sure how he’s going to get it off the truck and onto the tractor. But that’s a problem for another day — today, we just brought it home. I wanted to give a great should out to the wonders of worm tea. This is the third year on my amaryllis, and this year it’s huge, tall with a very thick stalk, and has triple buds on it. So far, only the one is open, and it’s beautiful. Worm castings are magic stuff. Frank noticed today that the pond heater seems to be doing the trick. There’s a little hole in the ice and snow right where the heater is. I wonder how cold it can get and when the heater won’t be able to keep up? So far so good, though.

Well, the forecasts for this storm ranged from six inches to three feet, so I was prepared for the worst. I think we probably got just over two feet. It was very windy, though, so there was a lot of blowing snow and very high drifts, so it’s really hard to tell. It was

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Winter showed up with a bang today. Blustery and cold, and it snowed hard for much of the morning. Brr. It didn’t take that long to shovel, though, so maybe it was only four inches or so. When we left to play bridge tonight, the car thermometer showed a cold eight degrees. I wonder if this will be the snow that sticks through the rest of the winter? Our new bird feeders have been doing quite the brisk business. We knew a storm was coming with all of the increased traffic out there. We think this little guy is either a hairy or a downy woodpecker. There have been three or four very similar guys hanging around lately. Isn’t he beautiful?