prelude to spring in a minor

looking across our yard toward the neighbor's house

"A" as in apocalypse, that is.  Or "iceapocalypse" as Updraft called it.

No- no actual apocalypse here, and none expected.  Maybe a bit of hyperbole on the weatherman's part.  But it felt like one two nights ago when I woke out of the middle of a dream about tornadoes to hear a loud crash followed by a rumble and feel the whole house shake.

I killed my lawn and lived to tell the story

the before picture.  a forlorn-looking expanse of bluegrass/ryegrass lawn with generous portions of creeping charlie.

This is a story told mostly in photos, because there's really no other way to tell it.  These are old photos, take in the spring and summer of 2009, the year we killed our front lawn.

The previous year our street had been under construction pretty much non-stop, with new sewers, gas lines, electric lights and new  curbs all being put in at the same time.  It was a massive construction project, wherein the city of St. Paul updated everything on and under our street in one fell swoop.  It was a horrible, dusty summer, and the whole neighborhood stayed indoors most of the time.

2009 was also the year that our kids turned one and two.  Our house was a chaotic mess of noise and diapers and annoyingly cheerful kids' music CDs.  It was also the year that the economy really tanked, and I spent more time that winter at home with the kids, as my work had asked me to not come in as often for a while.

When spring came, I needed a big project to get me out of the house. 

winter's subtle beauty

hoarfrost on leonard messel magnolia

touching the frost on the garden bench

This is the hardest time of year.  Winter is dragging on.  Everywhere it's either gray, crusty snow, or re-frozen glare ice, or, if you're lucky, slush.

I remember reading that the ancient Romans took days off of the month of February to add days to July and August, so that Julius and Augustus Caesar could have longer namesake months.  I think that maybe they also just wanted February to be over more quickly. 

from rice cooker to solar oven in three hours

the results of today's tinkering

It was seasonably cold today- meaning that it was much colder than it has been for most of the winter. Ice on the windows and some fresh snow on the sidewalk.  I wanted to go outside to play, but the kids just started being a bit sniffly and coughing (also seasonable) and it's never a good idea to take them outside when that's the case.  Even if it is an old wives tale that cold weather will bring on a cold or flu, I have a wife that believes very much in that conventional wisdom, and I'll be in trouble if I take them outside with me.

So, since Gita isn't feeling very well either after her fourth chemo session, I mostly stayed inside, played with the kids and looked for ways to stay sane.

carrot wine? why not?

a nice golden-yellow carrot wine must, fermenting

I made my first batch of wine in my dorm room at the U of M.  I used a gallon of apple cider I bought at the corner market, bread yeast, and fashioned an air lock out of a cork, which I drilled a hole through vertically, and a  foot of surgical tubing, tied in a pigtail, and secured to the cork with some wax.

I guess it was innovative, and at the time my only goal was procuring some alcohol, as is the case for most if not all college freshmen.  I got alcohol, all right, but not very good tasting alcohol.  In retrospect, it was badly oxidized, with the added benefit of the off-flavors that come with using bread yeast rather than wine yeast.  It worked well enough for me to try it again, though.

mysteriously mild midwinter moon

full moon through the neighbor's oak tree

I went for a walk on my lunch break through downtown St. Paul today.  It was like every other walk I've taken through the downtown-- in early October.

I wore a jacket and hat, but once I started walking uphill in the sun, I lost the hat, and after a while the jacket too.  There I was, taking a nice walk in sunny, pleasant weather, wearing only a dress shirt and corduroys in the middle of January.

seed reviews- 2011's results, 2012's hopes

Nero di Tuscana kale- still going strong, Piracicaba broccoli in the foreground

 I started this blog in March of this year, during the long, cold 2010-11winter that seemed like it would never end.  My first post ran down the list of seeds I had just ordered from Fedco and what my hopes for them were.

Now it's the end of the year and it's time to take stock of the garden in 2011.  Everyone else is making lists and counting down things from the last year and predictions for the future.  I'd like to write about something other than cancer, and this is the second-most compelling thing to write about that I can think of at the moment.

and some rays of hope

bare evans bali cherry at early sunset

I love working outside at twilight this time of year.  A couple of weeks ago I was putting away the rain barrel, shutting off the outdoor tap, taking up the fencing around the garden and a bunch of other little 'shutting down the garden' odd jobs.  I was working hard and sweating a bit, and noticed it was getting dark.  I looked up, and there were some crows gathered in the cottonwood tree, cawing.

a dark time

candles on our glass dining room table after dinner

This time of year it's hard to get any sun.  The sun sets by 4:32, and will set at 4:32 every day until the 17th of December, as observed by the Updraft Blog.

It's a dark time of year, and a good reason (as well as the holiday season) to hang lights and put shiny sparkling things in places where they'll lift your mood.

This year, we have some additional darkness.  For our family, that is.

in praise of the urban heat island

tomato, post-frost

In the outlying Twin City suburbs- Blaine, Somerset, Waconia, Jordan- there was a killing frost on September 15 this year.

In our St. Paul yard, it came October 22nd.