January Thaw

Not my favorite time of winter at all.  Things get muddy and slushy,  the snow looks dingy.  The air warms up just enough to tease of spring that is well over another month and a half away.  Our temperature right now is 53 degrees F with bright sun and cloudless skies. Pretty when you look up...icky when you look down.

 However,  the seed catalogs are coming in like mad.  I got my first one before Christmas,  Pinetree Garden Seeds.  I tend to order from them the most.  Their prices are great, lots of variety, good customer service, quick shipping and especially important- they are local here in southern Maine.  So i was happy to get the catalog so soon. Another nice surprise was that Kitazawa seeds sent their catalog early this year.  Normally they are one of the last to arrive.  By then its a little too late to order.  I know i could go online, but i like to plot my orders by catalog and go online to submit my orders.

I don't tend to order flowers anymore since my focus has been on edible landscaping in fruit or berry form.  I know there are a number of perennial herbs,  but after filling all my available space with those dwarf trees and medium shrubs, there really isn't any other spot to put them.  The only non-edible flowering plants i kept are my old fashioned bleeding heart and some stargazer lilies that hubby keeps mowing over.  If he can stop hitting the lilies long enough for me to find them, i'll probably dig them up and give them to my mom.

On another note...   i have been currently noticing a large population of robins lingering in the area.  Where i grew up- less than 15 miles away,  we didn't see robins in the winter.  It was always a big deal to see the "first robin of spring" pecking for worms in the recently thawed earth.  It was taken for granted that they all flew south for the winter.  Experience bore it out.  Since moving into a more towny area i have noted that they apparently  don't all go south. So i looked it up.  Robin Migration .  Seems what i have been seeing is not unusual. Based on what i read on that link,  things make sense.   Our town's streets are lined with trees that produce tiny crabapple-like berries,  a small park about two blocks away is lined with ornamental berry trees.  We have many ash trees as well in the neighborhood. Looks like the robins have plenty of food for the winter over here.  At my youthful home, the pickings must be slim.  Not many ash trees are usual.  Its mostly pine, oak, maple, spruces and other pine trees. The fruit is all in the summer,  blueberries, raspberries, choke cherries, etc., but nothing that lingers through the winter.  Anyway,  i thought that was interesting.

Well i'm signing out for the evening.  Most of my entries take the whole day, picked at a bit at a time.

I have a nice fantasy novel to sit back and read.  We installed new flooring this weekend and i'm sore from the effort.   I'm going to take some valerian, read and call it a night. :o)