Desperately Seeking Santa

No photo, but what a sight!

Last night after the wood stove was really putting out some heat, I stepped out on the deck for some fresh, frigid air and heard a funny rustling sound, and out of the mist came a big antlered buck. He's probably the one who rubbed so much bark off the willow trunks. I made a little what I hoped to be encouraging sound but he skittered off into the darkness.

Lots of Baking on a Snowy Day

Molasses turkey and bell cookies, sticky icky hard to handle dough. Two loaves of whole wheat bread, gorgeous lovely to handle dough. We made BLT's for dinner and found the Two Vines cabernet was a perfect match. I have a votive candle going in case the power goes out, but so far, just lots of blinking off and right back on again.

The other day, before it snowed, I was out doing some pruning and discovered a very strange thing. At first, I thought someone had run into this very shrubby willow with a truck and scraped off a lot of bark, but then I realized it had to be done by an animal. No beavers around so it must have been the deer, nibbling away at the bark. I checked with Joe, our very excellent and knowledgeable neighbor, who just had to come over and take a look. He said he'd never seen anything like it before but it must have been the deer who had been around recently. Then suddenly he knew! It was the one with the big antlers! It's rutting season and they like to rub their antlers on trees and get the scent from their sweat glands out to attract the females. Apparently, they don't ever do it so close to a house, but these critters feel right at home around here. After all, we've planted all these special tasty treats in our gardens just for them!

Late Harvest

Oven roasted the large carrots and beets. Ate the small carrots raw. So sweet! The carrot tops look funny because the deer had been grazing recently. They seemed to like the beet leaves, too. I'm still getting tomatoes from the amazing plant I bought from the little freckle faced red haired boy at the Kingston farmers' market. I'm hoping he shows up again next spring.

Watched an eagle try to lift a big bird, maybe a grebe, out of the water this afternoon. It made several passes and grabs but didn't have the strength to make a capture. The poor prey didn't survive. I wonder what shape we'd be in if we had to grab our food while it was still alive. I'd be a vegetarian for sure!

Blooming November 15

It's cold and stormy. A few snowflakes fell south of here last night. It's dark from 4 to 8 but !! things are still blooming. The strawberries in the basket that I mentioned in the previous post are the most astounding, but I have yellow snapdragons, deep russet mums with yellow centers, purple petunias that refuse to quit, some leggy gaura and even some English peas that the deer enjoy nibbling are still putting out white blossoms.

What's New

Someone thinks he's getting me up and away at the break of dawn tomorrow but it'll take a crane to get me out of bed that early. Although, it might be worth the effort to catch a glimpse of the deer who has been eating up every rose in sight and who completely devoured my beautiful heuchera "Coral Bells" the night before last. Does and wobbly legged fauns are on the prowl, day and night.

"7 Keys to Great Paintings", chapter on value patterns has my head spinning. It's like a punch in the stomach seeing what I've been missing in my work. I'm excited about the new perspective.

Kingston Art Gallery is Slug City these days with more than 100 hand-painted, fabric-wrapped and beaded beauties awaiting the big day 8/8/09 when they will be hidden and then hunted by officially licensed slug hunters. This is really happening. It's even been featured on Evening Magazine.

We had a big salad tonight with spinach, peas, radishes and different kinds of lettuce all from my little garden! This amazes me, a novice vegetable gardener. One little dried up pea seed produces a huge big vine with lots of pods containing many peas. Something to ponder. Likewise, the new book, reviewed in the Sunday NY Times, "The Evolution of God." Sadly, the author does not embrace Zoroaster but is spot on in other ways, tracing the changing personalities of "God" according to cultural advancements on Earth.

It's already tomorrow and I have a big day of shopping for toilet and sink in the city. I'll probably toss and turn in eager anticipation of such an event.