January update

 

Mid January in central Ontario, snowy and  cold.  But yesterday and today are sunny, which makes a huge difference to how one feels and what one wants to do. Taking a walk is pleasant (if it isn't windy) and people were out sledding, skating, cross-country skiing, and ski-dooing.  This is what you do here in winter, and the sound of snowmobiles is pretty constant.  Oh and ice-fishing.  Several huts are out on the lake and people can drive out to them, amazing that the lake has frozen this quickly. It was water a week before Christmas and now the ice must be a foot thick.

Here are the snowbanks from early January, already two feet high.

And the front yard, crisscrossed by my boots and by the deer that come here in the early hours of the morning.  What they eat in winter is a mystery to me. They must be starving.

My amaryllis fell over in the night, as the blooms got too heavy for the stalks.  There are six blooms on it now, gorgeous red and two feet tall. I have velcro-ed it to a vase full of marbles to keep them upright.

And so anxious to get going on spring planting, I jumped the gun and started some winter sowing. I know I should wait another month, but I just can't.  So I sowed two containers with red hollyhocks, one container with pansies and another with snap-dragons. The challenge is to find enough containers, I have resorted to taking them from people's blue bins on re-cycling day.