The snow and ice are gone but the temperature is in the teens. What an odd year we have had weather wise and the coming year appears to be setting up to be unusual, as well. Record breaking heat, record breaking cold, snow storms..... Riku, those are very interesting photo's. It's hard for me to see the fracture, I'm not sure what I am looking at but the implications are frightening. Ann, I wish you had my weather :-) Patricia, you got snow? Wow. My pansies that usually bloom all winter here have fallen over, frozen solid. Bet and Pandy, it's hard to know what to expect anymore! Florence, thank you dear. I was very careful. I just take it slow and hope no one runs into me :-) I agree it is pretty but I'm glad it is gone. Kayla, now that is a snow storm! Stay warm and stay safe. Hope your son shows up before spring :-) Carol

Things are going quite well in our house/greenhouse. WeÂre glad itÂs been a cool summer here in the North East. WeÂre able to keep the greenhouse temps only about 10 degrees above the outside temp. Cabin stays cool  just like any other house, you close your windows/curtains in the morning. Plants seem to be thriving (blossom end rot on tomatoes  weÂve read this common on trellised plants). Bit of an aphid problem (on the hard shelled gourds), maybe IÂll try oak leaves. Now we just let the daddy long legs do their thing Âgood way to spot bug problems (look for the "good bugs" as well as the bad). Trees are doing their job  filtered shade through the morning hours, then starts again around 2:00 p.m. If itÂs a sunny day, we mist and water down the floor (gravel) mid-day. We wrestle with the divide between trying to grow most of our food (a noble, yet lofty goal) and using the space as living space. Next year more space will be allotted for veggie production, but the ping pong table has got to stay. More work to be done (isnÂt there always?)  automatic watering, permanent planting beds, replacing the fountain with a small pond and waterfalls. WeÂve just finished splitting 5 cords of wood for this winter and weÂre already thinking ahead about how to best subdivide the space for overwintering (our aim is to keep the temp at a minimum of 45). All in all, itÂs been a great experience. Here is a link that might be useful: GoodGreen House

Randy, I think y'all will be cold and wet with your fall thru winter precip mirroring last year's, but I think extreme southcentral OK will will be cold and dry, just like last year. We're supposedly in a 'neutral' La Nina/El Nino phase, but I still think last year's weather will repeat, at least the precipitation part of it. I hope you have a LOT of firewood ready, because I feel the cold coming at us. I feel it "in my bones" and I can't explain it, but my instincts are usually right. Do you know how we know that 'winter weather' has arrived here? We have a very dear, simply lovely older couple (I think he is 97 and she is 95) a couple of miles up the road from us. They heat their house with a wood-burning stove. Every year since we've been here (except last year), on the first really cold night, we get a fire call to their house because the smoke alarms are going off and the house is full of smoke. Everyone just flies to their house (luckily, one of our volunteer firefighters lives right next door) and to the fire station. Usually, before the firefighters can even get to the station, the next-door-neighbor firefighter reports he's on the scene, has the couple safely out of the house and they just forgot to open the flue, hence the smoke in the house. You don't know whether to laugh (with relief that they are safe) or cry (because, maybe one day, it will be a real fire). I will say that our firefighters DO NOT treat this as a case of 'crying wolf' and respond slowly. And, they usually roll a fire truck to the house just in case, and tend to use the Positive Pressure Ventilation Fan to blow all that smoke out of the house. Just the other day, my DH was joking that the reason this couple didn't have this 'smoke problem' last year was probably that they forgot to close the flue the previous spring. Anyway, that's how we know cold weather has arrived.....the fire call that isn't a fire. Dawn

I like snow, too, for all its inconveniences, and it's good for the land here. "Sotto la neve, pane." Under the snow, bread. My Teas have continued trying to bloom after the couple of inches of snow they got a week ago. We're forecast to get great quantities of freezing rain on Sunday and Monday, which should put an end to all attempts to flower for the rest of the winter, not to mention smashing everything. It hasn't happened yet, though. I'm waiting with interest to see what will take place.