The 'sleighbells' are jingling over white hills and valleys here today ... but the forecast tells me it can't last long
Well, there is much to report, not all of it gardening. First, the 1998 Toyota is replaced ... I think it had another lifetime left in it had my dad been here to do some repairs, but my sense of it was to 'stop the bleeding', crawl out the driver side window and move on ... so don't expect to see any more ice-storm pics of my dear old van straddling the laneway ditch. My new-to-me vehiclle is awd. 'nuff said.
All is secured around the property - tarped, roped down, bungeed ... and laid in heavily with logs to keep the winter winds from taking things airborne. I am confident because yesterday's windstorm across Southern and Central Ontario knocked out the power for over a hundred thousand homes, yet nothing flew away. Nice to have the power back on following 24 hr outage.
In prep for winter, I had pulled some of that wonderfully flammable bark from a dead pine on the property; in fact filled a bin right by the porch with it. One small piece is a treasure when you need a fast fire on a frosty morning. Fat bark
lights right off a bic and spits fire. Plus, a second bin I filled with bark shed from the now stacked woodpile and a huge score of birch bark - the fuse. Let old man winter storm away ...
Yup, I am lucky ... I get to play with fire every day all winter long! Just for this pic, I set a piece of the original pine bark on top of the birch bark near the woodburner - otherwise flammables are kept well away from fire. Thought that would be good to mention
. Blades - dragonfly and cochise are on cedar round (used to be round), hatchet stands against it, hardwood (dog-chewed) baton is used with knives or hatchet to take off cedar slivers. Some decor, eh?
And under the bark, there remains 'bug art' ...