So, It's Not Just Me?

 I've spoken before about the surprise to me that peonies seem to volunteer everywhere in my garden and of the volunteer peonies that have thrived here.  Until this week, I've felt like either a deep, dark gardening secret has been hidden from me despite all the reading I've done, or alternatively that I'm just blessed with a peony-fertile climate.  Just recently, however I've seen that the volunteer peony issue can plague others in the area.  I was taking my first walk of the new spring in the K-State Gardens at lunchtime the other day and came across this obvious aberrant peony growing out of the first tree peony to bloom there.

It is likely, I suppose, that since a tree peony is grafted to the roots of another herbaceous peony, the above break of a graft understock is not so really so surprising.  I'm used to rootstocks growing up and being a nuisance in grafter roses.  During the same lunchtime constitutional, however, I also observed another herbaceous peony rising from this Itoh hybrid, which I highly doubt is grafted.  Itoh hybrids are usually propagated by division according to my reading.  I predict that if I watch while the dozens of peonies at K-State bloom, I'll see other wild children, exposed by their flowers after hiding inside more similar foliage clumps.

Regardless of the wanton explosion of unplanned peonies at the K-State garden, however, my own volunteer peonies continue to crop up.  Just this week, I noticed this small seeding trying to grow next to the Knautia macedonia and Monarda of this bed.  

And I've lost count of all the volunteers that grow for me.  In this vertical line of three distinct peonies, I think that only the center one was planted and the other two are volunteers.   And then there is the volunteer peony with the burgundy foliage growing nearby (and pictured below);  it bloomed last year with a deep red, single flower.   It is worth keeping for the foliage alone.

Should I now run across the city, screaming warning about the unplanned peony population explosion?   Should I be interrogating this advance guard about their alien invasion plans or likely non-terrestrial planet of origin?   Both seem like a slight overreaction given the innocuous and welcome presence of a plant that doesn't smother nearby neighbors and will survive the worst things Kansas throws at it.  No, I think I'll just keep nurturing these babies along.  At worst, they don't have good disease resistance and don't make it.  At best, they'll survive for generations and be my legacy, my lasting joke on those who garden here long after I've become part of the landscape rather than a gardener of it, as they try, and fail, to identify what peony varieties I planted here.

Disaster Averted?

ProfessorRoush has a question mark on the title because I'm not entirely sure yet, but the 4 inches of wet snow last Monday seems to have hardly bothered the plants, and any real damage probably came in the next two nights with lows of 27ºF and a really hard frost one of those mornings.  A late snow does make some pretty pictures, however, even though I and this pink crabapple didn't appreciate it like we could have.

I know that you're wondering how all the plants fared, so I'll try to get right to that.  I'm actually pleasantly surprised that anything at all is left, as green and leafed out as things were, but almost everything came through with minimal damage.   Yes, it whacked the 'Ann' and 'Jane' Magnolias, but they were on their last moments anyway.   The variegated iris shown below has not even blinked, if anything, shining brighter today than ever.

I think a lot of the damage was limited by the heavy blanket of very wet snow insulating all the plants and then quickly melting off.   Fantastically quickly as a matter of fact.  The picture at the left was taken around 7:20 a.m. on the morning of 04/20/21.  The picture below of the exact same view was taken at 6:38 p.m. the same evening. 

Fernleaf Peony

Fernleaf under snow

And the plants recovered just as quickly.   The picture on the left is of the fernleaf peony and tulips covered by snow, and on the right, just a few nights later.   That fernleaf was blooming fully beneath the snow and it never looked back.  You can click on them if you want to see them larger.

And the lilacs, the lilacs that I was so worried about?  Well, here are the row of lilacs tonight, and the exact same bloom from 'Declaration that I showed you in the blog entry from 4/20.  I think the cold seems to have lightened the blooms a little bit, but they have retained their fragrance and held up remarkedly well.   Stepping on my garage pad tonight, in the middle of a brisk wind, is like stepping into a perfume factory.  

Last, but not least, I'm sure you're all wondering about my beloved 'Yellow Bird' Magnolia.   Before the snow, I thought it was going to give me the best show yet, the blooms just ready to peak on the exact day of the snow.  Well, I can't say it came through it unscathed, but I think it will survive to bloom another year.   The leaves that opened early are a bit frost-damaged, and the blooms are discolored up close (see below), but it seems to not be nearly so damaged as I feared.  And that, my friends, is my summary for the entire event; a near-heart-attack-inducing late spring snow that wasn't nearly so bad as I feared.   Thank you, God!

'Yellow Bird', today

'Yellow Bird', today.

Cardinals in Bloom

I took these out the kitchen window this morning at 7:15 a.m.   I know it's unusual for ProfessorRoush to shut up and lose the commentary, but this real set of lovebirds can speak for themselves.  There's nothing like an image of a male and female cardinal pair in a blooming redbud tree to start a day right.

Almost....

'Yellow Bird' Magnolia

Spring almost happened.  So fleeting, crushed dreams in a few early morning hours. Redbuds, magnolias and lilacs in full bloom on 04/20/2021.   I'll post more later.  For now, the pictures will have to speak my devastation.

'Declaration' Lilac

The Maiden

Fringed Tulips

Bella

I See You!

See, this is why ProfessorRoush can't have a nice, simple garden filled with perfect plants and idyllic moments.   Aside from minor problems like runaway fire, punishing winds, late snows, early freezes, deep winter cold, and searing summer sun, it is things like these that try my soul.  Do you see it?   Click on the picture to enlarge it and look again!

At roughly 6:45 a.m. this morning, after the lovely Bella had been outside, explored the premises, and "watered" the yard, and after I had eaten my morning cereal, I looked out the back window to assess the morning and saw this lovely rabbit still-frozen among the daylilies.  It must have seen me step up to the window because it didn't move in the minute it took me to retrieve my phone and compose the shot, nor did it move until after I stepped away.  Well, presumably it moved after I stepped away.  Maybe it's still sitting there for all I know.

This is probably the same lagomorph, or a member of a tribe of furry-pawed thumpers, that eat the first daylilies that come up each year, nipping anything green to the ground until the shear mass of spring foliage overwhelms their gluttony and stomach capacities.  And likely the same creature that nipped off the first sprouts of my beloved 'Yellow Dream' Orienpet lilies in front last week.  Nothing, it seems, is sacred from these monsters, except perhaps the sprouting peonies.  I don't know what it is about peonies, but the fauna in my garden, deer, rabbits and mice all, leave the peonies alone.  I would be grateful, but the invading horde probably is executing a demoralization campaign, allowing my hopes to raise and then be inevitably crushed by a late-May storm that flattens the peonies and my dreams in a single night.  Do other gardeners believe the native fauna and climate are both conspiring against them, or is it just paranoid little-old-me? 

I would arm myself with a suitably-scoped assault device or perhaps a Sherman tank and take these out, but speaking of weather collusion, there are bigger battles and disappointments on my horizon.  Currently, my lilacs and redbuds are blooming at full glory and beauty and the forecast two days away is for a low of 27ºF and snow.   

Sigh.


 

Burn Casualties

ProfessionRoush had a fine spring day for a nice neighborhood burn yesterday.   My neighbors and I marshalled our energy and the considerable mobile fire-fighting forces arrayed amongst them and set off on a dew-covered morning to clear the prairies of weeds and invading alien plants through the ritual spring burn.   With almost no wind, the dampness from the recent rains, and a beautiful sunny day awaiting us, we were blissfully at ease to hold a nice burn.

And then, everything changed.  I believe the first mistake was that the fires were going so well, ProfessorRoush's neighbor opened his first beer before we were on the downside of the day.   Early alcohol is always a bad harbinger of things to come.   And fairly early on, after all the tasks were assigned and the backfires started to protect the distant neighbors and greater Manhattan from our exuberance, we received a call from the county that burning had been banned for the day (after we earlier had permission for the burn).  A little too late for us, the forecasts had changed to show brisk winds later in the day.   

We had completely burned the perimeters and I had safely burned around my garden and moved on to help a neighbor by 11:00 a.m.   The last neighbor's 20 acres took us almost as long as the other 140, with extra care taken as the winds were rising and we had a horse barn and arena to protect.  And then I looked up about 2:00 p.m. to see smoke coming from my back yard.

Unbeknownst to me, a little fire had made it into the grass mulch near my grapevine lines earlier and a helpful neighbor had put it out.   But, a little prairie-burning tip here from an old guy here, if fire gets to your mulch, whether hay, grass or bark, there's no putting it out.  You have to isolate the area to bare ground and let it burn itself out.  Hidden beneath a dampened cover of mulch, that little spark festered and bided time until the wind rose.

And then it scooted across the mown back yard and made it across the close-mown grass into one of my rose beds mulched with straw.  It's the bed on the right in the picture at the top.  Thank Heaven's grace, it was only one because I told Mrs. ProfessorRoush that if it was all of them, I'd have bulldozed the backyard and been out of the gardening business.  I'm not ready or spiritually willing to start completely over again at this stage.

I'm not worried at all about the grass between the house and my lower beds.  I had been contemplating burning it anyway because it had been 4 or 5 years since the area last burnt.  In 2 weeks this area will be beautifully green and I'll post another picture then to show you.  The daylilies and perennials of the burnt bed will regenerate.  And a couple of roses in this bed had already died or were ill from Rose Rosette and needed cleaning up.    There is enough Puritan in ProfessorRoush's soul to place considerable faith in fighting evil by burning.  But I'll mourn a little bit for 'Banshee' and Marianne' and "Chateau de Napoleon' until and if they regenerate.   Time will tell and life goes on.   Maybe I'll learn a new cure for Rose Rosette disease if one of the sick roses regenerates in fine shape.

And....I'm Caught Up.

Just like that, a perfect weekend of weather, and ProfessorRoush has caught up with spring.   There's always something magical about Easter weekend that brings the spring garden together.   Early or late, the plants seem to follow Easter's timing and so, evidently, does ProfessorRoush.  

Other than a few hours low of 25ºF one morning this week, spring has been a lamb this year, gradually warming up to today's 82ºF high and full sunshine, with few frosts or, even worse, late snows to set the plants back.  My Star Magnolia (Magnolia stellata) bloomed perfectly this year, not set back once by the weather and I'm already missing its warm scent.   All of the bulbs are up and out, with daffodils at their peak and the beautiful blue Scilla siberica and blue and white Puschkinia scilloides pictured above and the grape hyacinths to the left have delighted me for a couple of weeks and are just beginning to fade.  Both the Scilla and Puschkinia self-seed and spread here, and I now have Scilla in most of the beds around the house after planting them in only two little spots.  Thankfully, Scilla is easily controlled here, an unusually well-behaved and hardy plant in my garden.   Most plants that thrive in Kansas are rampant thugs, seemingly surviving on an overwhelm-and-kill-the-neighbors' philosophy.

To catch up this weekend, I purchased, transported, and spread over 70 bags of mulch bark in front and back, cut down all the ornamental grasses, fertilized everything  already green including over 100 daylilies, put up new Purple Martin houses, mowed around some early fast-growing edges, cut down the decrepit last-years-thrip-stricken Emerald Gaiety euonymus and sprayed them so they could rejuvenate, removed a 3-year-old dying Japanese maple from the front, spread another dozen hay and straw bales as mulch, sprayed the columbines to prevent Phytomyza aquilegivora (leafminers), planted 50 new strawberry plants and set up the system to water them, and probably did a few smaller chores I can't even remember. 

The photos above and left are of my now cleaned and mulched back bed from two sides, spoiled only by the serpentine hose I used to wet down the mulch (high winds are forecast here for Tuesday.  The prairie is still brown, but you can see the life beginning in my garden beds.  Notice the daffodils blooming here and there, the clumps of daylilies frantically growing, and the peonies coming up?  I can hardly wait for this coming week.   Sometime in the next two days, I'll entertain you with pictures of my 'Ann' and 'Jane' Magnolias, both just coming fully into bloom, and maybe, just maybe, 'Yellow Bird' will show it's pretty face this week.   The several days of recently warm weather has the entire garden growing on steroids right now, with redbuds, lilacs, and tulips all starting to break bud out there as I write this.  My soul is on vibrate mode, excited for a so-far normal spring.  

Commence Operation Daylily

Here in Kansas, the weather seems to be turning, and when the wind stops blowing for brief instances of time, ProfessorRoush can get outside,experience fresh unmask-filtered air, and see what he's been missing all week as he drives into work in darkness and comes home too tired to visit the garden.  As you can see, my Magnolia stellata burst into bloom on Friday, the first spring shrub to show up this year.   The petals are a little brown on the edges and that alluring musky fragrance is barely detectable in the nippy air, even without the mask, but it's a sure sign that spring has arrived. 

I was able to take advantage of a productive few hours on Saturday, the sun just warm enough to allow me to shed a coat and the wind just quiet enough to let me pile up some debris, so I frantically attacked the back bed, ripping out the dry remnants of peonies and daylilies.  Those piles build up quickly, as you can see to the right, but only two trips with the sheetbarrow down the hill to the burn pile and they were gone.  

This bed, as you can see, now looks much more tidy, as tidy as I'm ever willing to make it.  I'm not a fanatic about picking up every stray strand of debris; the Kansas wind and God will do the rest.  But it is clean enough that the fully-blooming daffodil clumps that live here in a full southern, unshaded exposure now look much happier in their upgraded surroundings, reflecting back the sunshine in their cheery yellow faces.

As soon as the bed was cleared, I also executed a long-held plan to fill this area pictured to the right with daylily divisions from other areas; the most beautiful daylilies of my garden.   Formerly, this area held an overgrown and suckering bayberry bush that never caught my fancy, and a struggling lilac that the bayberry had strangled nearly to death.  Resolving last year to fill it with daylilies, I had staked out the best of my daylilies as they bloomed, the larger clumps all over the garden that were ready for division.  Twenty or so divisions later, an equal number of holes dug, a little water sprayed around, and the deed was done.  You can see one of the staked daylilies in the picture above.

Why daylilies, you might be asking?   Well, an old gardener, like ProfessorRoush, is also a wise gardener.  The fleeting gardening whims and indiscretions of my youth are far behind me, set aside and subdued by the realities of sore hands and thighs and a hundred scars.  To be a wise gardener, one becomes a simple gardener, and no plant creates beauty and requires less care on the Kansas prairie than a daylily.  Plant them, watch them bloom, and each year  it requires only a few seconds of the removal of dead debris and they're renewed again, a cycle of gracefulness and self-sufficiency that I can't turn down.  As I age with my garden, I turn to daylilies more and more often to provide color and carefree joy in the hot Kansas sun.  I'll show you this area again, later this summer, so we can enjoy the "fruits" of my labor together.

I'll Take It!

This is how Spring arrives in Kansas; not slowly, surreptitiously, slinking into sight, but with a sudden screeching shout of "Here I am!" and "Hello, it's me again!"   I was thrilled last evening, arriving home just before sunset, to glance out the back window and see this bright yellow face turned up towards my window, welcoming me from winter into heaven.

Three short weeks ago, it was -17ºF one morning, the ground rock hard and unnurturing, the air as dry and crisp as a potato chip.  Two Saturdays past, I got outside for the first time this year, spread a little straw down where the mulch was thin, trimmed a couple of fruit trees, and prayed for warm weather.  Last Saturday, I officially kicked off the gardening year, weeks behind, clearing two beds, spreading more straw, and protecting the just-growing ornamental onions from ungulate nocturnal predators. But still, Spring I felt, was but a distant dream.

This week, however, the temperatures rose rapidly into the 70's for several days, the daffodils shot up from nothing, and lilac and forsythia buds swelled.  With colder weather forecast tomorrow, I didn't expect to see anything actually BLOOM, but there was my garden, faithfully feasting on the sun's rays and defiantly leading the way to a new season.  Not to be outdone by their taller, brasher daffodil friends, the sky-blue scilla, left here, and crocus, below at right, were also blooming near the path, leading me to happiness with every step.

The next four days are colder and rainy, but I don't care.  That thawing ground out there is bone dry and could use a week of rain.   I'm renewed now, confident that somewhere, just around the corner and another week away, Spring waits for me.  I'll meet you there soon, my friend, loppers and Hori-Hori in hand, heck-bent to feel the damp earth in my hands and the sunshine on my face. 

Who's Tired of This Crap?

Seattle, up there with the most snow in 50 years, are you tired of this crap?  Texas, covered in snow and freezing temperatures, how about you?  Upper Midwest, reaching streaks of record subzero days, are you about done shoveling the white stuff?   Well, guess what, ProfessorRoush is not near done.

I'm not near done because, with classes cancelled tomorrow, I can use it as an excuse to pick up groceries and supper and come home still early enough to see the sun cause a snow rainbow at 5:06 p,m.  I took this picture from the window of my Jeep just before I turned onto our road.  How rare to see a partial rainbow here in the dying light of a snow day; rarer still on a snow day where there was no snow predicted at all.  With all our science, with all our computers, we still can't predict snow 12 hours ahead.

I'm not near done with this crappy weather because exactly an hour later, at 6:06 p.m., my neighbor called me on the phone to make sure I looked at the sunset, a sunset with a magnificent pillar of fire leaping from the sun to the sky.  I hung up on him so I could snap this picture on my iPhone camera.  So that, gracious be God, I could capture the heavens and earth in golden embrace as the clouds turned pink in embarrassed glory.  I'll trade a so-so day of 20ºF temperatures for another subzero morning if I have any chance at another picture like these.  

And I'm not near done because I want, frankly, all the global warming fanatics to reap the whirlwind.  I've heard it up to my ears with global warming causing unstable weather patterns and cold days instead of hot ones, and I'm flabbergasted every time I hear that we've only got 20, 10, 5 years left before global warming climate change caused by industrial pollution cow flatulence ruins the planet.  Guess what; the Arctic still has an ice cap and Polar Bears are not yet extinct.  I haven't yet had the July Kansas sun cause blisters on my arms, but I'm pretty sure if I stuck my hand out the door for 10 minutes right now, I'd be pecking at the keyboard tomorrow with fists instead of fingers.  Tell you what, how about an experiment?  Let's all take off our clothes this May and live outside in the back yard for a year and see whether we die of heat or hypothermia first?

Ewwww...strike that thought.  That mental image is not a pretty Kansas picture like the ones above.  How about we all just live and let live, turn down our thermostats and our emotions right now to save respectively a little energy for our neighbors and a little angst for ourselves, and just calm down and enjoy the sunset for awhile?  

Super-Sunday-not

 Today is definitely not a Super Sunday.  For a Kansas gardener, it's a Mediocre Sunday, and if the gardener decides to curl up and find a good book, it could possibly become an Okay Sunday, maybe even a Fine Sunday, but at 7ºF outside at 12:00 p.m., it's not going to become a Super Sunday, football frenzy or not.  

I had been wanting one decent snow this winter, enough to make everything clean and smooth and white and I still haven't seen one.  What's on the ground now is just a little dusting, a little frosting on the prairie cake; just enough to need sweeping off the sidewalk but not enough to get out a shovel and struggle.  The primary dampening of my spirits, however are the result of the frigid temperatures.   We've had a mild winter, hardly a Zone 6 climate up until now, but yesterday somebody shut the freezer door and the temperatures plummeted alongside this dry snow.  More pertinently, there are some highs-in-the-teens and lows in the subzero temperatures predicted over the next 10 days, back to a true Zone 5 climate that we haven't seen in several years.  Last year at this time I was already clearing perennial beds on 55ºF afternoons.

For the record, I will watch the football game this evening, although I really don't know or care who I'll be rooting for.  Yes, it would be nice to see the long-suffering and local-to-me Kansas City Chiefs win another behind Mahome's spectacular passing accuracy and their daunting defense, but I also wouldn't mind watching 43 year old Tom Brady show Patrick the difference between how an old bull and a young bull approaches the field.  On the other hand, Brady was born in 1977, the year I graduated high school, so neither one is old enough to really appreciate the old bull and young bull joke genre that I'm alluding to.

Also for the record, yes, I cheated on these beautiful forced tulips that are currently in the middle of our kitchen table.  The local grocery store had these ensembles of glass, greenery, and glory for $9.99 the other day, priced low enough for even my miserly soul to consider worthy of a sawbuck.  Seven tulip bulbs to brighten Mrs. ProfessorRoush's Valentines day and keep me in her good graces, and then later I'll plant them in a pot with good soil and move them to the garden this summer.  I usually force a few bulbs on my own, but this year I just haven't found the urge or the time.  When these fade, however, I'm now inspired to go cut some forsythia and flowering almond branches to bring into the house and force into bloom.  Maybe the spring colors can provide us a Super Sunday later in February.     

Aubade Appreciation

 In an attempt to expand his horizons and improve on his lack of culture and grace, ProfessorRoush has, for several weeks. received a "word of the day" email from schoolofwordplay.com.  To be honest, I have no idea when I consented to be on this mailing list and I have already been finding myself less than enthusiastic about having to delete that email every morning among the 200 emails I get most every day.  In fact, just a few days ago I contemplated hitting that "unsubscribe" link and then moving the whole kit and caboodle into my Junk folder for good measure. 

This morning, however, I'm glad that my procrastination turned this nuisance into a positive note, because the word of the day for today was "aubade", pronounced as oh-bahd.  For the general unwashed among my readers, "aubade", which I did not have as part of my vocabulary until this morning, originated in the late 17th century from Spanish and French influences, and it is defined as "a poem or piece of music appropriate to the dawn or early morning."

My introduction to "aubade" eerily has coincided with an automatic re-post of the photo above from my wife's Facebook page that popped up earlier this week.  Now folks, ProfessorRoush is a little dense at times, and often slow to discern when the universe is trying to nudge me in a certain direction, but I can see the obvious hand of fate as well as the next fellow, and I decided perhaps I should post these photos here on my own blog. 

I, myself, took these pictures of our house from the road in front just almost a year ago (1/6/2020), at 7:39 a.m. on my way to work.  Pre-pandemic, they do have an innocence about them that tugs at me now with nostalgia, the calm pink sky giving way to the relentless yellow sun still just below the horizon, tranquility captured in the click of an iPhone.   

This isn't an eloquent poem proclaiming the beauty of that morning, nor have I composed music sufficient to convey what this picture means to my soul.  Rodgers and Hammersteins "Oh What A Beautiful Morning" from the musical Oklahoma comes to mind and is likely the pinnacle of music in regards to worshiping the sunrise, so I am too intimidated in its shadow to even try.  You'll have to just accept that my aubade today is simply this reverent post, remembering a morning when America was still innocent and our people unmasked and serene. 

Oh My P. P.!

Okay, the first rule of 2021 is that we don't talk about "the year prior."  We leave behind here all reference to the misery and chaos of the past few months and any bad feelings or thoughts associated with it.  And, for the record, the title of this blog entry does not mean what you were thinking it did.  You obviously stayed up late on New Year's Eve and have carried over your hangover and mental remnants of debauchery from the closed doors of our locked-down society onto my innocent intentions.  In complete gardening naivete, I meant "Oh my poor peonies."  I can't believe you thought otherwise.  

We won't talk about last year's miseries, but we need to be prepared that our gardening tribulations didn't magically end with an arbitrary agreed-upon calendar change. The photo at the top was taken on Christmas Day last when I realized to my shock that my fernleaf peonies were already birthing into the world, months ahead of prudence and safety. These poor darlings are waking too early, yet another victim of the seasonal time change.  Or  global warming.  Or it could be normal and I've never noticed it.  But it was only Christmas Day and I had peonies breaking ground!  Ridiculous. They should be still sleep, like this reading, dozing old man in my garden, carefree for the cold world around.  My peonies should still be snug under a frozen crust, protected and nurtured by the brown earth around.  Oh, my poor precocious foolish darlings.

And those little red nubbins weren't alone.  Nearby and also coming out were these more-blanched spears of what I think are a Matrona sedum, and doubtless I could find more elsewhere if I looked.  But ProfessorRoush doesn't go looking for trouble when he can avoid it.  If I don't know they're out and about, I can rest easier under the illusion that my garden is also at rest, hibernating against the frigid days still surely to come.  If I stay out of the garden in body and mind, I'm almost positive my garden cannot change without me.  If I don't search out problems, they won't visit me, just as COVID stayed an ocean away last spring while we ignored it, correct?

Well, it was the thought that counts.  I can't change the seasons, nor the cycle of death and rebirth, anymore than I can change the clouds rolling across the Kansas prairie.  I can only await, anticipate, and accommodate to whatever comes in 2021.  It was only a number change, people, the world still moves along its same prior path.  We must perish or adapt, just like these peonies in the coming cold.

Christmas Morning Musings

 Christmas has come at last!  Not soon enough in this discombobulated mid-COVID world or, do you think, too soon and too fast come round again?   ProfessorRoush is between extremes this morning with no clear path to decide.  Christmas, on the one hand, means we're closer to January 1st, closer to saying goodbye to the hell-borne year of 2020, closer to the moment when we vaccinate enough of the population to return to normalcy, or whatever passes for it.  On the other hand, I'm acutely feeling the time-spun wisdom that the years get shorter as we grow older.  Said another way, how did the past year go by so fast and why do the weeks seem to pass quicker every year?

It's a quiet Christmas this year at the ProfessorRoushs', and our Christmas tree is much simpler than in years past. We left off all the ornaments made by the kids and left off the cloth ones handsewn by me with surgical patterns when I was learning to suture back in the days when stegosaurs cut their toes.   Mrs. ProfessorRoush wanted simple white lights and red bulbs this year and who am I to argue?   I know what side my Christmas yeast rolls will be buttered on. Besides, it'll be quicker and easier to take down next week.

It's cold and frozen here, but sunny as all get out.   No gardening in the foreseeable future, but the spring equinox is coming and I'll busy be clearing out beds in a few short weeks, long before the ground thaws.  My sole contribution to the garden is a new mealworm-specific bird feeder I purchased and placed up yesterday.  I've never had mealworms out before but I'm trying to help the bluebirds out as best I can this year.  It didn't take me long to learn that mealworms don't stay put very well when the Kansas winds rock traditional feeders and those gross little dried-up carcasses are pricey.

My friends, I'll leave you after this glance out my back window into a sunny and snow-free Kansas Christmas morning.  Who needs a White Christmas anyway?