In other years we had the Hartford Flower Show to pull us out of winter hibernation. And, to help us put the finishing touches on our garden plans. I sort of miss the madman running around talking to his plants. Did he really think they would scream, “Take me! Take me!” when he asked who…
We love watching the winter wildlife. As we hit “publish” on our last post, the madman looked at me and said, “Today feels like a bobcat day.” Not sure why he would even think that – it’s been a while since we last saw one. But, as I looked out in the garden, lo and…
The Persephone Period is about to end. The madman and his plants will get a daily dose of 10 hours of sunlight (I wonder what kind of a celebration we’ll have this year). For the past month, he’s been looking at seed catalogs and his garden journal. We are getting through the dark days of…
2021 is here and the madman has been loving the warmer than normal temperatures. He’s not fretting about frozen pipes. He’s not running around in knee-deep snow. In fact, the last precipitation that fell was liquid and he didn’t have to drag out his friend John Deere to help get us out of the driveway….
2020 is almost over. Two days left in this strange and challenging year. The madman says so long 2020. He is not sorry to see the end of it. Nor am I if truth be told. But there are better days ahead. The Solstice Pig has told us so. Eight days ago, the…
The sun is creeping towards its lowest point in the sky. The madman is just waiting for its shadow to hit his Solstice pig. That signals the shortest day of the year. The sun will rise at 7:12 a.m. and set at 4:22 p.m. If you want to follow it, here’s a chart. As…
Today is December 1. Thanksgiving and Black Friday are behind us, as strange as they were this year. So now we get to look forward to the 2020 Christmas season. “You know, with everything else going on I haven’t even thought about Christmas,” the madman said. Come to think of it, I really haven’t…
As you all know, 2020 has been a rather strange year. Our garden was our salvation. Remember, a couple of weeks ago we were sitting around the Samhain fire reflecting on the garden. In the last blog we mentioned some of the things that made it good. But, the madman can always find some…
Reflections with a Samhain bonfire. The madman was so excited – a nice rainstorm and a bit of snow hit us late last week. Sure, he was glad to see the drought begin to ease. But, more important, rain meant he could have his Samhain bonfire without burning down the woods. And, a wonderful…