Winter is here

The past three or four days have made it clear that winter is here. Cold, cloudy and blustery. Downright miserable most of the time.

I'm glad I got the fig tree well wrapped last week. I'm pretty proud of that wrapping job. The thing actually looks rather neat out there with the green bucket on its head. Tomorrow or Friday I need to get a bunch of leaf mulch from down by the maple tree to stack around the base of the fig in order to keep its roots from freezing.

I'm also glad I have plenty of really prime wood stockpiled this year. Thus far I've been burning mostly trashy stuff since it hasn't been all that cold; but temperatures are getting to where I need to burn the good hardwood. I have plenty of apple, cherry, mulberry and walnut stored up.

In other news: we have two herons hanging around down by the creek pretty much all the time. It's hard to believe those lanky birds can keep themselves warm enough around here during the depths of the winter; but they certainly do.

And in still other news: Rick the bowhunter came by the other week and introduced his fiance, who is also a bow hunter. The two of them have been hunting regularly on the property. I hope they take out a half dozen of Bambi's relatives. Our usual cross bow hunter has not appeared so it may be he has finally gone to the great hunting ground in the sky. He's had cancer for the past couple of years.