Frost Knot

A snarly knot of frost from Monday. So much frost it's hard to tell where it begins and where it ends.

Garlic

Those extra weeks of warm weather were kind to the garden however. We just pulled up carrots I planted in August, and cut down the lettuce from in the plastic greenhouse just last week. Mom said it was all delicious since I don't eat any of it I wouldn't know. The garlic is huge, even though it was just supposed to sprout a bit before winter. It got a heavy head start. Hopefully, that won't screw up what I get out next year.

December Sunrise

Just a chilly sunrise in December. Even with dawn being only at 7 AM I've been missing it for a few weeks. It's just so freaking cold crawling out of bed that early is almost painful. Those weeks of extra warm weather in November messed me up good.

Grass with Beard

More frost from Monday. There were several very pretty patches of extensive frost. The grass almost looked as if it were trying to grow hair. I say grass, but these were leaves from muscari bulbs.

Frost and Leaf

This morning's frost was quite nice in some places. The rock wall had some very nicely grown areas due to holes between the rocks funneling cold air. I'm fighting a sore throat flu-like affliction, so missed a few posts last week.

Fire

Sometimes I wonder about ways other than gas to heat my house. Fire certainly seems like a nice primal way to do it. It's freezing here so have some fire.

Last Year Frost

I did go out this morning, but there wasn't much impressive in the frost. Mostly short, no where near as ornate as it was one day last year.

Lights

Looking back at what I was doing today last year apparently I was experimenting with Christmas lights.

Butterflies Can Be Creepy

Butterflies don't look very pretty when you get as close as I like to get. Mostly hairy and scaly. Maybe I should zoom out a bit, but personally I like the details.

Holiday Cards

I spent the afternoon making holiday cards for family members. It only took four or five hours of running each card through the printer twice, and then going through making sure all the cards looked good then attaching the photos. 96 cards in all.

Ladybugs

The MOS butterfly room had ridiculous numbers of ladybugs prowling about. I assume they had some pest outbreak and are trying to control it naturally, but there were tons of the little guys trundling around.

Butterfly

Yesterday I went to the Day in Pompeii exhibit at the Museum of Science in Boston. Since our membership will be expiring at the end of the month I went to the butterfly exhibit one more time as well. The one above wasn't well labeled, as all the labeling sheets only showed the butterflies with spread wings and this one refused to open up.

Sunset

We've been having some amazing sunsets recently. Kind of convenient that the sun goes down so early right now, though I can't wait for the days to start reversing back to longer.

Black Jewel Orchid Buds

I expect the cool temps in my house helped cause this. I have two separate plants now in bud, and it's been years since this happened last. My huge christmas cactus is also putting on a nice show. I guess this is an upside of being too cheap to turn the heat up yet. The reptiles have their heat lamps and their room is about 10 degrees warmer then the house, but the rest of us have been cold. I did cave a few days ago and turn the heat on for the bird, who had taken an impromptu bath in her water dish and was soaking wet. That was a nice warm day.

So I guess I need a greenhouse so I can keep chilling the plants when I finally cave on the heat.

Cat Bed

I'm on a little reorganization kick. My goal is removing clutter and adding space to my house. Getting things into drawers or cabinets so I don't have to dust is an extra goal. I moved my bed and finally have space in my bedroom for my bed, two dog beds and a cat bed without tripping all over them. The cat bed is actually stuck inside my nightstand. The nightstand had two drawers but the bottom one was useless (read full of junk), so I removed it and the drawer slide and put the cat bed in there. She seems quite happy about the arrangement. When spring rolls around I'm going to take it outside and alter it with both a paint job and some structural changes to the top (glue on cork). Next up is reworking my desk so I actually have a work surface, storage and my computer will be a bit better protected from dust, dirt and dog hair.

Black Jewel Orchid Buds

So I spotted this in my kitchen yesterday. This is a larger piece like the plants in this post about propagation. I expect cold and light deprivation have something to do with bud formation. My house is at the coldest I've kept it in several years (barring the reptiles). today i checked the main plant in my bedroom, and same thing, two buds. I'm quite excited as it's been years since I had flowers. The Christmas cactus has also been putting on a record show since I spent the last month sitting in the reptile room writing (not keeping the lights on in the living room).

Bee Balm Seedhead

As you may have noticed I finished NaNoWriMo. Now I just have all that pesky editing to do.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

50019 / 50000
(100.04%)

I Finished!

50,019 words. Let the editing begin.

Ferny Frost

Another from yesterday. Some kind of wood fern I transplanted for its own safety.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

44078 / 50000
(88.16%)

Frosty Milkweed

I went outside and found this pretty thing.

You may notice no word count today. My laptop ate roughly 600 words yesterday, so I finished my 2000 words, but ended up with 1400 or so actual words. I'll be filling that back up today.

I lied

I did go outside, but didn't bring a camera. That leaves you with more reptile pictures. Here's my bitey crested gecko who recently got downgraded to a 10 gallon tank due to space constraints in the room. On a positive note, I just passed 40,000 words.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

40026 / 50000
(80.05%)

Spike

I promise I'll go outside this weekend, as soon as I finish my writing.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

34024 / 50000
(68.05%)

Crested Gecko

She set herself up so nicely. Too bad I didn't have the better flash on hand. The in camera flash sets off pre-flashes which get crested gecko eyes down to slits.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

32044 / 50000
(64.09%)

It's a Dog Week

I'm busy writing, so here's my mother's dog, who is no where near as old as this picture makes her look. She's the youngest of the bunch. I won't post my sister's dog, the few of her in focus came out looking a little evil, sorry Deuce.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

30034 / 50000
(60.07%)

Leafy Dog

And of course here's Toka with a nice seasonally appropriate background.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

28036 / 50000
(56.07%)

Boomer

I just realized Boomer hasn't been on here before. I had a seasonal photo shoot with the dogs over the weekend (hot dogs and four dogs gets interesting) and Boomer looked good. So here's my second dog who gets much less face time since he's so much more laid back.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

26005 / 50000
(52.01%)