Without so much as a first frost, we got our first snow this morning. Just a light sprinkling, and looks real pretty against the fall leaves. Guess I'll have to pull my tomato plants down, I've been putting that off for some reason (I guess because the leaves haven't yet turned black). Time to also start gathering all my tiny scraps of paper with ideas scribbled down and organize them for next season.

And today is really my first hard frost, so late this year. I think I had about 9 months of frost-free temps this past season (late Feb to early Dec). Not balmy, but also not freezing. Weird. The funny little skiff of snow we had in early Nov didn't really freeze the ground and my porch thermometer registered almost 40.

Me too.
I take out the trash today, I think I will finally put the pumpkin into the recycling bin. I can't recall ever having my pumpkin still happy on the front porch, with flowers, on Thanksgiving! Yesterday I still had annual flowers blooming, like begonias and Red Salvia and Snapdragons. Done now probably.
It was lovely yesterday. I went out and hacked away at my blackberries, the never-ending story.

I had calendulas blooming yesterday.

Yes, first hard frost this morning.
The mountains are stunning this morning.

Couple more days of darkness, then we turn the corner with the solstice. Can't wait!

So gloomy. Turned my lights on at 2pm yesterday.
But, I am busy starting seeds. I was in a seed swap, and I got about 150 kinds of seeds! Many of them can be wintersown. I have 29 jugs, most will have 4 kinds of seeds in them. But even figuring out which ones can be winter sown is a lot of work. Yesterday I used "The Deno Method' and started some in plastic baggies, that need either cold moist stratification in my fridge, or warm then cold. I even have a few that want warm, moist and dark. Those are now on top of the fridge under tinfoil.
I am totally out of control, and y'all will be the beneficiaries this spring, as my yard does not need 150 new kinds of plants... I also did just a few autumn cuttings, those are doing fine too.
I have seeds for routine things (Helenium), "iffy" things (mostly for my sister on Camano), slow difficult things(Cyclamen hederifolium) and natives (Madrone tree). I got other trees too, like Redbud and Hamamelis. I also saved seeds from plants in my yard, and will try them. Like Parahebe catarractae 'Miss Wilmott" and Parahebe perfoliata, both do well with neglect (my trademark).
I still have some flowers blooming, can you believe it!

Two holiday events done, two to go. Can't wait for all the hooplah to end. I think next year I'll travel during December and just skip it all. I'm rather a scrooge.

I hope all my gardening friends are safe and not involved in the nasty train derailment. What a terrible accident. Condolences to all who have been impacted by this tragedy.

Yes it has created an impact for so very many of us. So darn sad.

Bonehead said:Two holiday events done, two to go. Can't wait for all the hooplah to end. I think next year I'll travel during December and just skip it all. I'm rather a scrooge.

We're almost with you on that. One of the things my wife and I enjoy is we don't do annual family gatherings. That's helped by the fact neither of our families do that anymore (middle-aged baby boomers) and we have no kids. We hate hotels, long drives for just an overnight trip, sleeping on couches, and love our own bed. We enjoyed both Thanksgiving and Christmas to ourselves with dinner at home with just the two of us, go for a walk, then hot toddies while watching some Netflix movies.

It was nice to get a few inches of snow for Christmas. We were both off so we didn't have to drive in it. My wife was ecstatic, she loves snow!

Are you getting much snow down south? We got 2-3 inches early in the week, that's been slowly melting but still a definite presence, and now today we are getting more. I like it. Filled the bird feeders and I've never seen such fat birds before; they apparently did fine on their own while we were gone the past few months. Haven't seen a robin yet, lots of chickadees, sparrows, and juncos. One huge thrush.