Good morning, and, hey, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
This week saw a typical Denver-pattern snow fall. On Monday evening the flakes started, and through Tuesday morning we had a total of 4" or 5" inches of pretty, downy snow cover. The drive into work was a bit sloppy, but by afternoon the snow had largely melted off all the roads, and temperatures in the 50s on Wednesday and Thursday finished the job.
However, the next week's forecast portends a less pleasant Denver phenomenon — the Arctic Blast, moving in tomorrow. I'll be doing whatever out-and-about that needs doing today, while the temperatures are hovering in the 50s, in anticipation of highs in the teens; lows going sub-zero; and snow falling over the next several days. The good thing is that while it's that cold we don't get a lot of snow; just a few inches predicted falling off-and-on through the beginning of the week.
This week we've had an Adventure with Christmas Tree going on. Last Saturday was shot as to getting a Christmas tree, but Younger Son — with his typical autistic insistence — was really really really really antsy about GETTING OUT AND BUYING THE CHRISTMAS TREE, even though nothing else in the house was prepped for it, and he had a friend coming over to play late Sunday morning. So Sunday morning we jumped in the car and headed over to our favorite tree lot (actually a locally-owned nursery) to get a tree, telling Younger Son that it would not be decorated until later in the week, and would be stored on the front porch until later in the week when we would decorate it.
Younger Son picked out our tree this year, a lovely 7' Fraser fir. Apparently the pricier trees are selling slowly, as we got a 20% discount on this one — not that the extra $20 would have deterred us from buying Ian's tree. He's very proud of his choice, and announces frequently that he picked out a "really good tree for us this year".
When we got it home, I dragged our giant-ass Christmas tree stand to the front porch; we set the tree into it, and filled the stand with water. On Tuesday afternoon I was going to drag the tree indoors to let it warm up and fluff out preparatory to starting decorating it on Wednesday — only to discover that there was a good inch of ice in the stand. As it was still pretty damned cold, I left it, and hoped that the warmer weather promised for Wednesday would melt it out.
Wednesday I dragged the remainder of the Christmas boxes upstairs and set out the Christmas Moose, draped the garland around the mantle, and otherwise prepped for getting the tree in late Wednesday afternoon.
Except that although the ice had thinned, the tree was still ice-locked in the stand. I filled by big spaghetti pot with water, and set it on the stove to boil, then dumped the hot water into the stand (it's a really BIG stand) — success! With the help of Da Boys we moved the tree inside — still encased in netting — and set it upright in the stand. When the Mister got home he passed final judgment on whether it was straight enough (no, of course not). We made the final adjustment then cut the netting off the tree. Easiest incident of getting-the-tree-straight that we've ever had. Maybe next year the Mister will remember, and not get so hot to tear the netting off the tree before it goes in the stand.
I managed to get an extra half-day off on Thursday, and used it to get lights on the tree. I tell you, this is one mother-fucking well-lit Christmas tree: over 2,000 LED lights distributed from the center to the tips. It also took hours to get it lit this way, and I'll likely never do it again. But the lights —eventually — were hung, and we started hanging ornaments Thursday evening, a process that is still continuing (yes, we have a lot of Christmas ornaments).
The pooties, of course, find the Christmas tree to be a most marvelous kitty toy. Last evening Caligula was one busy little boy, darting around the base, batting at ornaments, chasing Zasu, and talking talking talking about this wonderful thing he had in his house.
That's what's happening here. What's going on in your gardens?