It's raining, it's pouring. It's been a long time since we have had a long steady rain like this. The pollen is being forced down out of the air and many of the flowers are falling off the bushes. Everything bloomed pretty early this year: the azaleas, and the cherry trees.

All the surviving trees have leaved out. The county planted a large number of trees in the medians of the big roads nearby. Survival rates are correlated with the nearby trees, so you will find one median with all surviving trees and a nearby median with all dead trees (you will not find as often a mixture of living and dead trees in the same median). I suspect that the county will remove the dead trees sometime this year. They may not remove the branches of the ones that are alive low down and dead higher up. It is pretty difficult to work on those trees, just because the roads surrounding them are so busy.

I have planted a mixture of a type of beans, peas and corn. The peas came up first, then the corn is starting to come up fairly well now, and I can just see the beginnings of the beans. I took the easy way out, I spread the seeds and then added more soil on top, instead of digging them in. I also let them be planted fairly close together, so I may (or may not) thin them to get closer to the ideal spacing. I am planning to grow some morning glories around the corn, once it is well established (and I have done any thinning I wish to do).

I haven't mowed my yard yet this year (and it will probably be harder now that the grass is taller). I have weeded out quite a few things. I tend to recognize one type of weed, pull it anywhere I see it, and then move on to another type of weed. One of the weeds that I haven't messed with yet is a very spiky weed. Another one is the poison ivy.

My compost bin/heap is full of decomposable bags of kitchen refuse and weeds. I am completely out of leaves from last year. I've turned the top layers a few times, but I have not dug deep or moved the bin. I can definitely see that the bags from the earliest times are composting fine. I got the bags as a Christmas gift, so they are only 4.5 months old. It is still not enough material for hot composting; in a small house like ours, there will never be enough material for hot composting. I do worry that the weeds will go to seed, even though I try to get them in there early enough that there aren't seeds yet. The heap is very near a pile of sticks from a branch that we had to take down.

We still need to get those sticks out front for yard waste pickup. We also have a tree to take down in the front of the house. It's been leaning at a angle since Snowmegeddon. We need to finish the branch in the back; we were working under a time constraint to get it down before Hurricane Irene came through.

Our fence could use repair or replacement. One of the gates will not close. I don't really know how to fix that myself. The ground has come up under it. On the side of our back yard, we have the ground sloping rapidly away into the fence. It would be nice to add more soil there and flatten it out and use the fence for terracing.

We have the day off from school, due to a planned teacher-work day.

I'm planning to get a bunch of paperwork done for PTA. I have two children in the house and they are watching TV, specifically Avatar: The Last Airbender TV show.

I missed the deadline for the DELE exam in November. The next time it is offered will be May. So I will have plenty of time to prepare. I still need to make contact with the correct person at the Embassy of Spain to make sure it will be offered in Washington DC. If it won't be offered here, the next closest location is NYC.

I scattered some carrot seed today in the garden. According to the 7-day forecast, there will not be frosts for 7 days. Again, these should be able to tolerate a bit of frost.

"Each winter, on average, your risk of frost is from October 21 through April 16.

Almost certainly, however, you will receive frost from November 8 through March 26.

You are almost guaranteed that you will not get frost from May 7 through October 3.

Your frost-free growing season is around 188 days."


That's for my zip code.

Missed it. The ice storm came through with rain, instead of ice. So we are doing well here; didn't even miss school today.

We missed much of the first several storms, got hit last week, and didn't get hit this time. Much of the snow is melting.

Well, if you like overcast winter days.

I am hoping for a lot less snow this month. I have many commitments all over the county, and I don't drive that well in bad conditions.

I'm sure there is another destructive storm looming in the Midwest, waiting for us to lower our guard.

Good for the plants.

I put out more peas. I removed raspberry shoots from the part of the garden that I would like to use for other things. I transplanted two of the shoots and composted the rest. I am watering back there.

I *need* to put out something for the grapes to climb up. They are small right now, but if I put it off too long, disaster will ensue.

I dug up some/many dandelions from my side yard. There are still many to go. I am drying them on my sidewalk so that they will be fine to compost.

Last night enough snow melted to allow the bushes in the back yard to free themselves from the weight of the snow. There are one or two broken branches in the back, but the vast majority of each bush has survived. The bushes in the front are still weighted down by snow, but have one or two shoots poking through. The bush in front that attracts all the bees and is closest to the cars is half-free of snow. The side near the driveway is free from snow.

The maples have had visible buds for a while, but now the beech tree does also. The buds of the beech tree are long and thin, either white or pink/red.

The pin oak still has dead leaves on it.

There is no visible lawn anywhere on our property. Some of our neighbors can see their lawns already.

Melting is proceeding.