After days of temps in the teens and single digit wind chills, the veggies (see before and after photos) aren’t the only ones feeling limp and floppy!  I can’t do my usual walking or gardening, so I have to get creative indoors.  Since my bone density is dangerously low, I may have to relent per doctor’s orders and do resistance training as well as more weight-bearing exercise.  Blah.  Winter.

Some things remain consistent, though.  Half the kids don’t show up at the Shabbat table, due to various mental breaks and dramas.  I even halved the already halved challah recipe, so it would get eaten.  High school clubs expect kids to somehow show up at the crack of dawn on a cold Saturday morning, meaning Avdi can’t get any sleep.  How do they expect people to function like that?!

Nature metaphor alert.  It’s a hazard of my field and bias I guess.

Resilience is modeled and demonstrated all around us, if we just behold how some plants rebound after a freezing snow.  It’s the exceptions to the decimation of the majority that stand out.  They’re bent and chilled, but not defeated or killed.  Even when it’s dark much of the time, beams of sunlight make it through the gloom and illuminate the moment in front of us.  You see where I’m going with this.

S was home with a bad cough yesterday, but in good spirits and restless.  Here he is being his undiscouraged silly self.  I myself can’t be deterred from propagating things down in my “lab”.  The more lifeless it gets above ground, the more driven I am to grow things underground.  Still with the metaphors…

If it has to be in the 20s and teens, it might as well go ahead and snow respectably, which it’s done for a couple of days now.  The kids were back to school (reluctantly), and I was glad to be back to my normal work routine, cleaning up the house, and finding plenty to do all day and evening.  I cooked dinner while various errands were run.  Avdi and E even went night sledding on “Suicide Hill”.  Avdi, Jess, and I agreed the time off was good for all of us.

I guess the garden is finally winding down, except for some of the hardier fall greens and herbs.  Of course I’m already planning the garden and landscape for next spring in my head.  I like to imagine the native seeds I got in the ground just in the nick of time stratifying naturally all winter.  Meanwhile I’m always coming up with plants to propagate down in the “lab”.  I think my blood is part chlorophyll.

My extended snowcation, in conspiracy with the evil weight scale, compelled me to get creative finding ways to exert myself productively, rather than sit, eat, and watch stuff.  I walked the equivalent of to Avdi’s to music, cooked a pile of veggies, read another political history article, and reorganized my bathroom storage.  Desperate times!  But the gang will be on their way back shortly, so I should be rejoining general population soon.

When Avdi gets rare time “off” to sleep, work, and go out with friends, I get to be “snowed in” (see photos) and try to make the most of my imposed decadence.  I sleep in more, actually cook and eat my own food, read, write, have teatime, watch movies, get around to procrastinated chores (I actually vacuumed, and dusted the fans), and do a little self-examination.  Sort of like what “retired” people are supposed to do (?).

Today’s exercise was about building/maintaining cognitive capabilities and resilience.  Apparently I’m average to just above or below average on mental sharpness/memory skills.  Not a huge surprise, but not where I’d like to be.  The one big takeaway is that making the move from previous situations to STL is making all the difference in healthy mental, social, and physical essentials.  Also it’s never too late to learn adaptation skills.  Something we’ll all need in 2025.

With the kids away in MI, the usual routine doesn’t apply.  For one thing, we’re catching up on sleep!  The house only requires one clean-up, then I’m done.  The garden is mostly frozen.  It snowed in MI, so I know the kids are happy.

For a change of pace, per Jess’s request, I baked challah rolls to contribute to our TG dinner at her house.  Avdi made one of his famous British bread puddings with bourbon sauce.  It was a warm and friendly gathering of her family and us.  Even shy Pixie the cat joined us, and not for the food.  Eric’s smoked turkey was the best any of us had ever had.  Then everyone (not me) as usual retired to gaming all evening.  I just watched cluelessly.  At one point there were four people on four screens playing three different games at once.  Just a normal evening.

So today is erev Shabbat, but again, not the usual deal, with the kids gone.  I guess I’m on staycation.  I hardly know what to do with myself!  No cleaning up after everyone.  No waiting for kids to come home from school.  Whatever will I do!  I know what Avdi will do–sleep in and get work done!

Note my new Converse hi-tops!  I finally had an occasion to wear them.

Maybe dire winds of fascism bring my Inner Propagatrix out from dormancy.  Hmm.  At any rate, I spent yesterday prepping the rest of the sites and sowing the remainder of the partially-stratified native seeds in their respective places in the yard.  I used red cardinal flower, mist flower, widow’s cross sedum, and passion flower.  (Also prairie smoke, previously planted.)  And now we wait, perhaps years, perhaps as soon as spring, for signs of life and hope (to beat the crap out of my poor metaphor).

Once that was done, I dug up all the elephant ears, cut off the frost-floppy leaves, and placed the corms or tubers in the warm prop station to dry for a week or two, then store them in peat moss in a cool place over winter (similar to the sweet potatoes curing process).  I saved and potted one of the plants and brought it home to keep the bird of paradise company (in my mini-climatron).

Now all I have to do is wait until the veg garden (still going strong) freezes for good, then start prepping the soil for next year with organic material (leaf mulch, compost, etc.)  Similarly, I hope to prep and use additional beds in the yard for the larger veggies next year.  Other beds are slated for various kids’ flower gardens.  I already have all the seeds for all the above.

Yes, it’s my evil plan to take over the outdoor world of Avdi and persuade it into submitting to his and the kids’ [my] bidding [mandate]!  We’ll see how nature feels about that.

This metaphor has run its course, so here are some exhibits.

The days and nights are downright chilling, intensified by high winds, but if it can’t stop flowers from blooming and greens from thriving still, then it won’t stop me from walking over and gardening, dammit!

It was dark and gloomy as I spaded and hand-cultivated and raked a new bed along the whole edge of the woodsy area out back, and planted half the length of it with native flower seeds I had been temporarily stratifying.  I used swamp rose mallow, queen of the prairie, dense blazing star, and Missouri ironweed, all of which can grow 5 feet tall in varying degrees of sunny, wet conditions and eventually produce gorgeous displays of large pink and purple flowers en masse.

It’s one of those situations where you might have to be patient for a few years, but totally worth the wait for pollinator benefits and human enjoyment.  It gives me an “excuse” to keep going.  As long as I’m not freezing to death, I’ll continue planting more natives all around the yard, then let nature take its course all winter.

After wearing myself out, I did my usual cleaning up the house, heating up dinner, and then helping S pack for the kids’ trip to MI to visit their Mom for TG, while Avdi, who was feeling sick, alternated shuttling kids to things and trying to rest.

The huge leaf is sycamore.  The bright orange flowers are calendula.  They just keep getting better.

Erev Shabbat was almost back to typical, other than both “squirrels” staying in their room nesting the whole meal.  They’ve been under a lot of stress lately.  One day we’ll remember this period as “the good old days”, before the fascists took over.

It’s getting colder, and I’m trying to acclimate and adjust so I can continue to walk over to Avdi’s as long as possible.  The veggies and herbs that prefer cool weather are filling out and flourishing.  Nature just keeps going, and I try to do the same.

One day it’s t-shirt weather, the next you’re bundled up in layers and the wind chill is like 38º.  It’s MO.

Apple let me back in, so that’s something.  I guess I’m not a cyber-terrorist after all.

Here are some more flowery photos from before the long dark ice age.