Well, gardens, you know. What to do with an unseasonably warm winter? Play, perhaps. Here’s some orach, spinach and cress I planted around November 20, after adding some gravelly soil and some manure to try to break up the clay a bit. Everyone seems to have been doing great things under the snow. I thought I’d let them determine their schedule, rather than anyone else. I made this image on January 5.

And since it was a crazy summer, here’s some corn salad that seeded itself in August, when I wasn’t paying attention.

Ready to harvest, even! If this weather pattern continues, I suggest most everything getting planted in August, sleeping through the heat, drinking down the fall rains, lurking under the snow and getting a crop off before all the water is gone in May. The grass above is some clippings I laid down in August to try to keep the heat off. It has almost all rotted away by now. And the crew even arrived yesterday. Here are the robins settling into their night quarters.

At 11 a.m. they swarmed the garden, cleaned up the worms, and flew away, followed by a flock of starlings, a flutter of chickadees, two marauding magpies, and about 300 waxwings, all in a whirr.  Big wind last night. An eagle rode in from the coast. By 2 pm, she was riding high over the bluff. A year ago I was shovelling through a foot of snow. And not just me. The management team, as well.

What a powerful shift in the weather cycle.