Outside

Confirmed Coyote Sighting

On Christmas Eve day, we had the first confirmed sighting of a coyote in our yard. Unfortunately, I couldn't get my camera out in time, so this picture was copied from the City of Eagan's website (Eagan is a suburb of St. Paul).

Spouse and I both thought we had seen coyotes in early December, but neither of us was sure. About a month ago, Spouse said he thought he saw a coyote while walking the dog, but it ran away quickly and he wasn't sure. Then about a week after that, I saw what I thought was a coyote running across the icy pond, but it was dusk, the lighting was poor, and I couldn't tell if it was a coyote or a fox.

But on Monday, the coyote decided to run across the yard and pond in full daylight with eight people watching. I've seen mangy brown coyotes in Phoenix, but this Minnesota coyote looked a bit different. The animal we saw on Monday had a very fluffy coat, mottled gray and black, with a white bib down the neck and chest. In fact, he looked a bit like a wolf but according to a January, 2007 posting at the US Fish and Wildlife Services website, the gray wolf's territory stops just north of the Twin Cities. Whew.

Photo from the City of Eagan website.

Winter Solstice

It's the first day of winter, and last night we received a fresh dusting of snow to make it look pretty.

I realize my posts have continued to be few and far between, and when I do post, they're pretty short. But I'm working through some "stuff" that I think I'll be ready to write about after I've had some time to reflect - and I don't think I'll have much reflection time until after the holidays.

Plus, with the days so short and me working all week, I never get to take any pictures until the weekend. Which is a bummer because I got a nifty new camera this past fall (which I also haven't taken the time to write about - I'm getting way behind).

A Cold Morning

When Spouse took Brix out for his walk this morning, it was -6F. Here you can see Brix wearing both his jacket and boots for the first time. He was not amused.

 

Garden Cleanup - A Memoir

Because I was on a blog hiatus due to my shoulder surgery, I didn't write about cleaning up the garden back on October 27th. Writing about it now seems a little strange - I have to really scour my memory for what happened that day - but I wanted to note it because there were so many vegetables still in bloom.

Here are the tomatoes on 10/27, the day before a killing frost. I guarantee that this is the latest I've ever had flowers on tomato plants.

And here are the zucchini, still plugging away. That day I harvested three baseball bats and two nice-sized fruits. The baseball bats were used in zucchini bread, the two others were used in pasta with zucchini, walnuts, anchovy paste, chopped mint and grated Pecorino Romano cheese. (I know - it sounds like these ingredients don't go together, but it's a great-tasting and easy dish.)

There were other things still going, most notably the herbs, but I only took pictures of the most surprising.

Cleaning out the garden was a bit different this year - I was a little under 6 weeks from surgery and I wasn't supposed to be using my left arm at all. So, for the first time, Spouse gave me a hand. I was able to pull most plants myself using one arm, but there were several things that I needed help with. Actually, it was a lot of fun having a partner in the garden. Then I hit the 2 hour mark, at which point I realized that I was using my bad shoulder more than I thought and had to stop.

Even though he took over gardening duties for the fall, Spouse still has a little more to learn about vegetable gardening. Here he was back at the end of September (just 11 days after my surgery), trying to convince me that if we cut away the rotten parts, this would be a perfectly acceptable tomato. I let him have that one all to himself. :)

 

First Snow

Yesterday we got about 5" of snow, the first of the 2007-2008 winter season. As per usual, the weather forecasters were out in force all of last week, warning us about the first big storm of the season. They had been forecasting 8-12" here in the Twin Cities, but of course the total was far less than that. I went to the grocery store on Friday night, and the crowds were the same as the day before Thanksgiving. The way people were stocking up on food, you would have thought we were going to be snowed in until spring!

But for Brix, it was all pretty exciting. This is the first winter we've had him - we adopted him last May, so this was the first time we've had Brix out in the snow. At first he was pretty tentative, but once he got used to the feel of snow on his feet, he took off through the yard, sniffing at the buried smells and finding sticks where he could.

Today, we saw a little bit of blue sky - very pretty.