It was so warm and beautiful last Sunday that I had to get out there in the dirt. I moved a couple of blueberry bushes. They were too close to my beehives and I would not be able to tend them next summer without protective clothing.

Some snowstorm last week. It seems all took the forecast seriously.

I am writing exactly in between the two holidays. I have a couple of Christmas observations. For starters, my hellebores, a.k.a.

I received an interesting book for Christmas, Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities. I cannot wait to read it.

For years now the weather forecast has rarely, if ever, been accurate. Naturally, last week, I refused to believe that we were getting a cold spell with rain, wind and snow. I smugly believed my wax begonias and geraniums would be fine in my unheated, attached to the house green house.

It’s finally happened. I am still busy with my fall clean-ups of the gardens and Christmas and winter are rapidly approaching. I was dismayed last week to hear about winter storm Cleon dropping three feet of snow on Duluth, Minn.