I spent the Winter Solstice morning planning the plantings around the “mountain” aka the drainfield. I’d hauled out the giant map made of the yard.
I made a huge mug of my favorite holiday tea. This is a seasonal tea and not offered all year round. So I stocked up on it last year.
The main driveway runs along the lower edge of photo, below the _________X_________
I already knew I was making a bank of forsythia along the main driveway, as there are 2 there already. They are 35 year old old-fashioned, not really bright, yellow ones. I’m hoping the new ones from Fedco will have deeper color. They are also supposed to be hardier, so will flower more abundantly and often.
The north side, halfway along the house, will have a sugar maple.
The west side at the edge of the slope will be planted with 3 types of elderberries, 2 cherry trees, 1 peach tree, a serviceberry and a Juneberry. I will probably add an understory of something but I had to work up a tree order for Fedco to have in by January 11th.
The main things I looked for were hardiness and providing good sized and tasting fruit. Everything had to survive in Zone 4 and some were hardy to Zone 3.
The elderberry varieties were 2 each of Adams, Goodbarn, and York. Cherries were Lapins and Leningrad. The peach was Contender. The June berry was Regent and the serviceberry Alleghany.
Then I moved onto the mini English garden wall on the east side. I would only be using about 2’ right at the edge. I tried to get mostly perennials but a few annuals crept in. I selected:
Carpet of Snow Allyssum as it reseeds easily
Canary creeper to drape along the wall
Crystal Palace Lobelia as I just love the deep blue
Love in a Mist ‘Persian Jewels’
Mignonette for a lovely scent
California Poppy ‘Jelly Beans’ for color
I hope to find some Hens and Chicks to plant there also.
I finished late morning and sat down to read Julie Andrews’ 2nd installment of her memoirs titled Home Work.
We had a quick early supper as we were going to look at the Luminaria here in town. I’d selected my Christmas music to play:
Perry Como’s Greatest Christmas Songs
Andy Williams Personal Christmas Collection
I really like the old singers I heard when I was growing up.
Our favorite lights are what we call “dripper” lights on this tree. The family that lives here is moving to Florida and I was afraid they’d not be on this year. My husband was able to get a video of them so we will have that, if they are gone in future.
From that house we went to the main drag on the south side of town. We were disappointed in the lights this year. Not so many houses had decorated. We’d thought there’d be a lot as the town is kicking off its 350th celebration on this day.
More people had used glass jars this year in place of the half gallon plastic milk bottles or paper bags. And then we saw this house! They had frozen water in buckets and turned them upside down to make the surrounds. They were really lovely! They had nearly 20 of them, I think.
When we got to Main Street we found a surprise. In the past people would hitch teams to pull the wagons of people looking at the lights. But in the last couple years we’ve not seen one team. It was nice to see this team this year.
Near horse looking for the person who had patted him
They do carol singing in front of the Town Hall and Santa arrives there at the end. This area of town was crowded with so many vehicle-pulled wagons! We’d never seen so many. Over the horses’ backs you can see the town birthday cake with 350 candles.
As we went around the route, we saw the fancy wagons pulled up at houses and the local bar for Christmas parties. There sure were a lot of those this year!
We finished our route but shortened it a good bit as there just weren’t lights to see. Our road seemed to be one of the more consistently decorated ones, though understated as always.
This was the last one: our house. The poor tree is still leaning a bit but I still enjoy seeing the lights when I come home at night.
So that’s how I spent the shortest day of 2019. On Sunday afternoon I am going to a small gathering to watch the lighting in a nearby town. I am bringing my eggnog and it sounds like it will be a lot of fun.
I reopened my gym membership on Friday and will be starting on Monday. My poor husband will have to get up early to take me on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings unless I find a gym buddy. I put up a poster at the gym asking for one.