Showing her nuts

Here is Wing Nut's entry for the Dec. CLICK photo contest over at Jugalbandi. This month's theme was "Show Us Your Nuts!" Check out the complete list of entries and vote for your favorite nuts!

From Season's Greetings & Bah Humbug...

JOYEUX NOËL!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!

We had the 2nd snowiest Christmas since 1947. We got a whopping 3/4 of an inch. Visit Pasado's Safe Haven and check out their Home for the HOWLidays event to see what we did on Christmas Day.

New Fall/Winter Crop!

Check out our new fall/winter crop -- MARSHMALLOWS!

They blossomed in all their glory on December 1st! How about that?

It's a shame that when the temperatures warmed up, they just melted away. But we did enjoy them for a few hours.

We had very heavy and wet snow falling for quite a while on Saturday. At first the flakes were HUGE and swirling around in the backyard. Of course, our camera batteries were not charged at this point. When we finally got them charged up, the flakes were smaller, but still impressive.

They tell us snow is rare in Seattle city limits, but we had two snowfalls last year and one so far this year, so who knows?

Today the temps are warmer and it's just raining heavily all day. Hope everyone is safe out there in all the crazy weather across the nation.

Pasta Porcupine

This is Wing Nut's entry for the Nov. CLICK photo contest over at Jugalbandi. There is a "reader's choice" category so check out the entries and cast a vote for our favorite porcupine!

Battening down the hatches

We're waiting for our first windstorm of the season--expecting winds 20-30 mph with gusts up to 40. That's half of what we got last year during the December 14th "Hanukkah Eve" storm. Nevertheless, 20-30 mph winds can make inanimate objects come to life! During a bit of a let up in the rain I ran out and put in the garage anything that would be likely to fly away--patio furniture, empty pots, etc. I found the dahlia tubers drowning in one of the empty containers. I also picked the remaining peppers--another 3 dozen! The first batch I picked did ripen to red sitting on the kitchen counter. Hopefully this batch will too!

I took this picture under our newly installed track lighting! Now we can read at the kitchen table--and see what we're eating too. We've been thinking about installing some kind of light over the table ever since we moved in. However, track lighting involving hardwiring sounded too overwhelming. But this weekend Wing Nut decided this was one project she wanted to cross off her list. WiNu rocks!

Around 2 the rain stopped completely and the sun came out. Yippy! A sun break! I dropped everything and headed out with Diva Dog for our walk. The sun only stayed with us for a couple of blocks. The leaves were whirling and whooshing and whizzing by! But we managed to catch a few pretty ones. We made it back just in time to see the neighbor's patio furniture start to fly away, oh my! And while listening to the radio just in the past 20 minutes we've gone from 4,000 homes without power to 10,000.

Foggy morning

We haven't seen fog this thick since our first year here. Very spooky to look down the hill and not be able to see downtown or the mountains beyond.

Step into my parlor said the spider to the fly.

Volunteer Park Conservatory

A few weeks back we finally made it to the Volunteer Park Conservatory. It was a gray afternoon and rain was threatening. But the conservatory provided warmth and shelter from the rain. We spent a couple of hours exploring the 5 houses--palms, cacti, bromeliads, ferns and orchids.

Peppers

It's a pretty good pepper harvest! Over 3 dozen picked and about 1 dozen still on the plants.


HOW TO STUFF A PEPPER
by Nancy Williard

Now, said the cook, I will teach you
how to stuff a pepper with rice.

Take your pepper green, and gently,
for peppers are shy. No matter which side you approach, it's always the backside.
Perched on green buttocks, the pepper sleeps.
In its silk tights, it dreams
of somersaults and parsley,
of the days when the sexes were one.

Slash open the sleeve
as if you were cutting a paper lantern,
and enter a moon, spilled like a melon,
a fever of pearls,
a conversation of glaciers.
It is a temple built to the worship
of morning light.

I have sat under the great globe
of seeds on the roof of that chamber,
too dazzled to gather the taste I came for.
I have taken the pepper in hand,
smooth and blind, a runt in the rich
evolution of roses and ferns.
You say I have not yet taught you
to stuff a pepper?
Cooking takes time.

Next time we'll consider the rice.

Wow! Have we got peppers!

Italian relleno

Tiburon

Astry

The plants are just bending over with the weight of all those peppers!

Today is a very gray and rainy day. We've been having a rather wet and cool summer--the coolest and wettest since we moved here. Usually we get almost no rain all summer long. This August we've had 1 or 2 rainy days a week and the temps have been hovering in the 70s. Already the days are markedly shorter and the nights are getting cooler. In an attempt to get as many peppers to full size and to turn red, I've started pinching off any new flowers that I see. I'm hoping we get a mini heat wave in the next week or so.

More Hummingbird Sightings!

We've noticed the hummingbirds zooming around the hillside garden a few times. Our neighbor even said she and her girls noticed hummingbirds in our lovely garden. I've tried a few times without luck to get photos of them. Of course dead batteries in the camera once or twice didn't help.

This morning, after walking Diva Dog, I noticed two hummingbirds flying around. We carefully went inside, hoping not to disturb them too much. I got the camera and stationed myself at the side window in the bedroom which overlooks the hill. With some patience and a lot of luck, I managed to snap these photos.

Look closely at the right side of the blue-black sage and to the left of the agastache, roughly in the center of the picture.

Here's a close up of the hummingbird. You can almost make out the wings.

Here are two more photos of the hummingbird, again at the blue-black sage, but this time on the far left.



The wings are a blur, but the body, face and beak are much clearer. I belive this is an Anna's Hummingbird.

I'm looking forward to using the new tripod and testing the shutter speed settings on the camera to hopefully get more photos. Wish me luck!