brrrrrrrrr!

 

Cold enough for ya?

Mount Washington broke a New England record overnight with a windchill reading of -105*F.  

My mini-split is struggling to keep up.  I set the temperature to 66*F and it's 57*F right now, 6:12 am.  Supposedly by this time tomorrow, we'll finally have a "real feel" of above zero.  I'm waiting for daylight to go check the mules, who must be in agony.  I did my best to prepare; Flea has a blanket and boots on, I have two heat lamps running in the interior stalls, I nailed a quilt across the run out opening, and I banked hay like crazy along the walls.  My frost-free hydrant was frozen solid at 6 pm last night, so who knows when that will thaw.  Thankfully I have the big slop sink downstairs where I can fill 6 gallon jugs and haul them out to the barn.  This is definitely the coldest, most dangerous weather I've ever experienced.  

As for my seeds, still nothing from the original plantings other than the prairie coneflower and Gerber daisy, despite adding a heat mat to the mix.  All four continue to do well.  The Virgin's Bower seeds haven't sprouted, but I have a lovely crop of tiny mushrooms growing in the soil.  Time to give up on these seeds, I suppose.  I picked up some Ziva paperwhites that were on clearance and have been forcing them on the windowsill.  They're very pretty but HOLY STANK.  They smell like cat poo.  I had also grabbed a mixed bag of tulips, daffodils, and allium that I planted into pots and stuck in a corner of the basement.  While rifling through the bargain bulbs I came across one lonely, dried out iris tuber; "Ghost Train".  I'm a sucker for an iris and it's near-black, so of course I took a chance.  Amazingly, after being potted and put under a grow light it's beginning to send up green shoots.  I think I lost my near-black iris "Raven's Girl", so this is a nice replacement.

I also started some cutting lettuce in clamshell containers, as I usually do in late winter.  They're coming along nicely.  Most of my herbs are failing spectacularly.  I don't know why I try every year to winter them over, it's a wasted effort.  I guess when it comes to gardening, hope springs eternal.