Christmas

 I slacked off last week and did not do a post. Time got away from me.

Because of a forecast for single-digit temperatures, I went out to the high tunnel to harvest the greens I had left. I didn’t take all of them, even though I figured the ones that remained would be killed by the cold temperatures. I had to do the experiment.

Greens from the high tunnel

I have found that the best way to thin or harvest baby lettuce is to snip off the stem at the base, usually a wee bit below the surface of the soil. When I stuck the tip of my shears into the ground, I hid a rock. How odd. I poked around and finally got the shears where I wanted them to be, snipped the lettuce and put it in my harvesting tray. I went on to the next plant and hit another rock. That can’t be right. I filled this raised bed myself with potting soil, peat, and sand. There shouldn’t be any rocks! Then it hit me: the soil was frozen. Duh.

Pretty amazing, though. The above-ground lettuce was just fine, yet the roots were in frozen soil. Indeed, the outside temperature dipped to 4°F one morning, but the lettuce in the high tunnel still looked good. I will continue my observations over the coming weeks to see how cold it has to be to kill the greens.

Terry’s holiday craft project this year is making some deer lawn ornaments from a pattern my dad ordered for him a couple years ago. He’s making them from plywood. He starts by drilling a hole and the base of each notch, being careful not to go all the way through because the last layer will split out.

Drilling out the base of the notches from one side

Close up of the drilling (he changed his mind about the position of the pieces when he was tracing)

Then he turns the board over and finishes the hole from the other side.

Finishing the hole from the opposite side

After that, he cuts out the shapes with a jigsaw.

Cutting out the shapes with a jigsaw

After painting and assembly, the deer look like this:

Finished and weighted down

Even weighted down with bricks, we’ve had trouble with them blowing over. It’s been crazy windy on a couple of days.

We were pretty much done with the Christmas cookies we made earlier. Jane found a recipe for Linzer cookies she wanted to try. Jane is fine mixing dough but claims she is unable to roll and cut. She’s the only person in our pod, and we had a small Christmas Eve luncheon, rolling and cutting the cookies afterward. We each got a Christmas cracker containing a paper hat and plastic toy. This year's crackers did not include any riddles, more's the pity.

After baking the cookies, we spread jam on the uncut cookies,

Spreading jam while wearing my "cracker" crown

Put cut out cookies on top,

Assembling the cookies

And sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Dusting with powdered sugar

They were pretty darned good cookies!

I hope you all had a good Christmas and are looking forward to a better New Year!