Cauliflower nubbin

A couple of the cauliflowers that I planted too late did produce nubbins.  If the weather were milder, they would probably grow a little more, but the forecast is calling for 25° this coming Thursday, which will be a little too cold for cauliflower.  I went ahead and picked one nubbin today and ate it raw.  It was a little green at the bottom and had a hotter flavor than ideal, but I can still say I ate a cauliflower that I grew (the first I've ever grown).  It might inspire me to put the effort in to do it right next year.

   

Winter solstice; mistletoe

Just a couple of things today that are not really related--winter solstice and mistletoe. 
Today is the winter solstice when our part of the world is tilted as far away from the sun as we get.  The daylight hours will begin to increase and the sun will appear higher from the horizon each day.  I usually am really glad to see the days lengthen, but this year the time seems to be whizzing by so fast that I haven't really had time to be affected by the shortness of the daylight.  I picked up a few small fallen branches in the yard today and thought it would have been lovely to have an outdoor fire, but there were too many other things demanding my time.
One thing I did today was to hang a little mistletoe.  Last week, we came across some very lovely mistletoe with wonderful berries.  Darling son used a pole and knocked some out of the tree piñata-style.  I was delighted.  It has dried considerably over the week, but it was still potent enough to garner me a couple of kisses under it.

 



Last tomato

I got a few green tomatoes off a vine that volunteered in the compost pile.  I let them ripen inside; one or two had a little cold hurt on the shoulders and had to be discarded, but a few gradually ripened and were good to eat.  I sliced the next-to-the-last one today at lunch to put on a roast beef sub sandwich.  We have one more left.  It's a bit of a sport to see if one can still have tomatoes in December here in central NC without a greenhouse.
Here's the last one.  It should be eaten within a day or two.

C9 lights on the topiary

I put a couple of strands of C9 lights on my topiary this afternoon.  Those C9 lights remind me of my grandmother's cedar tree that my dad would string lights on each year for her at Christmas.  Grandma would always be so pleased, and I remember seeing the lights reflected in her wire-rimmed glasses as she looked at the tree.  The tree was a huge cedar that was way too close to the house, but it sure was a delight when it was all lit up.
Here's my topiary cedar.

Sights in the sky

Last week, I had the chance to see the International Space Station go over.  I enjoy looking for things like that in the sky.  Last Wednesday, I saw something else in the sky that I had never seen from my house before.  I was out in the yard, and heard a motor in the distance.  It was not from a direction that I usually hear any motorized equipment, and I wondered if it might be an airplane, but it didn't seem to be making swift enough progress to be an airplane, and I dismissed it as a distant tractor.  Later when I realized the sound had indeed come closer, I looked up to see a sky diver with a motorized parachute.  Awesome!