The power came back on after awhile–it had been out all over town and beyond town to the warning lights at the next road up (outside town) so it was pretty easy to tell when it came back on. According to our power maintenance company (responsible for the powerlines, not any production) we had several outages on Friday and Saturday–they send emails–but they claimed a repair two hours after we knew we had no line power. However, all’s well that ends well, and we had heat through the night, a luxury I really appreciate now that I’m older.
The new panels on the house roof aren’t connected to the system yet, so they aren’t producing anything (that’s supposed to happen Tuesday) but the barn panels are probably contributing by now. Last year when the line power was out for almost a full week, and we had inches of snow topped with a layer of ice, it all had to melt before the sunlight could get to the panels. It’s going to freeze again tonight, but it’ll be a dry freeze. All the icicles are gone from the gutters. The winter grasses and forbs are showing green this morning, though it’s not green coverage–the fields are still in shades of beige and brown. The sky’s a clear blue. Birds are singing like crazy.
Horses met me with “About time!” whinnies (though they had fat haynets overnight) and are munching and grunching their morning hay. It’s a little warmer, though tonight will be colder than last night. I may be back on here later with updates of this and that.
Hurray for power and sunlight! We have had sunlight and blue skies here too and it makes such a difference.
I had a wander through the garden specifically to look for snowdrops, which are from bud to in full flower depending on whether they are in shade or full sun. We brought a couple of decent sized clumps from our last garden where they had increased in numbers slowly, here they multiply with enthusiasm. I split the clumps and spread the plants – they do better if you plant them “in the green” rather than as bulbs – around in various spots; all have grown, so much so that I have given away more than I started with. They make me smile at this time of the year. I’ve also finally had great success with varieties of Iris reticulata, enough so I have a succession of them flowering in a range of blues to deep purples, all with the yellow flashes on the falls. Also successful in getting aconites to survive and flower, they remind me of looking out of our dining room window when I was a child where there was a spread of aconites and simple crocuses, and where the crumbs were scattered for the birds. Our garden is not a show place, it is a patchwork of planting, some permanent, some seasonal (the food) and of bits left to their own devices with a lot of overlap between the more ornamental patches and the wild patches. It suits us and the local bird life which again reminds me of my childhood garden and makes me happy.
It sounds so beautiful, Jazzlet–can you get a photo of it? I think you should be able to post an image in a comment. (img) is the button thingie. It will want a URL.