Amongst December's mysteries

Last Spring the Better Half bought four beach plum plants. They arrived bare root stock so I planted them in pots rather than expose them to pocket gophers. Late Autumn I brought the pots into the house and put two on a book case at a West-facing window and 2 in a South-facing alcove window. One of the two plants facing West has dropped all its leaves. The other has a couple of green leaves left. One of the South-facing plants has four or five green leaves and the other has about a dozen.

beach plum: no leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

beach plum: 2 green leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

All plants were potted in the same soil; spent the Summer next to each other on the deck; and were placed randomly at the windows come Autumn. I have no idea why there's such a wide range of green leaves on the four plants. It'll be interesting to see how things develop come Spring 2020 and time for new leaves to emerge.

On another strange happening to report front, something has been creating what looks like a nesting spot in the road ditch snow bank South of the driveway and just north of the field entrance for our property. Before we ended up with permanent seasonal snow cover, there were two similar depressions that, at first, I thought had been made by deer pawing for acorns. Now I'm not sure what's going on since there don't appear to be many deer tracks surrounding the "pawed" area.

beach plum: many green leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

beach plum: 4 or 5 green leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

The cold weather has chickadees, nuthatches and woodpeckers (downy and hairy, pileated has disappeared again) at the suet as well as the sunflower seeds. So far I think the red-bellied woodpecker has only been feeding on sunflower seeds but I'm not positive about that.

We're hoping the weather forecast is accurate and that warmer, actually seasonal, temperatures arrive come mid-week. Meanwhile, we at least appreciate the blue skies and sunshine that's showing up between nuisance snowfalls of an inch or so each day.

Fall Leaves Fall

Emily Brontë - 1818-1848

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; 

Lengthen night and shorten day; 

Every leaf speaks bliss to me, 

Fluttering from the autumn tree. 

I shall smile when wreaths of snow 

Blossom where the rose should grow; 

I shall sing when night’s decay 

Ushers in a drearier day.

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