Merry Christmas 2023

 

And a happy New Year, to boot!

(Last gasp of my old fir-cone mini Christmas tree, with magnetic carolers, acorn cap hats, and cornstarch snow.)

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Deseándoles una muy feliz Navidad, y un Año Nuevo lleno de gozo.

(Este es el último año de vida de mi viejo árbol de Navidad hecho de un cono de abeto de Douglas, con cantantes magnéticos con sus gorritos formados por las cúpulas de las bellotas del roble. La nieve es Maizena.)

Chia and the ribbons

Christmas is coming and Chia will be helping with the wrapping and decorating. Here, she considers ribbon colours.

Red is more Christmassy. But green is her favourite.

Decisions are such hard work!

(Birds: a traditional clay duck from Tonalá, Mexico and a double-headed peacock in cast iron. Vintage, origen unknown.)

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Ya viene la Navidad, y Chia va a estar ayudando con la envoltura de regalos y con los arreglos Navideños. Aquí considera los colores de los listones que va a usar.

El rojo es el color de la temporada. Pero el verde es su color favorito.

¡Las decisiones son tan difíciles!

(Los pájaros son un pato de barro tradicional de Tonalá, México, y un pavo real doble en metal. Antiguo, de orígen desconocido.)

Fog, rain, mist.

The morning fog lifted. The sun came out. Wonderful! I grabbed the camera and hit the road, going north, hoping maybe to see snow on the hillsides. Ice in the ditches. Or at least frost on some leaves.

At the Eve River, about 100 km. north of home, I gave up. It had been raining off and on, and ahead all I could see were more clouds. I stopped at the Eve River rest stop before turning back, and walked through the soggy woods to the banks of the river.

Eve River bridge, Hwy 19, in Scotch mist.

Trail to the river bank.

The ground was thickly carpeted in moss, the trees draped in another moss.

At the parking lot, I had noticed a couple of Christmas ornaments hanging from high above my head on the branches of the evergreens, dripping wet. I didn't see the one in the woods until I blew up the photos. Do you see it?

Rainy road. Leaving the rest area.

Oh, and in the grass at the rest area, I found half-melted snow. A patch about the size of my fist. Mission accomplished.

A Skywatch post.

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Se disipó la neblina. Salió el sol. ¡Excelente! Recogí la cámara y salí a la carretera para el norte, esperando tal vez hallar un poco de nieve en las laderas de las montañas, o hielo en las zanjas al lado del camino. O por lo menos unas hojas delineadas por escarcha.

Llegué hasta el rio Eve (Eva), como unos cien kilómetros de casa, y abandoné la empresa. Había estado lloviendo de vez en cuando, más entre más al norte llegaba, y adelante, lo único que podía ver eran nubes. Me detuve en el área de descanso del río Eve, y se me ocurrió travesar el pequeño bosque para mirar el río bajo la lluvia.

Primera foto: el puente de la carretera #19,. cruzando el río.

Segunda: uno de los senderitos cruzando el bosque. En el suelo, musgos. En los árboles, otra especie de musgos.

Al lado del estacionamiento, había visto un par de decoraciones navideñas colgadas de ramas de los árboles, bien por encima de mi cabeza, y empapadas, goteando. No noté la que estaba colgada en el bosque hasta que vi las fotos en casa. ¿La ves?

Tercera foto: saliendo del área de descanso.

Y en el zacate en el área de descanso, encontré nieve. Medio derretida, y solamente del tamaño de mi puño. Pero nieve. Misión cumplido.

Ma Nature decorates ...

'Tis the season ...

Wishing you the best of the holiday season, and a great new year!

When the bough breaks ...

I just stepped outside, in the middle of the night, to see if my Christmas decorations had blown away. They're fine. The night is clear and still, the street still gleaming wetly, but the sky is empty; I can see the beacon blinking on the far side of the channel.

A few hours ago, the wind was howling and tossing sticks at my window. Under the carport, the car was dripping with side-blowing rain. Leaves were piling up on the doormat; I stepped, barefoot, onto a cluster of holly leaves.

And the day before? Sunny and warm, blue skies, pink sunset. But the streets and sidewalks were littered with branches brought down by the previous day's storm. The weather gods have their schedules all scrambled.

I stopped by a stand of Douglas fir to collect cones to make Christmas decorations with. Right beside the car, a 5-foot branch lay on the grass; I threw that in the car, too. It would give me enough greens for a wreath to hang on the door.

At home, I laid the cones out to dry in a basket, and spread the branch on the table, started clipping off short branches to make my wreath. Springtails scattered every which way, fat, hopping globular springtails, mostly. I hadn't expected that, from a branch fallen from a tall tree. I wonder how many ended up on the back seat of my car.

And then, something red left the shelter of a branch and ran across the table. A ladybug! In mid-winter!

A very small ladybug, spotless.

I was surprised to see her*; she may have been overwintering in a crack in the bark before her home came crashing down. But I was also intrigued by the pattern on her pronotum (the black and white "collar" behind her head). Discover Life has a key for identifying ladybugs; I plugged the clues into their boxes and came up with Cycloneda munda as the only match. This is a new ladybug for me.

However, C. munda is found east of the Rockies, not here. Another Cycloneda, polita, redder than the C. munda, but otherwise similar, lives here. Cycloneda polita, aka Western Blood-red Lady Beetle, it is.

These ladybugs are natives, spotless, and noticeably smaller than the common Asian Multicoloured, Harmonia axyridis.

I transferred her to a tray to take a few photos, and then planned to take her outside to find a place to hide. But, alas! She quickly flew away.

"Goodbye!"

And though I looked and looked, I could not find her anywhere. So she'll just have to overwinter in my nice warm kitchen. Although she may think it's springtime, and go looking for a mate. She won't find one; they're all sleeping.

*Female C. munda have black faces. Males have white faces. I'm guessing C. polita is similar.

Tis the Season

And may it be a merry one!

Round the mini-tree.

(That's a Douglas fir cone, acorn caps, salt, and those little plastic joke marbles with wobbly magnets inside.)

And I'm signing off for a few days. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Selfie, with elephant

. . . At least, it looks like an angry elephant to me.

Garden decoration, Beach Grove.

One more week 'till Christmas. Too much to do, in too short a time. I'm glad someone else had time to decorate their yard.

Feliz Navidad

Busy, busy, busy. It's Christmas week, the first day of the Posadas, the day Mexican Christmas celebrations start (and continue until the 6th of January). It's the day I usually put up my Christmas decorations. That's done, at least. Now, for the tail end of the shopping and the wrapping of presents ... Blogging may be light for a few days.

Mexican tin mirror with straw bell (Mexican? Swedish? I don't remember.)