Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Climate Data December 2008

Click on graph for much easier reading.



This month had record cold and snow. My workplace was on 'inclement weather' mode for 3.5 days - the first time in decades. Snow here was about 18 inches deep, at its greatest. The coldest day was a record as well. Total precip (as rain, I gues, since snow would give a much higher #) was 3.4 inches.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

The Amazing Sex Life Of Figs

This is a link to the complex and confusing sex life of figs. It's an amazing story.

Sex determination and life cycle.


More About Fig Reproduction.

Who Reads Growing Greener?

Just for fun, here are the general locations of readers, from clustermaps. Current running total is 24,069 visits. Hello there! The map is clickable for more detail.



Click on the clustermap button for more detailed tally of which countries and how many per country.

More Snow! What is this - Buffalo? Snowing again today!

Worst blizzards that we have seen in this area, since 1960s. Well, I arrived here in the 80s so it's the worst that I have ever seen here. Workplace was in emergency mode last friday, and again mon through wed. I took the bus to work mon and tues, more hassle than I let people know, but I was not able to get the car out of the drive.

Front yard - The palm leaves are fully folded from snow. Which is better - leave it on (as insulation) or knock it off (to protect leaves from breakage). Nature decided for me - this happened while I was at work.

I've never seen it this deep in my yard before.

Ning is ambitious today, shoveliong the driveway.

It's snowing now as I type this! Back yard.

Better view of palm with snow covered leaves. We'll see how it looks this Spring!

Bamboo was flat to the ground, now springing back up again.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

It's snowing and snowing and snowing! Dark-eyed Junco

The city is near stand-still. Amazing, for this area. We found some bird seed to feed the hungry finches. Feeding the birds now helps the garden later.

I'm going out on a limb here, because they are not too clear. But I'll tentatively identify these as :Dark Eyed Junco". A photo can be found here. Dark-eyed juncos eat seeds in the winter, and insects in the summer, according to this site.