Choice Morsels

The Garden Pic today is a nice shot of Dwarf Marigolds. These along the walkway to the front door under the kitchen bay window. The are a cheery sight as a walk past.   This is my 2nd Christmas without Dave. He died before Christmas last year, but I was so numb, I really didn't process the season much. A friend stayed with me until about the  Stargate SG-1. I have all 10 seasons, so that lasted until February sometime. This year I processed the Christmas season emotionally more so. I decorated like I did last year, putting out my holiday penguin collection and wreaths with battery lights on the outside windows. I'd like to find like a tabletop tree of about 20 inches in height---but maybe I will look into that more next year. What I did arrive at is that I needed to formulate for myself some new "holiday traditions." Besides the decor. I realized, being a widow alone without children and no close family nearby, that when it comes to receiving Christmas greetings from

The Garden Pic's today are of all the lettuce that came up by itself in my raised bed from last spring's crop. It's a nice French lettuce something like a Butterhead, but with red-tinged leaves. I originally bought the seed from Seed Savers. All that green stuff at the far end is what popped up in this fall---clearly this is the time of year it prefers.  In the middle are some of the larger babies that I've transplanted into rows and I've since filled the remaining space with more, so this space is now full of young lettuce. I have a few more spaces to move some. This next shot is the same lettuce planted in the other raised bed; it's a bit older then the other, since I planted some of the saved seed from spring on purpose here.  You can see the red tinge on these.  They get about 8 to 10 inches wide when full grown.  They should be full grown about February sometime and, being too many for just me, I hope to share some with friends.  

  Today's Garden Pic: Deep pink Vinca mingled above a Mexican Heater & yellow 4 O'clocks on a sunny winter morning earlier this week. It was about 10 am. The 4 O'clocks stay open in mornings now. I dined on Veggie garden fair for dinner tonight: fresh broccoli & bell pepper in a stir fry along with sliced chicken thighs, sliced sweet potato, onion and cabbage over rice. Enough for two meals, I'll enjoy it again tomorrow night. I've been putting up Christmas decor in the house. No tree anymore. We always bought a fresh tree when Dave was here. So seeing all the fresh Christmas trees leaning on the Walmart's garden shop wall outside as I drove into the parking lot to park last week made me sad. Then walking around the aisles of Christmas stuff for the first time reminded me of all the gift shopping Dave and I used to do, all the gifts that I wouldn't be buying for him this year, no buying Dave some exotic Reese's snowman for under the tree, no scou