Winter, when the cat comes in the house for his naps.

Well,  winter is here, as far as Blue-the-cat is concerned.  He's been outside ever since March or April except for very short visits inside just to make sure we haven't changed anything.  He would ask at the door to come in, stroll from one end of our trailer house to the other, try to drink half the dog's water because he's sure it's better than what he has outside, and then meow at the door and leave.

Not so now.  Yesterday he stayed in quite awhile, sleeping in the dog's bed by the window (much to Gabe's chagrin).  This morning he seems to have been on a mission, and finally chose a chair right in front of the television and about two feet away from a heat register.  Good thinking, in my opinion.  Besides, that particular chair isn't very comfortable for humans.  It must have been made with a cat in mind.

When I went to the garage to feed him and Mama Kitty, he was in his little house, an old Igloo cooler with a door cut in the side and straw for a mattress.   He will sleep out there at night until next spring.  Later on, Mama Kitty might join him if it gets down to zero; otherwise, I'm not sure where she'll be.  She has no desire to be a house cat.  

Tonight we'll have a hard freeze, so I went to the garden and got what few beets were out there, and some more turnips.  Cooked a few turnips and made some pickled beets.  We still have a few small tomatoes in the window and enough nice green tomatoes for at least a couple more skillet-fulls.  I could eat my weight in fried green tomatoes!  I use a recipe from one of my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

Yes, I'm too lazy to type it all down.  These stay hot for a long time, so be careful not to burn your mouth.  The grandson's girl friend tasted them and said she thought they'd be great with Ranch dressing.  

She was right.  My  husband, though, smothers them in Ketchup.

Remember my poinsettia?

In late September, I blogged HERE about my garden poinsettia.  The plant flourished outside, and I grew rather fond of it, while knowing it would die with the first frost.

Some of my Facebook friends encouraged me to bring it in the house for the winter; a couple of them even told me that if I put it in a totally dark closet for 12 hours each night for a couple of months, it would bloom beautifully by Christmas.  I was pretty sure that wouldn't work for me, because I'm not good with house plants.  But I did finally decide that since it was sure to die outside anyway, the least I could do was bring it in the warm house to die.

So I bought some potting soil, borrowed a pot from a friend, and headed to the corner of the garden with shovel in hand.  I tried to keep the shovel at least 12 inches out from the plant, hoping not to hurt the roots.  But I realized as soon as I lifted it out of the ground that there were many, many broken roots.  The only thing I could do was get it in the pot as best I could, water it, bring it inside, and see what happened.  I placed it in the bedroom near a south-facing window.  The very next day I noticed all the leaves on it were limp and dying.  Within three days, the leaves were dried up and falling on the floor, leaving only the green limbs.  I assumed they'd die too, but I decided to cut them close down near the bottom of the plant so if there was any life there, the plant wouldn't be overworked with more damage than it could handle.

As I was about to cut the last skinny twelve-inch-high branch, I noticed a very tiny leaf at the top that looked healthy, so I left that branch there, looking like a flagpole with the tiniest flag on it.  Soon more leaves joined the first leaf.

Three or four days later I noticed tiny leaves growing on the stumps of the branches I had cut off!

Apparently it's impossible to kill a poinsettia.  

I won't be seeing any pretty red flowers on the plant come Christmas, but I get to witness a wonderful born-again plant healing and growing all winter, anticipating another summer in my garden.  Now I have to decide whether to leave the flagpole branch as tall as it is or trim it down to match the others.