Christmas forecast, gardening, and Monty update

Weather Update

While the rest of the continent is enjoying their tropical Christmas forecast, here is ours:

It is 11:43am and the street lights just shut off. We’re getting snow today, and we are at about the shortest day of the year. The sunrise today was 11:11am and the sun will set at 3:21pm, not that it matters much, since the sun doesn’t hit the town directly this time of year anyway.

Gardening

I planted my winter garden on Sunday, under my grow light hood, so I could have some greens this winter. I sold or threw out almost all our gardening stuff before we moved, so I’m improvising by using our recyclables for pots this year.

This time I planted:

• orange thyme
• German winter thyme
• chives
• cherry tomatoes
• basil
• sage
• oregano
• rosemary
• microgreens (little baby lettuce like greens for sandwiches and small salads – in the tray)

Monty

Monty’s swelling and fluid accumulation is mostly gone now that he is on the prednisone. He’s doing well, seems mostly normal. His lymph nodes are enlarged due to the lymphoma. The prednisone makes him thirsty and hungry and he pants some at night. Since it is a terminal diagnosis, and he’s always been thin, the vet said we can give him all the treats he wants, so he’s pretty happy with that.

It’s cold enough here that he needs his booties on for a walk or it is too cold on his paws. We’ve taken a good long walk in the early afternoon for the last couple of days. He gets a really frosty beard but with the booties on, he doesn’t seem to mind the cold. We’ll see how he does later this week!