Resolved....a Declaration of Determined Dormancy

I was sitting there, snug in my well heated home, grateful the overnight forecast had changed to reflect slightly warmer temperatures for our area last evening.  I was dreading hauling in and covering plants to protect them from freezing temperatures and since it wasn't going to freeze, I wasn't going to bother.  Actually, not bothering is getting to be a theme of sorts around here.

Honestly, I've gone just about as dormant as most of our garden plants, to the point of rigorously ignoring multiple opportunities to get maintenance or other outdoor winter work accomplished.

Obsessing (but only through the windows) about how the bluebonnet rosettes are handling winter weather so far is about as much energy as I've spared in December for the very same spaces I worked in multiple times daily other months of the year.

Bluebonnet rosettes holding up well so far...

That is just the way I roll, folks.  I go from one extreme to the other.  I am either thinking about the plants and beds and working in them nonstop, or alternately I go about my indoor business, living as if I had staff, as if those outdoor spaces were somebody else's responsibility entirely.

Should I say all that will that change in 2015?  Can I come to you with assertions I will do better, I will behave differently, I will take full advantage of winter's chilling effects and personally get around to addressing the laundry list of chores that routinely accumulates during the growing season?

These succulents are displaying the characteristic color of the cold bitten.  My apologies for leaving them uncovered during the last freeze of 2014 had no visible effect.

Nah.  We've been at this too long not to be honest with each other.

Nope. I am resolved, as I face another New Year's Day, to reconcile myself to myself.  Going forward I will freely admit my own nature.  As a native in my own microclimate I acknowledge I will go dormant in December, drop the pretense of garden control, and remain horticulturally insensate not only through January, but potentially well into February.

When I enlarged this photo I was a little shocked to spot aphids on the stem below and to the left of the seed head on this Tropical Milkweed plant.  I never thought of aphids as cold hardy.  

If you are and have been out regularly working your own spaces, planning ahead and getting prep work done for the growing season to come, then I offer you my deepest admiration and most earnest accolades.  I am currently and will remain cocooned inside, keeping the loosest eye out for freeze warnings but otherwise letting the garden have its head.  I am counting on reappearing from the roots, bouncing back vigorous and fresh right along with my garden as the weather warms.  It has certainly happened that way every year so far.

Wait, you may well wonder, does this declaration of dormancy mean I will have nothing at all to say here for weeks to come?

A little home crafted dino succulent planter bling.  This was a favorite out of the various gifts we made this year.

I wouldn't bet on it.

Happy 2015 to one and all!  As this new year unfolds, here's an early wish: may we all experience growth and grace in equal measure.

You Are Welcome! Happy New Year!

Oh readers, I am certain you are well organized, menu planned ahead, shopping trip(s) taken care of already. I know you have baked, chopped, prepped in all sorts of ways to assure your gathering, or intimate dinner, or snuggle in to watch favorite movies, or whatever forms your New Year's Eve/Day celebrations will take, are all ready to roll food and beverage wise. You have done your homework, you know your customs, and you have everything on hand you need to make sure you have a lucky and prosperous and well fed start to your New Year.

However, there is one not so secret weapon in any prepared host or hostess arsenal that you may have missed and I am going to share it with you here and now. This is such a great concoction that even if it does not bring luck or prosperity all by itself, having it on hand may mean you really don't care so much about either.

What could be that good? The World's Best Mustard Sauce, that's what. The absolutely Makes Everything Taste Better Mustard Sauce.

I originally uncovered this Makes Everything Taste Better Mustard Sauce as part of a pork tenderloin recipe offered so long ago, well prior to internet wanderings, that I did not save the source when I typed it up to put into my notebook.

Sidebar: Yes I have a notebook, The Notebook really, and it is filled with typed out, page protector sheathed wondrousness. It never crashes or requires any sort of connection and I can often judge, by the stains or spots that appeared pre-sheating, how much we loved a particular preparation, just in case it has been that long I might have otherwise forgotten.

You see I type something out, print it, I fix it, we eat it, and if we like it I typically fix it again with tweaks that I note in pencil on the page. Once I have arrived at what we consider close enough to perfection, I type the recipe up again, tweaks included, and then slip it into a page protector which then is shoved into The Notebook (with category dividers I mostly completely ignore).

Occasionally, something is so good as is, it gets fixed several times before I bother to locate a sheet protector for it. Those lovelies finally get their plastic home but only after they have earned all sorts of splatter and splash marks indicating they were well appreciated.

Back to your soon to be beloved recipe:

MAKES EVERYTHING TASTE BETTER MUSTARD SAUCE

1/3 cup sour cream

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon dry mustard powder (I use Coleman's - who can resist that sunny yellow can?)

2 tablespoons chopped chives or very finely chopped green onion tops

Combine all ingredients well. Cover and chill at least two hours, preferably overnight.

And there you have it. Simplicity that, dare I say it, approaches perfection. The resulting sauce is an ideal side for a platter of sliced meats and cheeses. It goes well with any roasted or grilled meat, it rides happily atop any number of prepared vegetables, it is good on a sandwich and even better dolloped on a slice of quiche.

I have said, (over and over and over again, yes, yes, it is a favorite expression my family has heard WAY too many times) that this stuff is so good I'd be happy to eat my shoes, so long as they were well coated in this most delicious of mustard sauces.

And now I share it with you: the proud, the few, the readers of this blog.

You will very likely love-love-love this sauce and find all sorts of ways to work it into your meals from now on. Your lives, if not your waistlines, will be better for knowing of it.

So yes readers mine. Happy New Year! And, you are welcome!