I made a pot of beans yesterday. Which seems relatively mundane until you realize it took a crock pot eight hours to do it. And yesterday there were people unable to even heat themselves much less run a crock pot for eight hours.

First, I am eternally grateful we still have power. Second, we’ve turned the thermostats down to 58, which isn’t something we do even in the dead of summer.

I hate to make a big deal out of something a lot of people experience all the time, but it is getting really cold. It’s going to be a where-were-you-when event.

All my trees and plants are bowed down paying homage to water. It started yesterday with a thunderstorm in 30-degree weather.

Last spring, I transplanted all my schoolhouse flowers. Moved them from the bed in the southeast corner of the yard to new spots around the house. There were enough bulbs that I was able to start three new beds.

The back porch garden has done well this winter. There are no weeds to speak of and only the blackfoot daisies look dead and gone. All that might need doing this spring is to refresh the mulch and replace the daisies if they fail a spring rebound.

The other morning the heifers gathered along the back fence to eat dead cactus and lounge in the winter sun. It was cool but not cold.

It’s a frosty morning here at the homestead. It feels like flea killing weather, although since I disposed of all my outside thermometers, I have no way of knowing. It’s just cold, a crisp winter cold.

The ranch that butts up to our property has cattle roaming the range. Not many, five or six heifers with their calves. The ranch is a fair size, so I mostly see them when they come to drink at the windmill or wander by our fence grazing fresh green grass.

What a nice surprise. Eight hours of sleep. All at once. Straight through. One tiny wake-up, I think, it may have been a dream. Feels like the old days. Go to bed, wake up to the alarm. Can I repeat the feat tonight? We shall see.

What a day. It started snowing mid-morning and continued snowing through early evening. When it was all said and done the ground was covered in a blanket of snow and all its imperfections were erased.

I could really do with a hard freeze. Something in the teens. Winter is passing here in the Hill Country and we’ve yet to see one. There’s a bit of rain this morning and a front is on the way. But it’s only going down into the high 20s this weekend, and no one has ever called that hard.

I can really sense the tempo of the earth at morning. Get a feel for the slow spin of the planet on its axis in its heavenly circle around the sun. It’s a measured pace of big things in a big place…

Timing. One day I can walk out the back door and there’s a brilliant sunset for the viewing. On another I can walk out and the clouds are a steel gray and the sun is gone and whatever light painted them colors is someone else’s memory.

Winter is having trouble making up its mind. I had a spring-like day on the golf course yesterday with my brother. Today promises more of the same, warm weather not golf. Winter must have forgotten it has a job to do and let spring back in the house.

The southern porch sits close by the fence that marks one of our property lines. Consequently, we get fence trees, mainly hackberries. Sometimes they’re right on the fence, sometimes just off. A while back we had one just off and I let it grow.

There are three cameras monitoring the nightly comings and going of the local wildlife, which consist mainly of a fox, two skunks, a possum, an occasional deer, and what I’m sure is an assort of raccoons.

Spring. We all think about it. We all love it; especially, when the days shorten to next to nothing and the cold pushes us indoors. And perhaps that’s why no one celebrates the green underfoot as the so called winter weeds begin to appear…

For years a big metal sunflower, a gift from my wife’s Ya-Ya’s, has stood hidden behind the big rose bush at the east end of the house. When it was first placed there, the rose was small, the burr oak a young tree, the yaupon holly a child, and the Orchid tree equally small.

There appears to be moisture in the air this morning and the garage apron looks wet. I’m not going to dignify it and say its rain. Although, we need rain, and it would be nice if some would come.