Cool Sconce

My SBAP class met at Earth Advantage the past two days. We had a bunch of classes on insulation and lighting and stuff like that. They have a light lab there where you can see how different lights make colors look. Also we got to see a cool LED can light.

In the classroom, they had a bunch of these cool art sconces. I wasn't terribly impressed with their art, but I thought the fixtures from Visa Lighting were very cool. (We took down an ugly traditional sconce in the home theater room, and I think it would be great if we could replace it with something like this.)

It's Alive!

Baby Salad!

It popped up today while I was at work. Nearly all of the arugula is up and some of the green deer tongue lettuce too.

Since the sun is out this afternoon, I put the tray out on the picnic table for a couple hours. Maybe they'll straighten up a bit.

Erica

I'm not sure which variety this one is, but it's very pretty, and always the first thing to bloom in the new year.

It's very hardy too. I'm pretty sure we've backed over it a couple times since it's in the corner of our front yard right next to the driveway.

Laurustinus - Viburnum tinus

Thanks to Kathy for figuring this one out!

I like this plant, and so do the birds. It's the only thing in our backyard that blooms this early in the year.

Rhubarb

Looking forward to tasty pies this spring.

Frosty

Rose hips - Rosa rugosa

The air this morning was crisp and fresh with a strong scent of fir. I think the ice must have broken a lot of the small tree branches and let the sap loose.

The roses that were blooming just three months ago are now bright jewels in a tangle of crystallized stems.

Southern Red Oak - Quercus falcata

I liked the way the frost outlined the oak leaves.

This tree is native to the East coast, so it must have been intentionally planted here at Rock Creek.

Snow... Almost

Common Wintergreen - Gaultheria procumbens

I woke up this morning and everything was so bright I thought I'd seriously overslept. I hadn't though, there was snow... sort of. Ice on the car windows and a little snow sticking to the roofs and street.

American Robin - Turdus migratorius

I didn't have time to take pictures of our own yard this morning (as I hadn't planned on finding the icescraper and scraping windows), but I did get a couple on my walk from the shopping center parking lot to work.

It was a little strange because the sidewalks and the roads, especially the neighborhood ones, had iced and the grass was green and uncovered.

Winter Gardening

Sami found some coupons online for 10$ worth of free plants from Lowes. So we each went, twice.

We got three different grapevines, a gooseberry, a black currant and a red currant. (Yes, we already have a big old grapevine and some currants, but they did so well last year, we thought we'd plant more)

I also moved the sage and rosemary to the area near the heat pump because they've gotten so big they've crowded out the other herbs.

Indoors, I started several different kinds of lettuce and spinach in plastic trays. (Lettuce and Spinach grow basically year round here. We were just too busy to plant any last fall)

I also started a couple peas and beans and some different types of flowers that should attract butterflies and (more) hummingbirds. Some of the flower seeds were really old and may not grow, but I figured if they don't, it's still early enough to plant more.

Hopefully the seeds will do well. The should since they're near the heat vent and the french doors in the dining room.