I'm joining Nature Notes and Our World Tuesday . Got our first winter snow yesterday night (December 28). But, it was not even an inch thick; just a mild dusting. But, still snow is/was here. This is our deck this morning

Harvested some Jerusalem Artichoke from the garden. There are still many, many more left in the garden. This is a fabulous native plant. The flowers look like sunflowers, and when it blooms the whole plant gets covered with such sunflower-like flowers. Bees and butterflies love those flowers, and the plants with such yellow flowers is a scene to behold. Each and every person walking down our street or our neighbors stop, admire and compliment for creating such a beautiful scene. But once the flowers/plant dies, you can harvest all these tuberous roots from underneath to eat raw or cooked. The tubers are full of inulin, one of the most beneficial substance one can take to improve blood sugar, bowel movement, constipation, blood pressure and high cholesterol. The only drawback with this native plant is that it is quite invasive; a tiniest amount of root left in the ground will produce lots and lots of such tuberous root and each tuber will give rise to a beautiful plant and more tubers.

Went to the beach with my babies, and here are some random shots. It was a very cloudy and warm (temperature about 65 F) day.

A sad-looking rose, rose-hips, asparagus-berries and calendula from our garden this week. I'm surprised at those calendula plants. It's supposedly a warm-climate plant but going strong even when temperature dropping to twenty-seven or thirty degree Fahrenheit!!