An epic battle has started; the battle between spring and winter. As spring peeks from around the corner, winter jumps back into the arena with mighty force.

A bright blue spring sky with temperature in fifties. 

On such spring days, I see the squirrels clambering up and down the trees, licking, sucking and tugging at the bark. Do they eat bark? Or are they eating something that's there on the bark? Anyone knows? 

Strong gusty wind and blankets of white snows are the weapons she employs first, followed by icy rain and sleets.

A Caroline Wren (or just a wren) enjoying the winter. It is a gorgeous bird with a upright, pointy tail, round body and sharp beak. It loves suet, and prefers it over black sunflower seed. 

What Mother Earth takes thousands of years to create, feisty Winter creates the Stalactites by the sides of houses, on tree trunks in a matter of minute.

The sparkling diamonds are actually smaller sized stalactites on the branches. 

More Stalactites by the side of the house. 

Spring loses; winter wins, and the birds gather around feeders to survive the winter.

European Sterlings on the suet-feeder. Many people are opposed to feeding these birds as they are not native. I cannot control who comes to my feeders, and I do not mind these birds. It was not their fault that they got introduced into this country. They also need to eat and survive. But, when this flock comes to a feeder, they finish everything within a matter of minutes. 

I'm joining in the memes hosted by Rambling Woods, St Germain's , and My Views of NZ.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

May I please take this opportunity to allow my blog-readers and blog-friends a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you do not celebrate Christmas, then Happy Festivity, of whatever festivals you celebrate, to you. Here is a card of collage of some of the flowers that I grew in 2013.

Weather have been funny. For the last two days (from about December 21), temperature is rising up; yesterday (December 22), it was about 66 degree Fahrenheit (about nineteen degree centrigrade), an unheard of temperature in the middle of December in this part of New Jersey. Heaven has opened its flood-gate; rain pouring down in bucket-loads; a thick blanket of fog has descended.


The trees are bare but green has returned; lawns around the neighborhood are soft green. Seeing so much green, my spring-itch is back and my green-thumb is twisting. I spent about an hour, yesterday, in a garden-store, looking at the seed-racks, admiring all the green-house gadgets, and lusting for all the seed-starter pots and trays. The seed-catalogs have started coming. Just looking at them, my soul is getting uplifted and filled with joy and happiness.

However, such was not the scenery three days back. Snow was everywhere and not a speck of green to be seen. Here are some photos of snowy-days that I took on December 10.


The red-seeds of the Dogwood-tree. Well, I was mistaken -- there were green out there among the evergreen plants but were hidden from the sight by the snow.


Chilly but a beautiful sky. The sky sets on fire during sunrise and sunset.


A portion of the front garden completely covered in snow. However, the snow was not that much, measured by the thickness on patio furniture, compared to previous years. I hope more will come. Snow is very good as it not only helps in restoring the water-level of our underground reservoirs, but also helps in germinating many seeds, killing many bad/invasive seeds/insects, moisturizes the garden soil and loosens them up and also helps in speeding up the compost-process in the compost pile. That was once a bean-tree in the last picture. It has now some pea-plans; interesting that pea-plants do not die even in this freezing cold-temperature.

The trees are standing tall and proud even in the cold temperature. And, I am spending my days hunkered low in the warm house with a mug of hot chocolate, day-dreaming and enjoying my feather-friends. So many of them flock to the bird-feeders and devour the seeds fast. Their call grow loud whenever I get into the garden to fill the bird-feeders, as if they are shouting to each other, "hey, food is here." Some of them do not even have the patience (or shall I say courtesy) to wait for me to leave. They fly almost right into me to get the seeds. Too bad that I do not have any pictures because they do not mind me standing in their middle; but as soon as I bring out my SLR, they all fly away. I guess they do not like that big black camera or perhaps photo-shy.

First Snap-Pea of the Season 2013

Yesterday (5/24/2013) we ate our first snap pea from the plants which I grew from seeds. My babies are now taking care of me. I took those that were at least two inches in length. Many more to come.


This is a bowl of salad that I created using peas and lettuce from the garden.



Do you know that you can eat the tender leaves, shoots, tendrils of pea-plants? They taste exactly like peas. Try it out if you have not already done so. In fact the baby pea-plants are full of micro-nutrients. That's why, in Europe especially, people grow peas as micro-greens. Snap peas themselves are full of vitamin C, flavonoids, folic acid, fiber, pantothenic acid, Vitamins A and K (though they have most other vitamins) and other minerals.

I am fascinated with these pea plants. They are easy to grow. Lots of plants can be crammed in small space. All they need is water; they don't have any fertilizer requirement; in fact, they make the soil, in which they are grown, fertile by fixing nitrogen. When the plant dies down, do not rip it off from the soil. Leave it there because as its root disintegrate, it gives out nitrogen to the soil. My fascination has lead me to buy five more packets of peas for fall cultivation.


I also took out some onion flower stalk, spinach-leaves and turnip-leaves from the garden (will I be please allowed to boast again and say that all these plants were grown by your truly from seeds:-D). I made a batter with chickpea flour. Dipped the leaves and finely chopped stalk, and fried them in very little oil. These are the fritters that one usually eats in Indian restaurants. The fritters can be made using almost every sorts of vegetables and leaves, stems and flowers.



Good time is here again when fresh foods from garden can be consumed. I wonder how people, especially in colder Europe, North-America where things cannot be grown during winter, survived the cold months? These people indeed have strength, stamina and spirit which we spoiled, twenty-first century humans have lost. Do any of you have any such ancestral stories to share? This reminded me of the latest news that scientist believe that the early pilgrims turned to cannibalism in Jamestown, Virginia during the harsh winters. The interesting article can be read here.

The Rockaway River

The river and the waterfall in December. The waterfall was almost getting frozen, forming stalactites. The path through the forest and towards the fall was quite treacherous with frozen but slippery snow. The river was still swollen and flowing rapidly, though, with the melting snow feeding into it.