Brrr!! Nineteen degrees with humidity of only 26% this morning at 6.  There is  special weather statement for East Tennessee and our area due to the very dry air mass which is dropping the afternoon humidity values to 20% increasing forest fire danger.  

Yesterday afternoon I put on garden wrist supports and gloves, emptied two bags of mushroom compost and a bag of cow manure where I'll plant lettuce seeds by the end of March.  With the garden fork I turned over the soil and mixed the three bags in.  We'll get more bags this week and I'll tackle another section.  Usually Cliff tills the compost and manure in for me but we need to get him back on his feet first. 

The temperature was 54 yesterday with a brisk dry breeze.  Sitting the sun felt good to him.  He's gets cold easily.

The Carolina wrens began building their next the third week of February!  They're still adding to it.  They had better include some insulation in their deep tunnel.  Nights are still cold. 

 I've been cutting and enjoying the purple mustard all winter.  

They're easy to grow and keep growing right through the cold and snow.

Italian parsley has been outside all winter too.  We Italians are tough people.  Now with longer hours of sunshine, the winter plants are beginning to green up and grow again.

I'm pretty pleased with the thyme that I grew from seed.  Some tiny seed herbs don't do well for me. 

And the nicest surprise was the Thanksgiving cactus grew buds and bloomed again last week.