Today was a crazy day. Crazy because the weather doesn’t feel like January. Today it was 55° in the afternoon so I got to pruning the roses and some other things that needed tending to.

I definitely had words with a giant rugosa rose. She is considerably tidied up. But wow did she get me with thorns, even with gauntlet gloves.

On all of the rose bushes I trimmed, I took out crossing canes, dying canes and took the height down some. On a couple of roses I had to cut out borer damage.

I also had to put out vole repellant. If I don’t they go after roots of things. They are such a pain in the ass. I miss our five foot garter snake because when it lived around us, fewer voles and field mice.

The deer continue to hang around. So far I have been pretty lucky, except I only got deer repellent down on half of the gardens today. That will be my first order of garden business tomorrow.

And it’s January. So I also have had the lovely discovery of more of my witch hazels blooming. The flowers are so spidery and delicate.

Another discovery? Galanthus starting to poke up and a lot of daffodil bulbs. I have not seen any of the crocus I planted. I haven’t had much luck with them in this garden, so I hope choosing heirloom varieties will help.

Things seem to be looking good even though it’s winter but living with woods and woodland creatures means I saw little things moving up in the tree crevices and hollows. I don’t know what they were, but I could see them moving up above. If we are lucky maybe little owls, but also they could be more Eastern flying squirrels.

Today I also puttered in the greenhouse. It was quite warm in it actually. I have shallots and garlic growing, and I have some herbs that are still doing fairly OK. One of my rosemary is actually blooming!

Anyway, it’s very late and that is all from me for now. Happy gardening!