6 on Saturday – 17JAN2026

As the sun rose yesterday it was cold, 21 degrees below zero, but the air was still for the first time in many days. The powdery snow that had fallen all day Thursday lay softly over the ground, and it was easy to imagine myself standing on a movie set somewhere much further south. The sky was so blue, the whiteness on the ground looked so much like layers of cotton batten. And then my fingers started to freeze, and the vision of palm trees disintegrated as fast as the smoke escaping from my chimney. And here is that smoke, and that chimney, and that blue sky…the second of six things in the garden this week, and the only photo in living colour. The first photo is the sun coming up behind the row of black pine trees just before 8 a.m.

You’d be forgiven if you thought the ground was frozen solid for metres and metres, but in fact there’s moving water not too far from the surface, as this little pond demonstrates. It’s created by the sump pump draining water that would otherwise flood the basement.

We don’t typically get a LOT of snow in my part of Canada – maybe a metre over the course of a winter, but temperatures fluctuate so much that it’s rarely a metre deep at any one time. For example, it’s supposed to climb above zero this afternoon, with maybe even a bit of rain. So it snows, some melts. It snows, some melts. Here’s a snow pile made from me shoveling the path down to the driveway…it never gets that deep just by falling from the sky. Just think, in just six months these iron rods will be supporting luscious tomatoes…

I was outside a few times yesterday as the snow fell, shoveling those paths…easier to do it a few times than once when it finishes snowing and it’s deep and heavy. The rabbits appreciated my pathways…

The rabbits are also appreciating the Brussels sprouts stalks I left standing. They’re not going to town on the leaves…I mean, who does…but by the time the first clover starts to flower these stalks will be gnawed bare, I’m sure.

I think spruce trees, even in black and white, are about the prettiest tree out there after a snowfall.

If you’d like to see six things in gardens around the world, including many gardens with actual flowers in bloom, take a look a Jim’s site, Garden Ruminations. Have a great weekend, everyone!