A flower in December

Fair Amaryllis, wilt thou never peep/From forth the cave, and call me, and be mine?

Or, you know, peep forth somewhat earlier than expected. I guess this one was pre-chilled when I bought it, because I stuck it in the library to stay cool, and it sent up a flower stalk within days, and now look at it. The other two have just come out of their dark cave, and hopefully will break dormancy soon and bloom in January or February, but hey, I have a Christmas amaryllis, so I'm thrilled.

Everything outside is frozen. We haven't emptied out the deck railing boxes yet; we'd better get to that.

Ice

We had a snowfall yesterday, a few gentle and beautiful inches, and then ice on top of that. Ice is a force of nature that's aweful in the old sense, both destructive and terribly lovely. To which the modern response is pretty much, oh hell I hope the power's not going to go out and how will I drive in this, and - because we are not completely devoid of wonder - better get the camera out.

It's fascinating and transitory and worthy of capturing before the sun comes out and melts the fairytale glory, and also it's not quite enough that I have to worry about branches breaking everywhere, so, all good.

I wrote a book!

Announcing (for the few people who read me here and not other places) my novel!

This is the first book in a series of time travel adventure novels that I've been writing since 2002, finally available - in ebook form only for now, though in print in a few weeks, I hope.

You can find sample chapters and purchasing information at my website. It's chock-full of smuggling and literary quotations and romance and sailing ships and fistfights and the past and the future, and I hope you will check it out to see if it's… your cup of tea. Ha.

And no, this has nothing to do with gardening, aside from Camellia sinensis being a plant (which I tried to grow, once. Dismal failure). But it has everything to do with me, so.