Yes!!!! Happy Winter Solstice to you, too, Dennis! I'm celebrating with my second beer today after a hectic day at work. We got bare root fruit trees in just after lunch and that's my section, so I got to organize and put up 6 or 8 hundred trees. Peaches and plums and apples, oh my! Exciting stuff!! It's been so long since we got a plant delivery of any size. It's been twelve flats of vegetables, 30 one-gallon perennials, 40 poinsettias, etc., per week off of little 12' box trucks or pickups for the past couple months ~ two trucks per week total if we were lucky, sometimes none at all. Depressing when I'm used to four to nine 30' box trucks and semis dropping literally thousands of plants in the driveway per day (yes, per day) for three days running each week, filling up the whole *cussin'* driveway as they wait to be labeled and stocked in the different sections. So today of all days, the Winter Solstice, for us to get the first real big delivery of the year! Beautifully fitting. It came a bit early ~ weren't really expecting this delivery 'til the first of January. But I'll take it. *Happy dance for spring!* I love living in Texas. Linda in Spicewood *who thinks she may have a third beer now to celebrate*

I have primula blooming in the greenhouse, gerbera too. Some pelargoniums, and a verbena. The branches on the maple tree over the chicken coop are pregnant with swollen buds, they'll be one of the first to bloom this spring and I've looked for an noticed them for many, many years. Even though the day started with snow, and the heavens hung overhead steely grey and low, I drove home from town in LIGHT at five p.m. I can look forward to more and more days like that flying at us like that. Winter begins, but spring follows. Nice.

Thank you for the reminder! I've been looking forward to my annual solstice planting for weeks now, but, alas, have been sick and probably would have forgotten. I'm with you on the date, so did a little research. It's usually December 21st, but occasionally falls on the 22nd. One site gave a time of 6:08 a.m., another 6:12 a.m. (alright, close enough) but another gave a time of 1:08 a.m. Finally, Chiff.com cleared it all up with the following: "In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice occurs on December 22, 2007 at 1:08 AM EST; and at 6:08 AM UT (Universal Time)." Not being much of a morning person, however, I'm leaning toward a mid-day planting, based on the following from the NOAA site: "The Winter Solstice or astronomical winter begins on December 22, when the noontime sun is farthest south in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere." Noon is good - thank you NOAA. Lots of people do something called "wintersowing" - there's a forum by that name here on GardenWeb. I've tried it and, overall, would say it's very effective - no greenhouse needed. Severl of the people over there really get into the celebration aspect ... go check it out :-) Thanks to your reminder, I will be doing a "ceremonial" planting tomorrow, using four sets of seeds, one each for Remembrance, Life, Mother Earth and Faith. A link to the GW page explaining this is below in case you're interested, however, last year instead of tree seeds for M. Earth I planted legume seeds, and for Faith planted some very old seeds I had found. Enjoy your solstice sowing, whenever you decide to do it, and I hope it's a productive one. Diane Here is a link that might be useful: Winter Solstice Celebration

Going to 70 F. here tomorrow. Front comes in a few days with heavy rain, then colder. Mini drought busted here. Big plants (mostly palms and Citrus) are going out to get hosed down. Happy Winter & Merry X-Mas, and Happy New Year!