So far this month we have only experienced a couple of below or near-freezing days. I know that people throw around the term “the new normal” willy-nilly but I guess it applies.

Violet joined a CSA at college. She is happy to have an actual kitchen in her dorm suite this year. For those who may not know, CSA means community-supported agriculture. It costs her $300 for the semester. Every Friday afternoon, she went to a farmer’s market and chose her own items.

The last visit before she came home this week involved taking way more food than usual. She arrived on the Island with a large bag of root vegetables — kohlrabi, sweet potatoes, turnips, black radishes, parsnips and some unidentifiables.

Not one to ever waste food, I got busy and made a giant root soup. Luckily, I had a starter kit of Thanksgiving turkey stock on hand in the freezer.

Now that the Christmas season is in full swing, gardening duties have slipped into the distance.

I love how the various shopkeepers in town are so creative. There are some lovely boxes and planters everywhere.

I am especially fond of the white birch logs tucked here and there within the variety of greens.

Violet sprayed some apple twigs with white Rust-Oleum to use in our own arrangements. It was a handy use for the leftover paints in perpetual storage. Why, I wonder, am I loathe to throw anything away? I literally have “string too short to save.”

A few times during winter storage of onions and potatoes it’s wise to go through them and toss any spoiled onions to the chickens. I removed the beginnings of sprouts on the potatoes.

One year I neglected that task and the potatoes had sprouted more than a foot long and the spud itself was wizened and unusable. I threw them into the garden and covered with some hay. Nature being her grand self, she gave back some beautiful new potatoes the following late spring.

While cutting some holly branches for a wreath I remembered a story about hollies.

The only thing I cannot remember is whether I mentioned it before in this column but, hey, if my memory fails me, perhaps yours does as well.

Once on a jobsite in late fall I was weeding around a holly tree. Something sharp hit my finger and naturally I expected a holly leaf. Au contraire; it was a mouse, biting and hanging on for dear life. As one would do, I screamed bloody murder and shook my hand furiously. It finally let go and landed on my co-worker’s head. Both of us laughed and screamed for most of the day. You cannot make this up!

At another job this week, I found a blooming echinops, aka globe thistle. The greens still looked good and the single bloom in an otherwise dead and dismal bed was a real treat.

Speaking of dismal, the ornamental grasses have seen better days. Trust me, they should be cut down before winter sets in. In the spring they will be splayed and broken all over the property.

My own garden is the cobbler’s children’s feet as I have yet to clean up any of my own and they are already a train wreck.

President Zelenskyy came to Washington this week on a most-likely fruitless visit. Some of the Republicans are actual Putin supporters while others just plain oppose everything Joe Biden does. Never mind that he revitalized NATO and brought us back as hope for the free world.

I watched Kaitlan Collins’s attempt to interview Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. He kept comparing Ukraine’s problem with the situation on our border. The GOP is unmovable: Joe Biden will have to cut a border deal — which will further enrage the progressive wing of his own party. They are already steamed about Israel and Hamas.

Good luck, Joe; you’re going to need it!