What a rude awakening last Sunday. It was our first significant freeze. The chicken waterer was frozen solid. The day brought the expected quilt out because I had failed to attend to all my planned end-of-season tasks.

On Monday and Tuesday I scurried (I use that term loosely) around to a couple of sites to finally lift dahlias. They do appreciate a couple of freezes but no more. I store them in grain bags full of peat moss in an unheated back room. I leave most of the damp soil still clinging to them.

They do not do well in a basement where the furnace kicks on. It causes them to dry out. It’s tricky as they will mold if they are too wet. It’s a real live and rarely learn situation.

Feel free to call me a broken record. I’ve written this column for so long that I endlessly repeat myself. Here it is, December, and I’m finally getting around to planting the daffodils. I never had success using the bulk planters and, believe me, I have several. I hate the look of a single bulb planted in little rows.

Instead, I dig a hole about a foot deep and at least a foot or two around, put in a healthy dose of Bulb-tone, cover it with a bit of dirt and put in five or seven daffodils or tulips, then add some more dirt and repeat the fertilizer and perhaps add crocuses or other early bloomers. As they fade the daffodils will emerge.

After firmly filling in the hole I sacrifice more Bulb-tone on the top. This is to give skunks and other critters something to do rather than dig up the newly planted. Remember, everything one learns is usually the result of past failures.

I was pleasantly surprised driving through Vineyard Haven this week. I saw several properties with lawn crews happily raking leaves. This is becoming a rare occurrence, what with the proliferation of gas-powered, loud and obnoxious leaf blowers. Just saying!

I watched The Weather Channel on Tuesday. There were reports of feet of snow in western New York and Pennsylvania. My old larger hometown of Bradford was under the gun. As I recall, snow covered the ground in Rew around Thanksgiving and never let up until April.

Good thing I’m not trying to garden there now that I’m used to our long slow fall. I easily have another month ahead of me, hopefully.

It’s remarkable how quickly the local nurseries switched from pumpkins and corn stalks to Christmas trees and wreaths. I know some folks love to get a tree decorated right after Thanksgiving. I’m not one of them.

For years, when the children were small, we would cut a Charlie Brown tree on the property. It was never perfect but we loved it — a crooked little one-sided affair that had a moment of fame.

Now I have a wooden tree, built by my son Jeremiah, that packs away in its own case, can be put up and decorated in minutes — not hours. Sorry, I’m sounding like a Scrooge, but honestly I’m tired of the commercialization of a wonderful time of year.

I, for one, am grateful for the age and experience of Joe Biden. Forty or so years involved in foreign relations have prepared him for a time such as this.

I saw an interview with a diehard Republican conservative to his core all his voting life. When asked about his choice between the possible Trump-Biden rematch, he remarked: “I’ll vote for Biden even if he’s dead.”