Compared to the other seasons, winters seem pretty colorless, with the leaves off the trees and laying brown on the ground. But through closer observation you can see plants that remain green through the winter, and seeing or perhaps even identifying them can brighten up a winter hike in the woods. What follows are some of the more common green plants you will find in our area.

I may be writing this for myself, because I am a bona fide Type A person. I’m always engaged in some activity, making lists to check off, mind constantly engaged in problem solving or accomplishing some goal… pretty much from the time I get up to the time I go to bed. And worthy things do get done for church, family, and job. But there is a potential cost to all this in the form of exhaustion and burn out, unless you take time and get away to a quiet place and be still for a little while.

If you want to experience the taste of a wild fresh vegetable in the dead of winter, give watercress a try. Picked at the right time, it makes a good addition to a salad or as a cooked green.

Winter is a good time to prune most trees because they are dormant and their leaves are off, making it easier to see how the branches are laid out. Here are some general guidelines to help keep your trees healthier and more attractive.

With January being National Tea Month, and since most teas are derived from a tree, I thought I’d study and share some things I did not know about the world’s most popular of beverage.

When the forest is laid bare each winter there is a tendency to think of it as a bleak and dreary place. But the basic structural skeleton of each tree can be seen at this time, with every branch, twig, and bud visible, thus revealing how it has grown in the past, and how it has prepared for the future. So put on a coat, go outside and go look at a tree.

The Christmas traditions we are all familiar with: Holly, mistletoe, Christmas trees, all were imported to the US from Europe, the United Kingdom in particular. There are other traditions still celebrated in the United Kingdom that never caught on here, some of which go beyond Christmas Day.

A lot of folks had their first taste of snow recently, and since snow is more welcome during the Christmas season, I decided to use it as this week’s topic. Trouble is I’ve written several articles about snow in the past, so I had to dig harder to find something fresh to write about. I did find something surprising, that I’d have to classify as weird science. It involves something called heavy water, so prepare to go sub-atomic.

We often come up with mind games to pass time with our grandkids on extended road trips, and being the Christmas season, we recently did a guessing game that involved plants and animals associated with Christmas. It was interesting enough that I decided to share the list and researched how certain plants and animals became synonymous with Christmas.

One of the more popular Christmas carols is “The Christmas Song”, sometimes called “Chestnuts Roasting”. The first line goes (sing it with me): “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire”. It occurred to me that most folks sing it with only a vague idea of what it means, so allow me to illuminate.