Merry Tomatoes...

...and other random, post-holiday observations about Montana.

I got some red, ripe tomatoes for Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza. They came in this form of this vintage tea set that I fell in love with at The Nook, on South 1st and Bedford streets in Hamilton. It now sits on a tray on my kitchen table. I believe that you can't have too many things that remind you of gardening in the middle of winter.

And I sewed a bunch of pillow cases from the Christmasy red-and-gold upholstery fabric that our former neighbor across the street sold (for next to nothing) at her yard sale last summer. She's a drapery maker and had a big sewing studio in her basement. The new owners of her home are from Bainbridge Island near Seattle. They didn't make it here for Christmas, but I do hope they'll move in soon -- seem like wonderful people.  They can join us by our fire and lounge on cushions originating in their very own house. This is my favorite place to sit, by the way, and play Words with Friends.

From another perch in the living room, I look fondly at the poinsettia sent to us by my son Fred and his family back in Kentucky. It's such a bright accent to a gray and snowy season. Fred and grandson Zach have been talking about coming out to Montana next summer. The whole family may descend, and they will be most welcome!

Some days, we walk the mile or so to Murdoch's Ranch and Home Supply (http://www.murdochs.com/hamilton), just to look at all of the exotic and sometimes beautiful horse tackle, Western wear and sundry other things -- such as this rubber-tire swing fashioned as a horsie. I wonder if any lucky Montana kid got one of these for Christmas.

No Christmas/New Years holiday would be complete without a stack of 2013 seed catalogs on the coffee table. Some lazy afternoon (maybe today!), Alex and I will page through them together, select and order seeds! I'm especially interested in tomato types for cool northern or high-elevation locations. Last summer, we had plenty of luck with SunGold and other cherry tomatoes, but the slicers were puny in this cooler, short-season climate. I think that Johnny's (http://www.johnnyseeds.com/c-52-tomatoes.aspx) will be a key source. One of their tomatoes called Oregon Spring has been highly recommended to us.

We're beginning to plot our 2013 on this Bitterroot Audubon Society Calendar (http://www.bitterrootaudubon.org/).  I gave away five of these beauties as Christmas gifts.

And, currently, I'm reading the field notes of a former Wall Street Journal reporter, Philip Connors, who gave up big city life for summers in mountain-top lookouts. His annual perch is in New Mexico, but his survey of the status of American forests and forestry is applicable everywhere in the West. (My interest comes, in part, from the forest fires in our valley last summer. One got as close as five miles from our house. We smelled the smoke for two months.)

Getting ready to cut down some of that forest (haha! only dead trees for firewood, and on the private property of friends) is Alex, with his new Stihl chain saw. He's handled a saw many times before, so I'm not too worried. (I, on the other hand, put a battery-powered edger/trimmer on my wish list. And I got it! I hope that it will keep our small city yard and garden pristine next summer!)