We expect the Arctic cold to hit this week, so I thought it would be a good idea to cruise the neighborhood to see if folks are prepared. Our temps will drop at night to below freezing, so plants will need covers. We are catered by 24 Diner of Austin. Our entertainment is Simon and Garfunkel.
Menu
CHEDDAR BURGER Brioche bun, cheddar, pickles, red onion, roasted tomatoes, smoked aioli
BACON AVOCADO BURGER Brioche bun, bacon, avocado, charred poblanos, smoked aioli
24 BURGER
Brioche bun, swiss, house pickles, sauce gribiche, bibb lettuce, tomato
THE 24 VEGGIE BURGER Brioche bun, Havarti, vegan mayo, spicy pepper relish, avocado. Housemade veggie patty: beets, mushrooms, lentils, bread crumbs, rice, pumpkin seeds, flaxseeds
WAGYU SLIDERS Blackening spice, bacon, caramelized onions, blue cheese dressing
PATTY MELT Rye toast, Swiss cheese, caramelized onions, smoked aioli
M’S GRILLED CHEESE Sourdough, cheddar, havarti, roasted tomato
BLACKENED TUNA SANDWICH Brioche bun, cabbage cucumber slaw, jalapeno remoulade
So let’s go
Color-matched covers.
A massive cover for a large plant.
Now we’re talking. Blue tarps everywhere.
Petty sky and subtle coverings.
The University of Texas flag looks windblown. The plants look embarrassed.
The oleander will be comfy, but the bed does not have a quilt.
Half is better than nothing.
Three fugitives from Halloween.
Grandma spent months making that cover.
No fooling around here. The straight stuff.
I hope you enjoyed the tour. Stay warm this week and enjoy the music and food.
Fiction Favorites 
Plenty of improvisation going on there, John…
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Yes it looks like an amateur try out. Thanks, Jaye.
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Looking at the state of our garden, maybe I should have raided to laundry cupboard too, John…
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😁 Well you can’t save them all.
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I think that Mother Nature does a much better job than I could ever do, John…
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Agreed.
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One of my favorite songs. Every time I hear it, I get a hankering for a vodka and lime, but right now I’ll make do with a Topo Chico lime. Of course there are those pages of unpublished rhyme as well, but never mind that.
I’m afraid we’re going to miss our snow and just get freezing rain, but my plants won’t care; they’re all sitting in the dining room.
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Ha ha ha. Ours are in the bath tub and garage. Thanks, Linda. 😁
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Stay warm. I’m sure the pups will want to stay inside.
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They made quick work of their outside trip this morning. 28 degrees.
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No one does that here, except the farmers.
I’ll take a patty meal, thank you.
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Good choice. We want our plants to survive so I guess we go to extra lengths. Thanks, GP.
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a patty melt might be better, eh? 🤪
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Oops I threw on some mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, pintos and cornbread with that patty melt. (the meal deal) Just avoid the other stuff.
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Hopefully, no one’s pipes will freeze!
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The horror, the horror. I just lit some sage to ward off the evil freeze.
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Good luck with that!
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😁
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We don’t need to cover our plants as a rule in winter. I would if it was necessary.
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I wish we didn’t have to either. Thanks, Robbie.
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🥶
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😊
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Those covers should work. It’s better to cover the entire plant, but not always possible.
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I agree. Of course you have to wonder why we plant stuff that needs protection. Thanks, Tim.
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Good luck staying warm. How cold will it get?
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We expect 20s at night for the next few days.
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Good luck. Teens and even negatives here, but I know 20’s isn’t common for you guys.
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The 20’s are not in our comfort zone for sure.
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Good luck with saving your plants, and I hope you are prepared. Since we get cold here regularly, we don’t cover anything.
But we have to lay in extra bird seed and suet. We might even get snow. Since we invested in a warm water re-circulator our pipes won’t freeze (and I know some of our neighbors’ will) and we also invested in a generator, since power outages are common.
We never had any of these problems at our old house – it was built right!
That patty melt looks especially enticing.
Keep the girls warm!
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A warm water re-circulator sounds terrific. We would like to get a generator since the grid is not keeping up with the population explosion.
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We got a Generac – not cheap but runs on natural gas and is connected to the house. Previously we had a medium sized gas powered one – incredibly noisy and we had to keep filling it!
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Sounds great.
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Minus the snow… it’s beginning to look a lot like Michigan..
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Ha ha ha. Thanks, Annette.
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Peeps gottta do what they gotta do. At least you are all forewarned and can prepare with whatever you have.
Stay safe and warm.
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So true, Dale. Thanks.
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You are such a good neighbor!
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I’m not sure. Taking photos and then making comments might not classify me as a good neighbor. No one has stopped me so I guess they are good with it. Thank you for the comment Samantha. I would like to follow your blog since I love history but I have been unable to find a follow button.
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Same here in my part of Florida. Looks like people threw their bedding outside. Lot of my potted plants are in my laundry room. One is covered with a very charming beach towel. The others will die back, be cut back next month and bloom again. Same cycle every year. Meanwhile, people were out food shopping like it was the end of the world this morning. I was just out to confirm that fact. Yum, the grilled cheese is really good. Stay worm, John. 🥶❄️
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Ours are in the bath tub. Shoppers are crazy folks for sure. I will try to stay warm, Lois.
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All bundled up! Stay warm. 😊
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Will try. 🥶
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😆
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🔥
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We’ve been below freezing here for so long that I’m sure our plants have forgotten what it feels like to be warm … or to see the sun. At least one can hope your cold spell won’t last too long — and then you can send some warmth up this way!
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I would be glad to ship some warmth off to you, Debbie. Gotta grab it first.
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Yep, I am seeing the same scenario around here. It blew in here last night. So cold!! But by the end of the week, we are supposed to be back up to 60, so it’s temporary. Thanks for the tour!!
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Looking forward to those 60s. Thanks, Jan
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Not ready for the cold and I’m not going to ever be ready for the cold. Not when temps are expected to dip into the single digits here this week. It’s very uncommon for it to get that cold in these parts. Imma feel like the Miami Dolphins this week, since they also have an allergy to freezing temps. I’ll take the Wagyu burger with a couple three fingers of Woodford please. Hold the ice.
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Here you go on the Wagyu and the Woodford Reserve. I don’t like the cold either. I have been out of the snow country for 40 some odd years. Now a thin blooded wienie
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Done and yum.
You got the right idea Boss. And that’s not being a wienie, it’s being a smarty.
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😊
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looking promising.. but cold! 🥶
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Yes, to us very cold.
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It’s good to see that some gardens are ready for the cold blast coming your way, John. I hope it isn’t too bad and the plants come away unscathed. Stay warm.
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I hope it doesn’t go the sleet and ice direction.
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I’ll take the 24 Burger please. Here in Dallas it will be 21 degrees tonight, well early morning. However, that is still warmer than when it was forty below the time I slept outside in a tent in the forest on the northern border between Sweden and Finland. That was my military service.
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Sounds like a fun exercise. Were you able to stay warm?
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Well we had a stove inside the tent. It was a big tent for 10 people. However, we were doing things outside a lot and that was a bit cold. They gave us milk with dinner and you could watch the milk turn into crystals with seconds. Not tasty or healthy.
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Interesting memories, though.
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It’s good to be prepared – stay, warm, John!
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Thank you, Barbara, I’ll sure try.
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Oh my goodness do those Wagyu sliders sound tempting, John. Absolutely beyond freezing in NE over the next two days. Brrrr.
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Well one expects it there. But freezing here? Not so much.
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Brrrrrrrr…..
Antibiotics for hand upset my stomach..no food today!
OX
Maybe a light salad.
🥗X
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I’m sorry you are having trouble with the antibiotics. How is kitty doing? 😁X
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Kitty is living in a closet in my den. She roams around it when I’m asleep. One day at a time. It will be a long haul.
Due to her previous unfortunate circumstances, the vet says she has reverted to indoor feral.
I have installed a pheromone diffuser.
🙀X 😿X
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Don’t worry. It will take time but sooner of later she will figure it our. 😁X 😊X
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OX 🌟X
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😁X
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Beautiful bright sun before the freeze. I laughed when I read “embarrassed plants” and “grandma spent weeks making that.” Some of them are very creative, others, I wonder why they bothered. We are expecting a couple of night with a hard freeze.
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We are supposed to have four nights of deep freeze, Jo. let’s hope not.
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We just don’t have plants like that. We get enough winter that apples and stuff can hibernate well. I will cover vegetables to avoid that last freeze of the year. I tried to nurse a fig along for a few years but finally gave up.
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The figs here had a real problem with the 6 days of below freezing two years ago. They can handle a couple of days of freezing nights but not much more. The reason we try to keep the plants is after the few days of freezing it goes back to 60s and 70s. Apples do not do well here and I think the low number of freezing days is the reason.
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So very cold. My sis is looking at -8 (feels like). Yikes!
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Yikes is right.
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I would like the Bacon-Avocado burger, please … no ketchup! I love that people are caring so well for their plants! I’m surprised, though, that it will be below freezing there! Surely this doesn’t happen often? We’re supposed to be at -3° F by Tuesday morning, so I can definitely empathise! Thanks for the tour of the neighborhood and I hope you guys warm up soon!
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It is unusual. Happens maybe five days a year. Thanks for the visit, Jill.
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My pleasure, John. I’m trying to get back in the habit of reading other people’s blogs … I’ve gotten lazy in that way!
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Getting out and about is a good idea for many reasons
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I agree … and yours is always a fun place to visit!
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Glad to hear that. 😊
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It’s 8 degrees here this morning. Hope Twiggy and Tempeste are imitating Bond and staying curled up with a blanket.
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They hate to go out. It’s 26 here right now.
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I had to laugh at the three fugitives from Halloween. This is an eclectic collection, clearly you guys haven’t done this annually. 🙂
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It is amateur hour for sure.
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Yes, yet funny. The temperature this morning when I headed to work was minus 7!! We’re doing the faucet drip every night so the pipes don’t freeze.
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We drip too at 32 degrees.
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Good to see the plants all tarped up. That’s what we do here in cold Canada. It’s freezing! 🙂
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I think that is amazing that you have plants that need to be sheltered. I thought they all were hardy.
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Not all. We once had a beautiful Japanese Maple (in freezing Toronto)) planted by our front porch. We tarped it all up with loving care – until my husband didn’t realize when he salted the porch and it melted, it was all going into the soil. The beautiful tree never survived.
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That must have been sad.
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It was.
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🙁
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Yum…that menu sounds so delish. Hope the semi-covered survived.
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We won’t know for another week.
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We’ve got our paws crossed for you. My daughter in the Houston area received snow yesterday and today I heard New Orleans received 10 inches of the white stuff. That just seems unfathomable! Stay safe and warm while that cold system is in your area.
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We had a 1/4 of an inch. Mostly gone now.
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Good for you. I’m still shoveling (like the other side of the driveway and a path for the trash bins which get picked up tomorrow).
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That path is very important.
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I hope the plants survive. I rather like the three fugitives from Halloween!
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Ha ha ha. Thanks, Stevie.
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Hopefully the plants make it and it’s much warmer there now.
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We are in the fifties but scheduled to be below freezing tonight and tomorrow night too.
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