Journal for December 31, 2025

It’s been a cold December this year – with more snow and ice than we’ve had for a while. And this week a big snowstorm came to finish off the year.

Our aufeis is forming again. Normally this is a tiny stream – only about a foot wide.

A rabbit has been living under our porch. Before the snow came it spent its days sitting in the tiny prairie between the porch and the living room windows. We haven’t seen it much since it snowed – hopefully it has a warm cozy place to shelter.

The hundreds of little balls on our willow branches are Willow Pinecone Galls – made by a small fly called a Gall Midge.

Here’s a close up of one of the galls. The midge larva will stay inside the gall all winter and then emerge as an adult in the spring. Galls are made by the plant in response to damage by the fly. Gall-making insects are usually particular about which host plants they use, and the host plants make a particular kind of gall for each species of insect. So the species of insect can be identified by observing the gall.

These galls look like Christmas ornaments.

This is a gall made by a different species of midge on a different species of willow.

I also found some cocoons hanging from the willows – well camouflaged because of all the galls around them. This was an old Polyphemus cocoon – probably from last year. It had a hole in the top where the adult had emerged.

I found another Polyphemus cocoon with a live pupa inside. It’s in a cage on my porch now – hopefully an adult will emerge in the spring.

After the first big snow, Mike drove the tractor with the snowblower up the hill and cleared some of our paths. It was nice to be able to walk up there and see the snow covered prairies.

Indian Grass Point – looking down into the valley. The tree is one of our ‘bonsai oaks’ – closely trimmed every winter by the deer.

The path through Buffalo Ridge Prairie

The Narrows Prairie

But most of our walks have been on the driveway because it’s easier to keep cleared.

Morning sky over the wetland

Buds on the Silver Maple near the creek are starting to swell, even this early in the winter.

They look like they’re just about ready to open, but spring is still several months away.

Most of the color these days is in the sky. We see more sunrises than sunsets, because we see them on our morning walks.

Silver Maple with sunrise

Another sunrise

Sunset over the Knife Edge Prairie

More sunset clouds

I’m working on one partly outdoor – project: cleaning, organizing and planting seeds in some of our prairie and wetland areas. I’m over-seeding places that have been planted before, so I don’t have to worry about how evenly I spread the seeds – which makes the project much easier. This is one of the wetland areas after planting.