Cedar waxwings arrive

I spotted by first flock of cedar waxwings on Sunday, perched above the backyard in the pecan. For some reason, these are my favorite birds, and I love their arrival in the winter.

I almost never see them first. I'm usually going about my daily chores--working in the garden walking the dog--and finally the whistling, trilly song of the birds chatting with each other moves from way back in my subconscious mind up into my conscious mind. It goes from background music to turn-up-the-knob and listen.

I love it. They winter here in flocks and love to eat berries, especially the nasty invasive ligustrum berries when they are more ripe on down the line.

Another sure sign of winter here in Austin is the arrival of cardinals. I saw my first cardinals about a week ago, and now see the males singing their songs perched at the tip top of the naked tree branches. Awesome!

Covering in a Freeze

So last night, the weather got down into that freeze zone, which doesn't happen often here in Austin (thank the baby jeebus). We decided to throw some old sheets over the veggie garden just to be sure. This morning when I lifted off the sheets, I noticed that every place that the sheets were touching the veggies--lettuce, broccoli, kale, parsley--the leaves were dark and frostbitten.

The question is: do we cover veggies in Texas? Are these things adapted to a freeze? I thought a blanket was supposed to help, not hurt. Maybe I need to keep the blanket off the leaves (which sounds like a royal pain in the ass)?

I'm sleuthing.