There is something good and virtuous about counting your blessings — especially when starting a new year. We live in an enchanted place.
Do you have fruit growing in your yard? Muscadine grapes should be pruned between January and March in the Northeast Florida area. Concerned about your orange tree during a hard freeze? Most of the oranges we grow in Northeast Florida area are grafted onto cold hardy root stock, so there is less chance of losing the tree from freeze damage. The portion of the tree you truly need to protect is the grafting part (where the root stock meets the scion).
On a local level, the national issues have inevitably trickled down and impacted our way of life here. However, so has the hope of an economic recovery and a return to a normal way of life. With a new year beckoning, here are 10 hopes for 2010. It is indeed a wish list, but it’s the kind of positive thinking we need as a follow-up from last year.
Judging from initial readings, the Christmas holidays may turn out to be a jolly good season — and a respectable finish to a tumultuous year. This is not to sugar-coat a U.S. economic landscape with a 10 percent unemployment rate, a ballooning national debt, and a chaotic political scene. Or to be insensitive to those of us falling upon hard times. Let’s count our blessings either way. Remember, just one year ago, things looked a lot worse than they do now in the financial and economic senses.