Did You Celebrate Happy Solstice Day?

Did you celebrate Happy Solstice  Day on Dec. 21? 

That's the astronomical moment, according to the Farmer's Almanac, "when the Sun reaches the Tropic of Capricorn" and "we have our shortest day and longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere in terms of daylight. Regardless of what the weather is doing outside your window, the solstice marks the official start of winter."

If you're in the cold, so are the insects.

We captured images of a lady beetle, aka ladybug, covered with rain droplets as it huddled on the silvery gray foliage of our Artemisia, a plant that belongs to the daisy family, Asteracease. Some of the common names among the species in this genus are mugwort, sagewort and wormwood. Bug on a mugwort?

After the winter solstice, the days get longer and the nights get shorter. Is it too soon to think about spring?  

If only this insect, in its own bubble of sorts, could talk...