Mid December Harvesting and Reflections

I've been scarce here on the blog lately due to a combination of writer's block, holiday season busy-ness and not much garden related going on at the moment. But today I took a walk down to the garden and harvested the last of my brussels sprouts along with a few leaves of kale, arugula, parsley and scallions.

It came to about a pound and a quarter of produce and the cool thing about that is it brought my harvest total for 2012 to 577 and a quarter pounds. This is just over 100 pounds more than we got last year! Which makes me very very happy.
As I've harvested kale lately I've noticed some kind of bug eggs on the leaves. First saw them in the early fall, but even after a number of freezes they are still present and on close inspection seem to either be sprouting into some little mite of some kind or else the eggs attract a mite. I've also seen one or two green worms and recently heard a report of a moth called a winter moth that's arriving in our area from the north, from Canada. So I thought it might be their eggs. Not sure, but they are not nice to my kale leaves. Here is a picture of the eggs:

OK, not the best of pictures, but I am not yet good at those close-up photos. They are in thick clusters and an ash gray in color. Any ideas as to what they might be?
Anyway, that's all the gardening going on around here for now. I have been perusing my seed catalogues and will soon inventory my old seeds and begin the ordering process for next year. To my dismay, the green bean variety I've loved and waxed eloquently about for the past four years is not being offered by Johnny's this year. I have to find a new variety to use since I've only located that variety with one other seed company and I couldn't tell if the website was current or not.
I hope once the holidays are over to attend to this blog just a bit more. I spent an unfruitful afternoon last week trying to redesign the look and made a real hash job of it, only succeeding in eliminating one element I actually liked. I'd like to move away from the sterile template and make it more personalized. But it will have to wait for a quiet time when my spouse or son is available to help me tackle the job. It's the kind of thing D actually enjoys and I don't.
For now I'm off to the kitchen to prep some things for dinner and then to finally get to work on getting our Christmas tree up. Working up some Christmas spirit!