First Watch

I thought it was tonight, but I was wrong. Tomorrow night is the night of the possible freeze.

Well, tomorrow is another day!

So, this first possibilty of freezing could wipe us out. Tomorrow night, I will stay up and watch the temperature drop. If, in my watch, it goes to 33, I will meander out into the darkness and turn the overhead water on. It will make a shield of ice that will keep some of our crops ok. At 4 am, my David will have his watch. He has to get up then to get ready for work anyway. He has second watch. I know he will not sleep well even though it is my watch. Not that he does not believe I can do it, but he is still of the olden ways that a woman should not have to do some stuff.

I would have to say that he is lucky that I can do some stuff! That is what women do....some stuff!

In most years, up until Christmas, the weather is warm, wearing shorts
to shop, sweating over the Thanksgiving dinner. Tomorrow is another day.

Love,
Betty

Betty, tonight and into the morning here in Georgia it is supposed to
get down to 25 degrees. It was 31-33 this morning. I hope you aren't
off a day in the predictions! I just topped off the antifreeze in my
vehicles

Good luck, dear lady. This global warming sure is a strange thing...

Dear Phil,
We have one of those things that has a unit you put out in the cold and the other part goes in the house so you can see how cold it is outside and how lucky you are to be in your warm bed. I do not know that it is precise.

David and I talked about this tonight. He thinks that I am an alarm ready to go off.

Thank you for the good luck wishes. Luck, it really is. Here it may be 32 degrees and over the hill it may be 38. We live in a hollow, if hollow there is in Florida. Just a little dip in the land that makes us down in the valley. If I told my neighbors that I lived in the valley they would think I had lost my last nut. Our valley is a good two hundred feet below level land, if that makes sense. We get the fog, the early rains, and the lovely breezes. Those people up there two hundred feet get the smell of the mine's water, the dust from the road and the best heat of the summers. We get the first freezes of winter and that probably makes us even.

I do hope our crops live for a while more. Sometimes, there is nothing one can do but pray, stay awake and do what needs done.

Love,
Betty

A shield of ice? Bet that would make a picture. Sure hope you can save everything, Betty. It's been weird weather several places. We normally have some rain and furnance temps about now, but it's been high eighties. We seemed to have skipped winter this year. Hate that.

Betty,

You poor thing--you need to sleep sometime.
How about smudge pots ?

Dear Betty,

I will use all the powers of magic bestowed on me by the Welsh Dragon to blow flames across the ocean to the coast of Florida and beyond to warm the air and keep the temperature in your valley above freezing.

Love and best wishes from the land of mountains and valleys.

~Shelagh

Sure hope it works out OK, Betty. The Alberta Clipper that started all this dumped about eight inches of snow on us overnight.

Where's that global warming they keep promising us. With heating bills still high I could do with about now.

Our TV weatherman explained how the melting of the polar ice cap is actually making winters worse, but that won't last for long. He said it, not me.

Well this winter certainly looks like it could be as cold as I remember as a kid, that's for sure.

Here in Southern CA, it's supposed to be 87 degrees today, was 88 yesterday. We had three days of cold weather - sixty-something - then zoomed right back up. But at least we're out of the three-digit temps.

Just in the five years I've been here, I've seen a drastic change, and it's not good. One day of rain since last January, I believe, and everything's so dry you don't dare cough after eating Mexican food.

Betty Fasig wrote:

.... So, this first possibilty of freezing could wipe us out. Tomorrow night, I will stay up and watch the temperature drop. If, in my watch, it goes to 33, I will meander out into the darkness and turn the overhead water on. It will make a shield of ice that will keep some of our crops ok....

Betty!!!

Too bad I didn't know you were up. I was driving down I-75 to the turnpike and over to I-95 last night. We had a delivery in Miami this morning. So I was up as well.

Yeah, it got pretty chilly. My sister in Reno called me around midnight and it was 37 degrees wherever it was I was at the time. And in Reno it was like 42, I think she said. I couldn't believe it! Colder in Florida than in the high dessert????

Hope your crop was safe.

First, I would like to say to Shelagh, Thank you for a little warmer wind. It may save us. I have been watching the temperature drop, degree by degree. David put the outdoor part of our indoor/outdoor themometer in the little airplane that flies throught the trees. He just went to bed.

Right now, it is 8:54 and the temperature is a balmy 52 degrees. I will report in a while.

Joelle,
You have a romantic life of the old musical people. I think of you and your traveling spirits and am reminded of the song of Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin. I wonder if you play the harmonica. I find it no wonder that you have an affinity with elves. There are elves in my back woods, small, golden people.
When I first moved here, years ago from the city, I was surprised to see them as they were to see me.
Since then, if I see them, I do not say and if they see me they do not say. It works out best.

I hope you are warm.
Love,
Betty

Betty I hope you were spared and are not hastily figuring our a new kind of ice wine crop. It's hovering around the freezing mark here today and bone chilling. I just turned up the heat and am going to crawl in under the duvet. Warm thoughts your way!

It got down to 38 here last night. Here, we have tree nurseries, and they use the ice shield trick to spare the little seedlings and some of the bigger ones too. I works like a charm. there should be some kind of device that would set off an alarm when the temerature reaches a certain level, I would think. Maybe even one that would turn on the sprinklers.

The visual effect of the ice shield is stunning!

Weird.

Those are welsh dragons. I can tell from the arrowed tails

Yeah their like the women very fiery.

Hairy, if women weren't generating heat, men would not be attracted to them! (We have to go with our strengths)

Betty, I hope it warmed up for you down there!