23 degrees in Duette this night.

In our strawberries and vegetables, the sprinklers are running over head. This morning, the icycles were only three inches long. I imagine with temperatures of 23 that the morning will be a cathedral of ice all along the rows. I will take pictures and send them to Dick. He knows how to post those. This is supposed to go on into Friday morning, too.

Then, it will be back up to 78 in the day. Odd swings that the south deals with.


I have discovered a whole lot about garden vegetables this season. Peas, dear Alice, will live to 25 and even lower. Spinach is good to about 20, greens are good to 25, all the brassica's are good for the same, lettuce is really loving it at 25. Beets do not mind the cool, parsley and most herbs do ok in the wee temps, and so, I am encouraged.

David loves to be warm. I think he has this thermostat at 75. I sleep better at 45, that is just the nose out and not the feet. At 75, I have to put the feet out, the nose out, fling off the covers, breath rabidly, point the fan on my head and then sweat. It is precisely at that moment of awakening that I wonder if I have taken my blood pressure meds. I begin to feel my heart beat in my head, my nose holes dry up, my lips crack and I wonder what the time might be. Now, I get up and look at the thermometer.

At 34, I calmly annouce the temperature, he gets up, looks to see that I have not had a delusion, puts on his big green military jacket, his tennis shoes and off he goes to do some magic that will keep the farm alive.

God bless David and men like him who come out of a warm bed and attack the elements to save my world.

I bought gladiolus, iris, and lots of seeds for summer flowers for the u-pick. I will name a zinnia for David. It is a hot weather plant and has multiple layers like he does. I do love my David.

Love,
Betty

Betty,

I hope all goes well with your vegetables tonight.

And I'm glad you are going to do the flowers!

Love, Carol

Betty,

Please replace the peas with flowers--much more wothwhile.

Hope it turns out OK, Betty. It also was 23 at first light all the way op here in Northeast Ohio. There has been a lot of bad weather to the east, west and south of us but we've had only one night when it hit 14 below zero. If we go 40 miles north we're in Lake Erie and Canada so I don't know how things are in Ontario.

Betty ,

Your ice-covered strawberry picture is so beautiful I set it as the background for my computer.

I iwlll attempt to place it here.

My attempt failed....Phooey

Betty,
I feel for you with all the vegetables and hard work. David sounds like someone very special.
I also like to sleep in the cold, snuggled up in warm blankets.
I hate the heat.

Weather worldwide is going to extremes. We are having the coldest weather where I live since I moved here. Fortunately the vineyards survived - so far. At -20 Centigrade they would be destroyed. It got to -15 C and many were worried but now it is about -3 overnight and up to +5 during the day.

The cold is nipping at everyone's door, it seems. What happened to the 'global warming'? I like to sleep in the cold, so I can snuggle down into the blankets; but the poor plants don't have blankets. We seem to be entering a mini ice age!

I hope everything survived the cold, Betty. Even the peas!! When they are in bloom it is a beautiful thing to behold.

Betty, David sounds like my dad. The house I grew up in was a raised cottage, with floor furnaces for heating. Since the house was off the ground, the floors would get very cold at night. I would wake up on winter mornings to the tap,tap of my father's bare feet hopping on those cold floors as he lit the furnaces so that the floors, as well as the rest of the house, would be warmer by the time the rest of us got up.

Ann

Zada, I heard an explanation for a local TV weatherman who has been on the job since 1963. He said the melting of the polar ice cap is responsible for the cold weather and storms. Global warming has caused a lot of the stuff that should be up at the pole to drift south and bring on the Alberta Clippers and such.

Dick I chuckle at your reference to Alberta Clipper. No one in Alberta knows there is weather named after their province that I ever knew of. When it's really cold in Alberta, we refer to it as an Arctic deep freeze, or an Alaska one.

Pam, tell them to keep their clippers at home, even if they don't realize they have them. They howl down over Lake Erie and give us a rough time. Seems like the weatherman is always saying, "Another Alberta Clipper on the way."
Used to know a girl named Alberta so you can guess her nickname. Her sister's name was Alta.

Here, the 'pineapple express' brings us rain, and the 'Artic express' gives us freezing weather. (Artic or Arctic, I can never remember) And sometimes we blame the storms that arise from the warm and cold air collisions (storms) on California!