Yahoo! Its 11:10 am and the temperature INSIDE just crested 50! That's Farenheit for all you people who refuse to believe that Florida ever drops below 72. The last 2 nights have been harsh. Tuesday night it got down to 27, I think. I spent all day Tuesday preparing. Orange trees are pretty hardy but not when they're young. I wrapped every strand of Christmas lights we had (and this is the only reason we have outdoor Christmas lights) around the trunks and center foliage of 4 citrus trees, 1 avocado tree, 1 barbados cherry tree and 5 pineapple palms. I left the papaya trees to fend for themselves and I think they lost. What do you think? Oh well, it was only 1 year of growth from seed anyway. Then I covered the trunks and our 2 rows of brocolli (probably unnecessary) with blankets, and covered the pineapples with boxes, buckets, tarps and anything else I could find. Last night was worse, getting down to 25, and we also hung a light in our pump house to keep the pump from freezing. We let all the ducks run loose so they could find the warmest spot... maybe huddled in with the goats, but they scattered all over the pasture instead. Yesterday the ice in the waterers never did completely thaw. Today the sun is shining really nice. I think its warmer outside than in! So here comes the question... don't you have heat? We do. Emergency heat. We turned it on Tuesday night but only cold air blew out. Wed night was supposed to be warmer so I didn't bother reading the manual to find out if there was something else we were supposed to do to get the heat on. We all camped out in front of the fireplace last night instead. It was fun. It brings back memories of my China days where we'd be sitting with snow on the ground but the government-regulated heat doesn't get turned on until Nov. 15th. Those were fun times! Randy wore 3 pair of pants to bed last night. Gloria and Aaron faired well with many blankets. I was tending the fire so slept right beside it... yeah, I was toasty!
So other than our poor papaya trees (which still may come back), nothing of any real value was badly affected. The tomatoes are dead but that's to be expected. They weren't the greatest anyway. We have lots of green tomatoes sitting on our windowsill trying to ripen though. The potatoes are shot so I'll dig those up. The peas look to have survived. As did the onions and lettuce, carrots and all the herbs.
Now to find enough firewood for another full day and night!
1 comment:
I never considered the possibility that a home in Florida would not be heated. Weird. I have considered doing a weekend with no heat or electricity here, just for the experiences...maybe help my kids learn some thankfulness, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. But, I think I would find comfort knowing that I could turn the heat on if I wanted to :)
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