Cancel the cold

I left work a few minutes early to give me some extra time to cover up sensitive stuff in the landscape.  The forecast lows of around freezing would surely wreak havoc.  Thankfully Cindy was off from work so she could help lay stuff out.  We covered almost everything in the garden which isn’t too hard.  What is hard is trying to protect the banana trees which are ridiculously sensitive to cold.

I have had these trees for at least 6-7 years and never got any fruit from them.  The reason is every time the temps even touch the 30’s the trees get destroyed, wilt back to the ground and then start to grow again.  Well last year winter they survived unscathed so I wanted to do what I could to protect them from the cold last night.

Cindy and I spent close to a half hour trying to wrap the 4 or 5 trees in a cocoon of frost cloth.  After running several strips of the cloth across the top of the trees we finished it off with another piece wrapped around the sides.  The cloth was held in place with a combination of twine and weight plates.  I told Cindy that if the trees get damaged after all of this work I am never going to bother covering them again.

Well when I woke up this morning and saw they thermometer reading 46 degrees I was relieved.  Evidently the forecasters were off 10 degrees or so in their forecast.  It was very windy, making the wind chill feel closer to freezing.  When I looked in the back yard I saw the wind had destroyed all of the work Cindy and I did on the banana trees, the cloth was blown apart.  Good thing it turned out we didn’t need it.

Of course complaining about 46 degrees sounds pretty ridiculous compared to what they are dealing with up north.  My weather magnet showed a temp of 1 degree in Reading this morning.  I heard that schools up there were closed due to the extreme cold, something I don’t recall every happening before.

Ali was supposed to be finally flying home today but her flight was also cancelled due to the brutally cold temps so I don’t know when she will actually be coming back.

This has been the longest Ali has been away from the dogs since we split, over 2 weeks.  The dogs seem to have reacclimated themselves to  being out at the house again.  Nicki in particular seemed to really improve with her extended time at the house.  Not having to deal with 2 flights of stairs definitely has been a good thing.  Last night while we were covering plants she actual ran a bit around the shed, something I haven’t seen her do in damn close to a year I bet.

She also seems more interested in play, indoor and out.  It’s been great seeing her energy level pick up.  When I see her playing I just stand there and smile.