The Big Freeze

We’d experienced several frosts and a hard freeze even before Winter formally began, with Nov. 30th changing us out from extended Summer conditions to plant-killing anomalous cold blasts. But the last few nights have been a straight dive into the low to mid 20’s with dangerous wind speeds and potential for freezing rain. I wasted no time and went on an expensive shopping spree at Lowes to get a huge roll of 6mil plastic, spring clamps, two more 1500 watt electric milk house heaters, a second Cat 6500 watt generator and a remote temperature sensor. My mom was right out there with me to put up the thick and heavy plastic during the windless warm before the storm. Her uncannily neat Christmas gift wrapping skills turned the afternoon around when she put them to large scale use wrapping the ends of Tents 1&2, creating a glove-like fit to hold in heat and resist the violent gusts of wind.

A second portable generator became a clear reality as the weather report made us realize that the one generator was all we had in the event that ice and wind took out power potentially for days. The last few nights I’ve been getting up at 3 or 4am to add gas, monitor temperatures and fire up the second generator for the third pair of heaters if it gets below 50 in there. This afternoon it was an oil change and air filter cleaning on the first generator. I could use a good night’s sleep.

Having already sustained growing tip and rib damage to large lawn plants that we had properly wrapped in frost cloth and protective cocoons for the first hard freeze, I had to add heat lamps and extra heaters. The tree cactus that produced so many flowers and seeds had no real damage from that freeze but its cocoon of thick plastic is now glowing like a lava lamp from the upgrade of a 250 watt heat lamp within. So far, plants in Tents 1&2 are undamaged and still growing. Tomorrow I open them up again for the day to get some fresh, dry air. Not a climate-friendly farm this month given all of the gasoline the generators burn. I hope that the numbers factor in favor of running geothermal heating beneath the future high tunnel.