Measure It With Time

The first thoughts grasp at the sensation of this level of cold.

But in nearly every way, it's yet another winter day, sun rising. With the heating plant burning a steady supply of natural gas, it runs without stop and we maintain a temperature nearly 100℉ warmer inside than outside. This is unusual. During extreme cold events it is possible for the power to go out, but we have a plan. Open all the faucets, then, in the basement, drain the water from the plumbing system into the sump pit where the battery powered backup pump will push the water into the septic system. What matters is how long the power is out.

The chilling effect of the cold is enough to keep a car's coolant, normally about 195℉, too cool to warm the car sufficiently. Add a brisk 25mph wind across uninterrupted farm fields, snow blowing across roadways, you will not have much time if you choose to stop, engine running, before moving to get the engine warm again. Should your car quit running or slide off the road because you mistook black ice formed of car exhaust for snow-wet pavement? That water freezes within seconds at negative thirty is not part of our daily consciousness. Road salt stops working around 10℉ above zero. The cellphone will quit, even at high charge, almost immediately. Less people will be out on the road. Frostbite will effect exposed skin in a matter of minutes.

So how cold does -30℉ feel? Just like it does at -10℉. This kind of cold is sensed with time.

Fortunately the snow that fell on the previous, much warmer 8℉ day. I was able to put this old machine to work and, at thirty five years old, it's holding up, doing its job better than our plow man and with no damage to the yard and gardens.

Lunar Eclipse

January twentieth's total lunar eclipse, on a cold, clear night, the so called Super Blood Wolf Moon. Below zero temperature, the moon at high altitude, a clumsy tripod incapable of the angle, and an adapted, low quality Minolta 210mm zoom from the 1980s on my great Olympus EM10, all overcome to capture a couple of nearly steady images at several second exposures. If you look closely, or click on the image, you can even see a few shaky stars. Lunar eclipses reveal the moon's spherical form more than our usual moon, offering us the subtlest grasp on the depths above.

House Peppers

I may have learned something about fruit production, quite unexpectedly. When bringing in yard plants for the winter, I give them a good cut back. On this particular pepper plant, clipping resulted in five flowers per node, only 90 days after digging from the garden. I'm now wondering whether we have the growing season to clip back a mature pepper plant, in the garden, to produce a bumper crop of peppers.

Pepper plants are self-pollinating, requiring the services of wind or insects to shake the pollen free. Among the plants behind the southern-facing window we have a forced air duct, providing a regular soft, if drying, breeze. There are also some fungus gnats, and whatever else came in with the plants, to mess around with any flowers. At the moment there are small peppers where some of these flowers had bloomed. Whether or not they are small and or misshapen will determine how well they have been pollinated.

I kept our grown potatoes in the basement, near the sump pump pit. I thought the higher humidity would be good for them compared to the 20% humidity provided by our forced air heat system. What came of it was a short storage life, given the basement's near constant 65℉ and growing potatoes.

The Lilac Wasp

Years ago, now, I removed the lilac tree growing scraggedly against the house. I hesitated to remove it as it was a favorite of a large, ground nesting wasp that made a pulp of its cambium or sapwood. Since removing the tree, the wasps have not returned.