Tag Archives: cold

2015_Day 11: Lettuce, flowers made it through hard freeze

Leave a reply

2015/01/img_1415-0.jpgI’m happy to report that both the lettuce and my matthiolas made it through the last few nights of really cold weather. I’ve been covering them at night for the last week or so (one night, it got down to 18), and on Friday and Saturday I kept them covered all day, as well. I was able to move the lettuce onto the covered patio, but not before the tarp was coated in ice on Saturday. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem any worse for wear, although it’s certainly not growing. Continue reading →

2015_Day 8: Hutch refinishing slow-going but (hopefully) worth it

1 Reply

I can't wait to get this farmhouse style hutch refinished and back into my house.

I can’t wait to get this farmhouse style hutch refinished and back into my house.

The cold has put the kibosh on my newest DIY project – refinishing an old farmhouse-type kitchen hutch we got from the in-laws. I started stripping it about three weeks ago, but haven’t been able to get very far because the Citristrip stripper requires the temperature to be at least 65 degrees. This morning’s temperature in our garage wasn’t even 50! Continue reading →

2015_Day 7: Wild and windy day in Texas

1 Reply

door snakeThere are a number of things I didn’t bring from Wisconsin because I didn’t think I’d have much use for them in Texas. Snow shovels. Game them to family in Wisconsin. Snow boots. Gave ’em to Goodwill. Door/window draft snakes? Ditto. But as you can hear in the video below (or at http://tinyurl.com/pf9xol8), I should have kept the door snakes. Seems you don’t have to have an old house to have a drafty one. Continue reading →

2015_Day 5: Hey Mom, I’m not cold. Get over it.

1 Reply

FrozenIt was 27 degrees this morning (wind chill temperature was 21) when daughter left the house to walk to the bus stop. Do you think she had a coat on?

“Mom, I’ve got a sweatshirt in my bag if I get cold,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

So tell me again, why exactly is it that teens won’t wear coats? Continue reading →

2015_Day 3: Lettuce not so happy with cold either

1 Reply

Dec. 21

Dec. 21

Jan. 3

Jan. 3

I know lettuce is a cool-weather crop, but it seems like the numerous 30- and 40-degree days we’ve had recently has slowed the growth of my greens. Photos taken Dec. 21 and Jan. 3 of the Black Seeded Simpson and Rouge d’Hiver don’t really seem to show a whole lot of growth in the two-week span. Today’s low-60s temps should help some, but with a forecast of seesawing temps for the next week or so, I’m not sure how much the lettuce is going to grow. I don’t have any plans to put the lettuce under grow lights, so I guess I’ll just have to wait it out. Continue reading →

2015_Day 2: I didn’t move to Texas for temperatures in the 30s

1 Reply
Hats, scarves, gloves, boots and blankets kept us (kind of) warm at Wednesday's soccer game.

Hats, scarves, gloves, boots and blankets kept us (kind of) warm at Wednesday’s soccer game.

When I first found out that moving to Texas was a possibility, one of the first things I did was a comparison of the average daily temperatures between Wisconsin and the Lone Star State. I liked what I saw. I figured I could live with average daily highs in the 90s June through September if that meant average daily highs December through February were 60. December, January and February average daily highs in Green Bay, Wis., are in the mid- to upper-20s, and the winter of 2013-14 was downright frigid, with average highs and lows 6 to 10 degrees below normal. Winter seemed to stretch on and on and on, and moving to a warmer climate seemed like a pretty good bet. Continue reading →