When Hell (aka Starkville) Freezes Over

Ah, the weather. It's a thing of wonder, an ideal topic for small talk, and currently the bane of our existence.

After hovering in the mid-80s for several weeks, barely dipping down into the 50s at night, Mother Nature decided that life on the farm was too simple and that what we needed was a sudden, massive cold spell. From a high of around 85 on Tuesday to a low of 28 on Friday. Seriously. We went from summer like conditions to a freeze in about 48 hours. And then found out the freezing conditions would continue for 3 nights.

So, while Thursday morning Phil and I woke up and were discussing our plans to head to Talladega (no, not for NASCAR-we were going to support some friends of ours who were running this 100 mile trail race*), by that evening we were trying to figure out how many rows of crops we were going to lose.

Friday morning we woke up early and started what ended up being a two day process of crop protection: I started mowing to create grass clippings for mulch (note: it's hard to start a lawn mower 37 weeks pregnant. The massive belly makes that pulling motion almost impossible); Phil started making stakes, hoops, and pins for the row covers. The day wore on, the wind picked up. Phil mulched around all the plants, hoping to insulate them, but we were faced with a dilemma: hope our freshman, makeshift efforts at crop preservation would work and leave everything in the ground or, do a massive harvest and try to sell at least something from this crop. Sell it was. We let folks know we had some fresh, chemical free, heirloom, delicious vegetables if they wanted to buy. Thanks to the internet we had several buyers lined up in a matter of minutes.

While the prospect of a little business made things less gloomy, we were still racing the clock. I had to abandon my mulching efforts for a work thing but made it home with about an hour before sunset. We frantically pinned down row covers, "stitching" them together with wire to cover as much as possible. As the last light faded we covered the lettuce and took a long, sad look at the snow peas that were going to remain uncovered.

Then we waited till morning.

Phil went out at first light to assess the damage. It wasn't pretty. After struggling with a frozen hose for 30 minutes he was finally able to get some water on the plants we'd left exposed (this supposedly helps them thaw with less damage). Everything that we'd covered seemed to have survived with minimal damage, but the other rows were looking grim. This sparked an early morning trip to the farmer's co-op and Lowes in search of more row covers. We came up empty handed but bought some burlap as a substitute. Then, it was back to the farm to repair some wind damage to the existing covers and repeat the activities from Friday.

In the end, we survived our first freeze and so did most of our plants. We're not sure if the radicchio, red mustard, and snow peas will be smashingly good, but our gallant efforts saved the kale, green mustard, lettuces, turnips, beets and other secret goodies. Stay tuned.

Sorry. No pictures. Too cold.

*Congrats to KD, Icarus, Snuffy, Morph, and Wackus for your efforts. We were with you in spirit and think you're badasses for braving the trails in these temperatures.