Friday, February 13, 2009

Ok rain, can you please go away now? I want my sun back.

ugh, its cold and raining. I love the sound and the smell of rain, but its this cold I can't stand...I know I know, I'm a weak SoCal wimp whining about cold since its below 70 degrees, but its a whoping 48 degrees, which for me is pretty damn cold.


At night its been dipping into the 40s- if it gets to 38 tonight I need to go cover my potted plants & citrus- right now I have them in a kinda wind wheltered corner on the south side of the yard, which hopefully should help keep them a bit more protected. I'm dreading having to go outside in the rain and cold and fight a giant tarp to cover them.


The 2 things I hate most in life are being wet and being cold, and may the gods help you if you get caught in my wrath when I am both ( think; geology field trips in college).


Right now I am sitting here in these warm fuzzy PJs with feet like the sleepers little kids wear, with wool socks and flannels underneath and my feet are still icy cold, and as I sit here trying to type my hands keep going icy cold. Ugh. Excuse the horrid photo.




I don't mind the occasional SoCal cold spell to have an excuse to wear a sweater and to snuggle up under extra quilts, but alfter 2 weeks of some 80 degree weather in January its a shock to the system to have it cold and raining for a week, with a 1 day break and now 2 more storms moving in tonight For the last week we've kept a space heater on in 'our' wing of the house to keep it warm- its really drafty with so many single pane glass windows. I put curtains up which help a little but we just need to seriously get some weather stripping and caulk and fix all the gaps. No one has been living back here on this end for years until we recently moved in, so no one paid any attention.


We have a fireplace on this end, but it hasnt been used in over 10 years, so I'm really paranoid about starting a fire and burning the house down from dust catching fire or something. I'm going to bug my hubby and brother in law to check it out and see if its safe to light a fire- rather then waste gas on the furnace trying to heat this drafty house I'd rather get a bit of firewood and have a nice bank of coals going for heat and some romantic fireside snuggling for valentines day. Plus then I can make s'mores!


I'm kicking myself for not buying a better space heater. When I was at Lowes getting seed trays they had all their space heaters 75% off, ( only ~$30 after the discount) and I walked right by, thinking to myself how rarely it is that we're cold enough to bother with a space heater, and it would be a waste of money- arg.


I'm strggling to keep my seed trays warm. I jimmy'ed up a growing area with a rubbermaid garage storage shelving thing, some bungee cords, aquarium lights, and shoe boxes to raise the trays up close to the lights. Woohoo for being cheap!

They are in a south facing window with 2 aquarium lights. they are tiny so still have that plastic tray cover on that should help keep the warmth in overnight, I hope. So far the tomatos, eggplant, broccoli, swiss chard, basil and lettuce have sprouted. I'm still waiting on the leeks, pak choi and peppers to make an appearence.


1 comment:

Sinfonian said...

Ok, those PJs are so cute. My wife has a couple pair. We found them at Target once. They're extra large boys. We wore them to a costume party one year (went as our kids). Now she wears them on cold days. I've even been known to put them on when sick. Kinda tight on me since I'm way too tall for them.

Great pics of germinating seeds. Too bad you can't get the lights a bit closer so not to get the seedlings too leggy. Of course my 6 starts have YET to germinate, Grrr, so how can I talk? hehe.

I really should start some cole crops and lettuce seeds germinating. Gotta get those going for spring. Thanks for posting!