Today it’s windy, 3 above zero, drifting snow, just plain nasty and dangerous. And we’re looking at still lower temps (-13 F) Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, until suddenly it should be back into the 20’s and low 30’s. Wind chills are projected to -30 F here, with some areas anticipating - 55 F.
I’m about ready to throw in the towel! I keep telling myself “just this one last blast and then spring can come” and then it starts again. Arrgh!
But at least my trees are staying dormant. Maybe when Spring does spring she’ll stay sprung. We can hope.
We are getting cold on a scale closer to here and it doesn’t compare to yours. Projected 22 F more or less for the first three days of the week. That’s a picnic for you but my trees are covered in blooms and some leaves. Yuck.
It is snowing as I am typing this. It will be snowing again tomorrow night til Mon am. I just told my husband that when we grow older (than we are now), I don’t know if I want to live where we are.
It was too icy and slippery for the elderly to walk outside for 3-4 months a year and very cold for two more months a year. What fun it would be growing old and being stuck inside for months and months a year.
I feel your pain Mark. -18 below tonight with windchills pushing -40. Windchill warning in effect from midnight through the day tomorrow when the high will be -2. This has been a brutal winter.
I grew up in northern Illinois. The cold isn’t so bad for a kid. But I can tell you the south is better for an older person. Where I am the best season for working outside is winter or at least the colder half of the yr. I’d like to be near my daughter in Denver but even she doesn’t like the cold and snow. At times it’s still cold in May.
I’ve been talking to the wife about this also. we’ re pushing 50 so not that old yet but are considering snow birding from nov. to may at her girlfriends town in NC. they live right on lake gordon. wouldn’t mine gardening and open water fishing year round!
My main weather gripe as a fruit grower is early spring, which threatens my stone fruit crop. Every week of this crap makes me feel safer in that regard.
What’s messing with my mind is uncertainty about what I can get away with in terms of early pruning of peaches. I have a ton of extra work I’m going to have to do this spring beyond the normal excessive level so I’ve been racing to get all the orchards I manage pruned and I’ve finished the big apple jobs and need to start working on stone fruit.
Now the forecast for next week has a low that has gone from 10 to 5F in the last few days. A few years back I pruned some very young peach trees before a low like that and a few of them died or suffered severe cambium damage that slowed their development.
Apples get tougher as they get older, so I’m hoping peaches do the same, but the guess work involved here heightens my anxiety.
Nope, cause I for sure would make a hole that funnels it out of here LOL. Then you will have not only cold but one heck of a wind.
I sympathize with everyone, even though we are farther north our temps. at this time of the year average high -5C, average low -17C. This morning -28C with a windchill of -39C
I worry about my trees, I guess they are still dormant, but is there a point when desiccation starts because of prolonged cold?
desiccation is definitely a issue as the cold is prolonged. you guys have drier, cold air than even we do and less snow to protect from those drying winds which makes it a real challenge! my hats off to you!
Thanks for your kudos, but there is not many plant varieties that I have not killed at least once LOL.
My concern this year will be the desiccation, we have had colder days before but not for this length of time. As I said on another thread, I am noting all the areas that get huge snow cover. These are where I plan to put marginal fruit shrubs or vines that get laid down over winter.
Kansas is nice because though we have plenty of ice, snow and cold temperatures we also get heat , drought , heavy rain etc…The constant change is nice. I get bored in places like South Florida where the weather is perfect most of the time. Hurricanes are as bad as it gets. Lots of people in warmer places so if anything i would go some place dry or colder than Kansas to get away from all the people. @fruitnut has the right idea with west Texas! Snow and ice are definately just life here.
Then he often heat-birds in our worst months to Alaska, too!