Tag Archives: chilly

Chilly. What Gives?

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So in May we had temperatures in the 80’s for a stretch. I was ready to plant the garden long before the typical date. Now that my melons, which I have tried to grow three years running without success, have been in their beds for a few weeks, we have temperatures in the 50’s at night, every night. Today is was so chilly I wanted to light a fire. If I hadn’t have been too lazy to move the potted plant from the top of the wood stove, I would have.

The melons don’t look great.  They are sensitive bastards. They have not grown a whole lot bigger in the past month and one of them looks like it is ready to pass out. Maybe they have been staying up too late since they left the pot. Maybe I was too rough with them when I transplanted them. Maybe it is the cold. And maybe, and I shudder to put this in writing, it is the beetles.

I have not seen any cucumber beetles yet. Why would I? They are perhaps happily munching away at the roots of my poor little melons. Or they might be victims of the nematodes I spread this spring. I won’t be able to tell for a bit. The cucumbers don’t look great either, however. And the pumpkins’ growth has slowed. I was really hoping the beetles would be slain by these tiny little animals. I have not given up hope, but I am thinking the damn hole may not be plugged.

I worked at home today and shivered. I wore a hat–the winter variety. I drank hot beverages. I couldn’t get warm. That doesn’t help with the old productivity. But I got work done nonetheless. I made about a zillion phone calls and that kept me mostly distracted from the 50 degree temperatures.  Plus, it was overcast, then rainy, and windy. The highest temperature I saw was 63 degrees. Summer in Vermont.

On Friday night I will wake in the wee hours again and head up to the mountains to see if I can find some birds. Take two. It may be chilly then, but I will be prepared for that, and hiking tends to raise one’s body temperature anyway. The birds like it better when it is warm as well, but they are not as wussy as melons. A few cool nights, a few bugs, and those suckers just can’t take it. I’m going with the tough love approach at this point–no dessert until they start to green up their act. I’m the one whose a sucker when it comes to the birds. They sing to me and I’ll praise them all poet-like. If my melons would sing instead of produce fruit, well, at least then I would get something sweet.

First Day of Winter

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View on the way up Mount Philo

OK, it wasn’t actually the first day of winter, but the temperature hovered around freezing all day, so it felt like a winter day. A fire kept us warm while we busied ourselves with weekend projects and holiday wishes and food. I baked bread. I made a tofu pot pie (you need to try this if you never have–no scoffing from the meat and potatoes crowd). In the afternoon we went for a hike.

We hiked Mount Philo–easy for the kids, just the right distance. It was cold. We were dressed well but the wind bit. We all had a bit of a chill by the time we got back to the car. There was half an inch of snow on the lofty summit, enough to make it feel like winter really is thinking about hanging out for a while. Looking out over the Champlain Valley and across to New York, it looked like winter.

That was the boost I needed to put me in the holiday spirit. It is hard to celebrate the coming of winter when the temperature is 60 degrees. Warm bread on a cold day helps as well. Plus online shopping. Ho ho ho and all that. It will cold in the wee hours tomorrow when I rise for my morning running ritual. Get out there anyway, right? Brr. One more time–brr. Happy winter.

Chilly but Solid

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I got in an eleven mile run today, as I had planned, and it went pretty well. I was a little slow in going, starting off with a ten-minute per mile pace. I was slogging. I was tired and a little hesitant. I have this itch in my calf–not quite sore, but a little stiff–that I wanted to make sure wasn’t going to turn into a full on injury. It didn’t.

I knew that if I could just get four miles into this run, I would settle in and feel good. And that is what happened. Four miles or about 40 minutes is the line for me where endorphins kick in and give the added boost that will get me there. It really is amazing how all of a sudden I just felt a lot better–faster, with more energy. It was the drugs I made myself. Home brew.

The air temperature was just above freezing. I started with gloves and shed them. I was dressed just right. I brought water but only drank some of it. I had a snack and it made it home. All was well, except I ran out of time.

My wife had an eye exam late in the morning. I needed to be back in time for her to be on time. A mile and a half from home I looked at my watch and realized that there was no way I could run fast enough to get back by the time she hoped to leave. Since she didn’t want to leave our children alone (smart woman, she) she was stuck until I made it back. I picked up the pace.

I ran fast, for me anyway, about 7 1/2 minute miles the rest of the way. That got me breathing hard. I had taken the precaution of carrying a cell phone in case my calf really did decide to give out half way. I didn’t want to be walking slowly and not dressed for it for several miles. So I texted her, still sucking wind and running hard. It was the first time I tried to text and run. I did it safely, I promise. All I said was, “Almost there.”

She and my son were waiting for me at the end of the driveway. She got the message. It wasn’t a big deal that she was a couple of minutes late. The eye doc was flexible. I sat with the kids, who had laid an early lunch spread on the table, sweaty and ready to take a break. After a while I took a shower and put on dry clothes. I got in 31 miles this week. Pretty good for where I am. Tomorrow off, then back at it at 5:30 AM on Monday.

December looks to be a good month.

Seriously Soggy

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When I woke, too early to get up, I could hear the rain dripping off the eave onto the deck. It was coming down hard. It was too early to get up because I didn’t want to get up yet. I was tired. It was dark. It was raining. I could have stayed in bed. And I did for a while–until 5:30. Then I rose in the glow of the night light and dressed myself and headed downstairs.

I tied my running shoes, slipped on a windbreaker and a billed hat, strapped my headlamp in place and…headed to the kitchen to get some more water. Then I checked the temperature again. Then I had to get going. The clock was ticking. So I stepped outside and found that the rain had stopped. Well, it had almost stopped. It was spitting at me as I started getting a pace on and rolled down the driveway.

It held off for a while. I got almost three miles before it really started to rain again. The fog had gotten thick, so I had turned off my headlamp. There was enough light and enough open road that I could turn it back on if a car approached. My pants were nearly scared right off when I encountered a person, I think it was a man, at the end of his driveway. “Hello,” he said as I was just upon him. All I could muster in my startledness was a blurted “How’s it going?” as I trotted past.

And then the rain started in again, gently at first, but steady. Then it got serious. I was pretty much soaked by the time I got home. Dripping. It was fairly warm–about 45 degrees–so I wasn’t all that cold but I was chilly enough. As I walked back up the driveway I had a mini-fantasy that my wife had started a warm fire and brewed some coffee, that I did not have to go to work after all and that I could sit (in dry clothes) with a warm mug and a good book and listen to the rain while I read.

Didn’t happen. The sun did come out today, after a struggle. I felt happy to have gotten out there early, however. It was early, it was dark, it was chilly, and it was raining. “Get out there and run anyway,” I told myself. And I did. And tomorrow? I plan to do it again, whatever the weather.