After a very generous Thanksgiving Day meal, late afternoon found me in a horizontal position. As the lids of my eyes began to pull ever so close to each other, my mind began to cogitate on a multitude of facts, questions and suppositions, which I have chosen to share with you, dear reader.
Cogitation #1 – It Can’t Be Good
How is it that Christmas music is playing in the grocery store on Thanksgiving Day? Okay, the stacks of Thanksgiving music are not all that deep, and one can only listen to Cab Calloway’s “Everybody Eats” so many times, but I think the progressing advance of Christmas into Thanksgiving has brought with it unintended consequences.
The thermometer, for example, read 21.2°F this morning. Snow on Thanksgiving is not unprecedented, but preceded by temperatures like we’ve been having? And when you add this to last year’s winter, the coldest winter in thirty years, you gotta ask yourself “what’s changed to cause this?”
I don’t know. But I do know that on Thanksgiving Day, 1984 I was not hearing Bing Crosby singing I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas in the grocery store. Just saying.
Cogitation #2 – Way Cool
How do trees survive this cold? They just stand there taking the cold, taking the wind, no scarf, no hat, no fur…. You gotta wonder if they’ve got some sort of anti-freeze in their pipes.
Turns out, it has to do with supercooling which is essentially liquids remaining liquid well below their freezing point. This is important for trees in freezing temperatures because they are mostly made up of water, as we are. That is problematic as anyone who has forgotten a beer bottle in the freezer knows. Water expands when freezing and on a cellular level that is fatal.
So what some trees do is somehow supercool their intracellular water and keep it from freezing down to -40°Celsius (which is actually equal to -40°Fahrenheit). The interesting thing about supercooled liquids is that when they do freeze, their temperature rises to their freezing point. In this case, rising from -40°C/F to 0°C or 32°F, and in the process putting off a lot of heat.
This is the basis of those reusable hand warmers. Inside the bag is a supersaturated sodium acetate solution. It is capable of being supercooled from its “freezing” point of 130°F to whatever frigid temperatures you take it out in. When you crinkle the bag though, the supercooled sodium acetate “freezes” meaning the temperature of the solution jumps up to 130°F, warming your hands in the process.
Cogitation #3 – Expensive Education
Why does one often have to learn things the hard way? My garden is like the cobbler’s children, it is always the last to be “shoed.” The weather has always been understanding of this and allowed me time through November to do what others do in October. That’s difficult to do when the lows in November are 8°F and the highs aren’t much higher.
You would think though that I would have thought to at least remove the hose from the spigot, but no I did not. And I ended up paying forty-three dollars to learn that frost-free spigots do not remain frost-free when you leave a hose attached to them. I blame American retailers. I must send them a bill.
Cogitation #4 – A Deal of an Education
What could a person do that’s very interested in gardening, enough to have gotten their hands dirty, and want to learn a little more to make their thumb a little greener, but don’t have the time or money to go to ATI or OSU? Sign up for Master Gardener classes.
For people willing to spend $100 and fifty hours of volunteer garden-related work over a whole year, becoming a Master Gardener is the education of a lifetime. For 12 Mondays and 3 Saturdays this winter, they will be immersed in the art and science of gardening, learning from other gardeners and experts from OSU and Kingwood Center.
The deadline for signing up is coming soon. To learn more, call the Richland County Master Gardeners at the Richland County OSU extension office: 419-747-8755.
Cogitation #5 – A Question of Degrees
How does -40°Celsius equal -40°Fahrenheit when 0°Celsius equals 32°Fahrenheit?
Unfortunately dear reader, it was then that my eyelids fully touched each other, and I slipped into unconsciousness. Perhaps on another day when I am supine, tripped up yet again by tryptophan, I can answer that one.
How do trees survive this cold? They just stand there taking the cold, taking the wind, no scarf, no hat, no fur…. You gotta wonder if they’ve got some sort of anti-freeze in their pipes.
