We are in the throes of the holiday season and in the grips of an unseasonably cold front. No, your chilled bones and sore joints are not deceiving you, it really is well below average temperatures out there for December, the Moon of Long Nights. The avg is a high of 37F and low of 26F, it was 13F the night of December 12 according to weather.com. But why, chicken thigh? Arctic high pressure systems have brought icy winds down from the north and when the skies are cloudless and clear you get below freezing temps, ashy legs, brittle split ends, crispy edges and extreme desires to stay in the house. But guess what chicken butt, now you are going to get to wear those thick woolens left folded neatly in your cedar chest all last winter.
Weather is always in the top 3 topics of conversation in Michigan. Grumbling cloud watchers such as myself, use NOAA.gov Nations Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Weather.com, youtube meteorologists and storm chasers, NASA.gov, and various learn how to tell the weather books to divine the forecast. If you can read the room, you can read the weather too and are about as likely to be correct, give a try.
Let’s talk about early winter things
Garden tasks include inspecting, dismantling, and storing warm weather equipment and tools such as irrigation hoses, lines, and sprinklers. Storing watering cans, trowels, pruners, shovels, and “hoes shake off the dirt hoes get sharpened!” And now is the time to inspect your fruit trees too; you are watching for black knot on cherries, any galls on pears, and the thickness of bud scales. There is an old Maine saying, “Look for a heavy winter when the buds have heavy coats.”
Indoor plants will be wanting a top up of compost, topsoil, mulch specifically for the moisture lovers or fertilizer as well as to be closely watched for pests such as spider mites, mealybugs, scales, whitefly, or aphids. If said suckers are found, you can spray them directly with simple degreasing dish detergent water, about 10:1 water to dish detergent ( it safely dries them out without scorching the plant). Be sure to check on your dormant winter flowering (forced) bulbs such as Amaryllis and paperwhite Narcissus, to make sure that they neither dry all the way out nor rot from over watering, before they bud out.
Speaking of the indoors it won’t hurt you to replace the batteries in your smoke/carbon monoxide alarms, clean your air filter or change the filter on your improvised box fan filter since you will now be spending most of your time at the crib (ya dig) trying to stay warm, you might as well try to maximize your safety too. To go a step further making and reviewing your fire safety plans with your household could save lives and your property too: what is the plan in the unlucky hopefully unlikely event of yall needing to use it, where are the fire extinguishers, where are the exits and how best reach them, and where will yall meet up? On behalf of the Community Emergency Response Team Detroit region 2 south, please update your power strips to the UL safe ones with the on/off switch AND DO NOT have it too many cords plugged into 1 outlet looking like that horror movie in which the British family was trapped in their house at Christmas time by attacking cords from staticky televisions that has… wait I’m not going to ruin it for you, it is a disturbing movie but definitely worth a watch if you like a little darkness with all the Christmas cheer.
The Detroit Fire Department is beginning their safety series January 8 http://detroitmi.gov/SafetySeries and Detroit residents may qualify for the Smoke detector program to get free alarms installed by DFD plus a fire safety plan https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/f8d53c4cb8ed46499d32288f0e1ff8fe.
Well… I think I’ve talked your ear off enough for 1 episode. Thank you for bearing with me as I am new to making media. Bye Bye.
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