Bed Warmers

Crunchy Chicken's Freeze Yer Buns challenge has not been much of a challenge for us yet. Our daytime highs have been in the 90s and the nights pretty mild in the upper 50s and low 60s. We haven't talked about turning on the furnace pilot light. In fact, I even left some windows open for few nights last week. Mild fall weather is a definite plus in the desert, but this year has been milder than we recall in the past few years.

However, this weekend the temperatures started to dip into the somewhat chilly range at night....all the way down to the low 50s. I know this may make some of you really jealous, but we consider this our payoff for sweltering through the summer heat! Still, even with this cold snap, I hope to keep the furnace off until it becomes absolutely necessary. I have plenty of blankets ready to pile on the bed as the temperatures continue to drop.

Slipping into bed at the end of a long, hard day should be a pleasure. The sheets should embrace you and the pillow invite your head for a long visit. Unfortunately, cold sheets are rather off-putting and create a certain tension immediately upon encountering them. That problem was remedied this morning as I peeled those dirty suckers off the bed and replaced them with cozy warm flannel sheets. I can't wait to go to bed tonight!


My sweetie and I aren't the only ones who deserve a little extra warmth on the cold nights. This weekend, we headed down to the feed store and picked up a bale of straw. Well, he picked up the straw while I gathered a few ripe olives from a tree across the street. It was a nice ride home; the heavily laden trailer slows my sweetie down enough that he's finally riding at my pace. Once I have my own Xtracycle, I'm going to have to plot ways to keep his bike loaded heavier than mine so that he's happy at my slow pace.

Did I forget to tell you that I'm getting an Xtracycle? Yep! My sweetie is building me a long bike to which we'll mount the snap deck and bags. And by "building", I do mean from scratch, as in a pile of tubes arrived in the UPS truck and my sweetie cut and welded them together himself. I still need to pick a color for my new bike though. Any suggestions? Green as a Chile? Hot Red Chile Pepper?



We have potato plants! Hopefully, insulating the boxes will help them make it through the cold nights. Yes, it's a bit late to get them started, but remember that I live in the southwest desert. The boxes are against a south-facing wall and now have a nice insulating wall of straw built up around them surrounded by some clear plastic drop-cloth already on hand.

Most of the remaining straw went to mulch my grapefruit tree. This little tree has come a long way in the three plus years we've been here. The first winter, it had one measly little hard grapefruit on it. Last winter, it produced about four grapefruit, probably due to more regular waterings. This past year, I put a lot of effort into caring for this tree. I gave it regular water, I gave it compost tea, and I mulched it to get through the cold winter and hot summer. It now has 3 dozen fruit on it! They are probably ready to eat even though they are green, but I'm savoring the lush appearance of its good crop. (Citrus need cold weather to change skin color; they may be perfectly ripe and delicious even with green skin!)

The last little bit of straw got tucked in around my basil plants and one last surviving eggplant. I know it's really late in the year to expect this eggplant to survive, but it finally has a tiny little baby eggplant on it that I really want to nurse to maturity. I have hopes for it since this raised bed is built with bricks and surrounded by a brick patio and wall. These gather heat during the day and may keep the plants a bit warmer through the nights. The little chickenwire cage gives me an easy way to drape a sheet over the plant on cold nights, too. Not pictured is the potted tomato plant on this patio that came back to life after the summer heat passed. It has blooms on it and can also be covered with a sheet. Unrealistic to hope for summer produce in November? Yes, but a girl can dream.