COLD!

OK, so all you readers who live in Canada, the northeastern part and other northern reaches of the US, and cold European and Asian countries just laughed your heads off when you saw the title of this post ... from a big ol' wimp living in the southwestern deserts of the US.

Well, stop laughing at me. It is cold here, at least for a born and bred desert rat like myself. We are higher in elevation than the city of Tucson and not that far from the foothills of the northern side of a mountain. Mountain ranges in southeastern Arizona tend to be small, rather than state-crossing ranges such as the Rockies further north. In fact, some of our mountain ranges are so small they are called "sky islands" here. This name mostly refers to the impact on animal and plant species. Just like animals and plants on islands in the ocean are restricted in their range by the available land mass, mountain-dwellers in the deserts are restricted to the higher elevations surrounded by a sea of low-lying HOT desert without the food and water resources they need to survive. (More on sky islands.)

But, I digress from my whimpering about the cold here. Before going to bed last night, I checked the weather forecast for our area, including nearby areas that are a little higher in elevation. It was supposed to get down to the mid-30s. We know there was a hard freeze the previous night because we came home yesterday afternoon to discover that all of our outdoor peppers and herbs are toast (except the mint which seems pretty damn hardy).

When I saw the forecast, I laughed. We have a remote thermometer outside on our steps and can check the temperature reading on the control panel inside anytime. As of 9:30 pm last night, the outside temperature was already in the 20s! My sweetie took the dogs out at 5:30 am this morning and it was, wait for it, not in the 20s. No, it was 18 degrees! This, for a desert rat, is COLD.

"How the heck is the weather service doing such a poor job forecasting the lows there?", you ask. Easy. The lows may very well have been in the 30s in some parts of our community. However, we have a big wash (arroyo in Spanish) running through our property and are in a low-lying part of the area. The washes provide drainage for rains from the nearby hills and mountains. They also provide drainage for cold winter air. This was something we did not even think about when looking at a property with a wash.

Not only do we get the arroyo effect cooling off our entire property, we live in a manufactured house that is not set on the ground. In addition to the engineered pad underneath, the house itself is set up on house jacks. This means all that cold air circulates under the house. Thankfully, there is insulation under the house but the floors are still cold (and no, we don't have the money to install a radiant floor heating system). If we're already hitting lows in the teens in November, I am really not looking forward to the colder temperatures in January and February - the only times we had hard freezes down in Tucson.

If we were planning on staying here for the long haul, it would mean completely rethinking our winter gardening plans. Cold frames and a greenhouse would be absolutely necessary, not just helpful. In fact, I spoke to one gentleman at the farmers market this morning that said he lost quite a few plants last night in the freeze where he lived because he didn't have time to get everything covered. I'm hoping to clear some space on the south side of the house in the next month so we can try growing a few things - herbs, lettuces - inside.

And I'm hoping I don't freeze my butt off this winter!