TheBanyanTree: A Hard Freeze

[NancyIee at aol.com]

In the northland, under the snow, the roses sleep. Trees crackle as the wind 
stirs ice-laden branches. Children dig snow forts, suck lcicles, and come in 
with red cheeks.

Here in the south, orchids bloom and tiny oranges cling to lush-leaved 
branches. The mockingbird sings to his bride, and fields of tomatoes nod in the warm 
sun.

But, comes a hard freeze, those in the north simply put on another sweater 
and one more blanket on the bed. Here, even though we know there will be a day 
or two of frost, it's a shock.  We panic.  We shuffle through the linen closet, 
finding old sheets, thin blankets to drape over our tender trees. We race out 
with a small ladder to pluck orchids from the tree branches and pile them 
into the house or garage. We turn the sprinkler on the larger trees to let the 
water hopefully protect the tender fruit from  the freeze. We sit up watching 
the thermometer and the television weatherman.  Thirty four degrees. We hold our 
breath.  One o'clock in the morning and it's thirty-three.  At three in the 
morning, it's freezing. We time it. Plants can stand up to four hours of barely 
freezing. We go from window to window as though watching for the anguish of 
our plants and trees.

At six in the morning, the sun brightens the sky. The outdoor thermometer 
reads a titch below thirty. We step out and our breath shows in the morning air. 
There's a light frost on the car windshields. The cars were left out because 
the garage is full of orchids and other potted plants. We turn a frost into a 
harrowing adventure.

At ten o'clock, we have survived. We can pull of the sheets, bring the potted 
plants back outside, breathe in relief.

In the north we'd be out shoveling, plugging the cars in so they would start, 
scraping thick ice off windows and skidding out into the morning traffic, 
which crawls on iced roads.

How quickly we forget and become sissies of weather. In Minnesota, I went to 
work, slewing through a foot of snow on unplowed country roads in temps as low 
as twenty below zero. For recreation I went on cross-country ski treks for 
miles through unbroken fields of snow. I once raced sports cars on frozen lakes 
and rivers in the Ice Race Series and we bragged about the cold and the air 
full of ice crystals.

 Here, I am  a sissy, an orchid that perishes in a one night frost, shivering 
if it's forty degrees.

Cold. It's all relative.

NancyLee