A Lucky Warm Day

Gainesville has had 12 straight days now with temperatures below freezing. The 145 grapefruits that we harvested before the freeze from our 3 trees may well be our last ever harvest. The trees look very, very stressed and may not survive. Several neighbors have had pipes freeze and burst--so far two of them were fortunate enough to have the breaks outside their houses but the third is at this moment pulling out and discarding her carpeting because her break was inside the wall of her family room.

A few days ago we left this north Florida cold and went to the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge near West Palm Beach. We visited with Richard and Nancy and spent two days at a meeting of the Florida Friends of the Wildlife Refuges. One of those days was warm enough for an airboat ride at the refuge...and that means warm. Those boats are cold even in summer.