January 11, 2012 - Snow and Cold

More snow today - the light fluffy, sparkly kind.  If I were fluent in Inuit, I could probably find a word which describes exactly the kind of snow we have...  There was some sort of electrical issue today.   As I was coming home from work, Central Avenue was blocked off and there were several power company trucks parked alongside the road.  Men were working on the lines.  My son said our power was off for awhile. 
I went out to check the greenhouse and discovered the heater was off and the temperature inside was hovering right at 32 degrees.  I could not see any damage to the plants, but I suspect it will show up in a day or so.  I got the heater to kick back on and was pleased to see the overall temperature go up a degree or two, however when I went back out a couple of hours later the temperature was still just above freezing.  The low is predicted to be around 13 degrees tonight, but it looks like it is already below 10 degrees on our back porch.  I need to find a better heater for the greenhouse.  I'm using a Juliana/Pelonis which is supposed to work for small greenhouses like mine, but it does not do the job when it is zero or below.  The seedlings have a heating mat underneath and cover over the top, so I'm not too worried about them, but the other plants are less pampered.  I may take some blankets out and cover them for the night.  The high tomorrow is supposed to be in the mid forties, so things should stabilize for awhile after tonight.

It needs some finishing touches, but it does a super job of keeping the plants going.  This is our learning year.