FREEZE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT

 Up to greet all the grandkids this morning. The temperature was 29 this morning so another freezing night.  Hubbie took g-son to school and then I did chores  and had breakfast with the girls. Daughter called and had bought all our lunches from Chick-f-la today so after I delivered and cake for daughter at 11:00 we headed there to pick up lunches.  The girls enjoyed their chicken nuggets, fries and yogurt. I had a salad and hubbie had a sandwich. After lunch we all went outside to clean up all the frost coverings we had put over things trying to protect them.  Some worked some did not.   We covered the cabbage, broccoli and brusel sprout plants with buckets and they were fine.

The peas and onions that we didn't cover look fine as they have a higher cold tolerance than most things.

These raised beds that we covered with blankets did fine.

The prognosis is still out on the blueberries that we covered with blankets and sheets. There is a lot of browning and empty little sockets where forming berries were.

Sadly we lost our grape crop for the season in spite of our covering efforts as these are not cold hardly at all and were out way farther than they should have been this time of year.

Hubbie counted only about 3 little pears on this one tree and aren't sure if they will even make .

It was interesting as I walked around the farm as in some places I could tell the frost or cold took much worse tole than in other spots. The Rosemary in this pot looks fine but the Thyme not so much.

Just below this pot was a pot of Lavender that also looks fine.

And just below this Lavender is a pot of a perennial flowering plant that I don't remember the name of was devastated.

These Hostas have some damage on the upper most leaves.

This Butterfly bush also sustained damage to the new leaves.

All the above plants were in the back yard. As I moved around above the house to the row of large Azaleas they don't look like they had too much damage. Some of the tallest flowers look pretty melted.

As I moved to the front of the house I am pleased to say this lovely Azalea looks pretty non damaged so far.

And this old fashioned Snowball bush in the front yard looks unfazed also.

I hate we lost some things but my heart goes out to the fruit farmers as some of them lost their entire crops in as little as 3 hours of near mid 20's temperatures.

I lost this entire bed of beautiful lettuce not at the hands of the cold temps but as the hands of a rodent who took shelter under the warm blanket cover and totally destroyed all the lettuce in the entire bed.

We will be moving this bed to a new location since something has found a feasting place.

The girls had been outside playing the whole time I have been checking out damage and getting all the coverers put away in the dry before the rain comes tonight and we all needed some snacks and rest time.

You can certainly tell it is Friday afternoon.

After the girls were picked up hubbie and I went outside to move the raised bed . We shoveled all the dirt from it and got g-son and #1 son to come up and help us carry it to the join the other beds out in front of the barn.   I will replant the lettuce after the rains tomorrow.  A man came after the 6 Silkie roosters I had for sale and we found out while he was here he is a tree cutter. He looked at the big Oak tree leaning toward the house that we have tried to get 2 other tree cutters to take down and they never showed up and he said he could take the tree down next week if we wanted. So he is supposed to come one day next week. But I have to wonder if he will really show up since the 2 other guys also promised they would be here multiple times and never showed up.

We finished chores after he left and settled in for a quiet evening.

Thankful for the blessings of this day.

God Bless and Good Night