Easy Sunday: Indian summer frost alert

At 2:30 a.m. I got the alert that woke me: 34 degrees.

I got up and drove to the farm.

It is 4:40 a.m. as I type this. Here at the farm it is 32.3 degrees.There are two more hours before daylight and about three hours before the temperature starts rising. This is the readout from the electronic thermometer:

The numbers on the thermometer tell the story of Indian summer in Medford, Oregon. Look at the daily swings over the past seven days. Afternoons the past week have been in the 90s in the shade; hotter still in the sun. Hot days are good for ripening a grape crop. Yet this morning, and for the next two mornings, it might freeze at the vineyard. The big swings in daily temperature used to confound me as a child going to school, needing to wear a warm jacket in the morning, but hating even to carry it when coming home in the afternoon. We have days like this in early October.

There is a critical difference between a chilly low of 33 degrees and a frost of 30 or 31 for a grape crop. A frost of a couple of hours doesn't destroy the grapes, but it kills the leaves. Grapes need leaves to finish ripening. 

The wind machines came on at the temperature I set the automatic sensor on the machines: 34 degrees. Wind machines stir up the air, mixing the cold air that settles at ground level with warmer air above it -- if, in fact, there is warmer air above it.  Sometimes it is cold all the way up, and wind turbulance does no good.

The machines are loud. They are dramatic-looking in the predawn darkness. The rumble in a way that reminds me of the airport scene at the end of the movie Casablanca. 

I am waiting and watching the temperature drop.

Thirty minutes ago I got a fresh alert: 32.6. 

I just got another alert as I finished proofreading the post: 31.0 degrees at 6:01 a.m. It is frosting now at three feet in elevation, grape height. 

There is nothing more I can do. It will probably keep getting colder, or it won't. It isn't up to me. I let my mind settle on that thought. I am a passenger, not the driver. I feel helpless, but not alone. I am rooted in the common experience of farmers since the beginning of time. 

Oh-oh.  30.2 degrees at 6:28.

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