Last night (Tuesday, February 16, 2021) and today morning (Wednesday) –it was really very cold.

 

According to WCPN -- Ideastream FM 90.3 – my favorite radio station – the thermometer at Hopkins International Airport – a few miles from our house on Cooley Avenue – south side of Jefferson Park – registered 6 deg. F at 5:30 a.m., which on the Centigrade scale is –14.4 deg. – and definitely appears colder because of the added minus sign.

 

Well, the first thing I did was to check the indoor plants in our un-heated sunroom.

 

They were all doing well.

 

The sunroom adjoins my bedroom -- and a few days ago – knowing about the impending cold weather – I opened the door to the sunroom – thereby transferring hot air to the colder room. The sunroom is on the south side of our house – and when the sun is out – the room gets sunlight all day long. The room has a sloping roof – and as the snow melted – with the freezing temperature – the icicles were quick to form as the photograph shows.

 

Today, for a change, the sun was out in the morning.

 

Here is a reading of the temperatures to give you an idea of how the insides were doing when the temperature registered 6 deg. F at Hopkins:

 

Thermostat set at 68 deg. F.

 

Bedroom: 66 deg. F.

 

Un-heated sunroom with bedroom door open: 54 deg. F.

 

In prior years – (my late wife and I moved here from New York City in 2001) -- I never opened the door to the sun room and the plants survived every winter – except for one winter – a few years ago – because of the polar vortex – the temperature was close to 0 deg. F or even lower – and all the geraniums – and all the other perennials like dusty miller died – except the philodendron and a mums plant survived. Nature works in strange ways. So this year I came up with the simple idea of opening the door. Not only do the plants thrive – I get whiffs of fresh oxygen come in to the bedroom and freshen the air.

 

I love geraniums – they last forever – year-in, year-out. When it starts getting cold outside – I bring them inside. And when the weather stabilizes after spring – I take them outside – to decorate our front porch.

 

I have 21 geranium plants in the sunroom – two very big pots – 17 small pots – and two hanging baskets. The big pots sat on either side of the entrance to the main porch. They are very heavy – so last year – I left them in the sunroom.

 

So far, as the composite photograph and the separate photographs show – only geraniums in three colors have bloomed – white, pink, and red.

 

This year – February has been a cold month. We got 4 inches of snow on the first two days of the month and which never melted.

 

We also got an additional 6 inches in the past two days.

 

Soon all the snow will melt away and March 21 when spring which is officially arriving – is not very far away.

 

Enjoy the rest of the week!