Winter survival supplies - fresh batteries

The Phactors were just sitting around the other evening reading the Sunday papers and assorted other periodicals, and eventually it came to their attention that they were cold. Say what?  Yes, the temperature in the house was several degrees below what is considered comfortable. Sort of reminded TPP of the story about putting a frog in a pot of water and warming it so slowly such that the frog never jumps out and just gets cooked. Might the same thing happen to a couple of senior citizens that are found sitting there with their papers frozen? How come they didn't see why the furnace wasn't coming on?  Naturally this event kicks problem solving activities into high gear, and the first suspect was the battery-powered thermostat, which itself did not seem to be responding. The decision was made to change the 2 AA batteries only to discover that a self-destructing battery was threatening the integrity of the whole thermostat, and leaving you wondering how it could have been working at all?  So, keep some fresh batteries on hand because this is one of those things, one of those times, when fancy programmable thermostats reveal their weakness, they need some juice! 

Water, water everything

This time of year is tricky for gardening especially when mild warm weather predominates, but things aren't growing so much. Gardens just don't look like it's the end of September out there, and it's easy to get lulled into complacency. So here's the thing: keep those newly planted trees and shrubs, especially conifers, well watered. Remember winter survival is more about desiccation than it is about cold. Deciduous plants drop all those water-wasting leaves, but most conifers are evergreen, and while their leaves have relatively small areas and correspondingly less water loss, as the air gets colder it gets drier and when the soil freezes water is really "hard" to take up. So it's easy to lose track of rainfall and let plants dry out too much before the cold really sets in. TPP is now certain that his prize conifer died during the winter not because of cold but because of the severe drought the summer before.  And that combined with less well established roots was a deadly combination. Remember, half an inch of water a week is needed at a minimum to keep things growing well, and water those newly planted trees and shrubs deeply.