MR. OBAMA MAKES THE GRADE - for JUST A MINUTE RADIO - Thursday Jan 13 -- 110113

            Brrrr…. It’s still cold here…. Although we had melting to some degree yesterday afternoon…

 

            Still – no “global warming” apparent on this street until late afternoon on the 12^th… when I saw the snow and ice on the hill which we overlook would be too bare to carry the weight of the snow that the “would be” sledders needed and had been using for the two nights previously.

 

            Well… it was still pretty good for South Carolina.  Mostly our snows don’t last 24 hours here… they fall… look pretty for long enough to take pictures and then disappear until another one comes along.

 

            One thing we have learned living just on the south side of the escarpment (geological term I guess) that shows where the Blue Ridge or the Appalachian Mountains in the Southeast start and stop.  Up in West Virginia they just keep on bumping along without any big peaks… just not a lot of level ground.  Anyway the escarpment border that sort of demarks the difference between North and South Carolina is about an 800 foot difference between the Piedmont plane… and the start of the Smokies or Blue Ridge or whatever as you travel northward. When the snows come up from the Gulf Coast… cross Atlanta and hit our part of the world in below freezing temps… we can get some doozies of an ice storm or snow falls.  

 

            We lived for seven years in Rutherford County NC… and there are about three counties in a row there that lay claim to a mini-temperate zone which has been designated the “Isothermal” belt. See… in winter the upper reaches of the Blue Ridges or the Foothills of the Smokies are too cold in the real winter to let fruit trees do well there. Thus the Isothermal belt became the home to apple and peach orchardists. Their milder swings in temps – especially in the spring – let the orchards get an early start (usually) so they could make a good crop in the lower valleys of the mountains.  Higher… it was too cold… and lower… the cold air would ‘puddle’ in the valleys and kill the buds of the fruit trees… but in the Isothermal belt… it was JUST RIGHT for fruit growers (most of the time). 

 

            Occasionally in those times of critical temps you’ll see strawberry farmers and others wetting down their fields with water sprinklers… that keeps the fruit (or the fruit buds) from dying of frost bite… just  a couple of degrees makes a difference between a crop or no crop at all for that year. It’s a gamble … and you wonder why so many farmers have the fortitude to risk it…. But they do… and if you love ice cream… or apple butter… you’re thankful they do risk it… so you can have peach cobbler … or ice cream… and all the goodies that come with it all. 

 

            As a kid I ate so many strawberries out of my Granma’s patch early one summer… I got the hives.  I looked like a strawberry… but then I ate too many black walnuts too and just got sick… Ah well… as I grew older I grew smarter.  Dad use to say “Even a hog knows when to stop eating.”

 

            How did I get here writing about cold weather… Oh yeah… you have to have a certain number of cold days in the winter for the fruit trees… particularly apple trees – to ‘rest’ sufficiently to produce fruit. If you have too warm a winter… not enough cold days for the buds or whatever to “set” – no apples!  Now I wish I had my Dad here to tell me how that really works.  He had a degree in Ag Engineering they called it in the 1920’s when he graduated and went to teaching in South Carolina Schools… Then SC schools ran out of money to pay teachers… But that’s another story.  Sorry for the rambling.

 

            Got to get this on the air. Thanks for reading.

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

            Jack

       Delayed Audio Link

 

http://www.wmuu.com/blog/category/audio/just-a-minute/

 

 

“JUST A MINUTE”

MR. OBAMA MAKES THE GRADE

Just a Minute: - Last evening in Tucson, The President took a raucous crowd under his wing and transformed what should have been a quiet memorial service into a healing meeting -- damping the conflict previously ignited by the local Sheriff.

Initially, Mr. Obama seemed unsure of how to change the cheering of the student dominated memorial service into a memorial for those who died or were wounded by the bullets of a crazy young man. When he narrated his story of how Gabrielle Giffords, Congresswoman from Tucson, clinging to life in an ICU hospital room opened her eyes and recognized his presence – he gained the attention and support of the University of Arizona students.

From then on it was clear sailing for the President who, up to now has been quite diffident in showing emotion except when on the political stump.  His speech in a weighty and serious moment lifted the spirits of those assembled, and damped the vitriol that had been leaking from left wing critics.  Most journalistic observers of the right and left gave him high marks.

<>I’m Jack Buttram. (END)

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