The 5 Months of January

Here we are into the 3rd or 4th week of January, I can't recall which.  The chill in the air occasionally makes way for rain.  On a daily basis, the sun will come out for a few minutes, snicker, and then go back behind the clouds.

I understand that the days are getting longer in January, and it certainly feels that way.  I believe there is a correlation between cold and the length of a minute.  New Year's Day was surely more than eight days ago.

I vowed (I hoped) I would never live up north in the winter again, yet really, what with the cost to heat a house, what difference does it make?  Now that I am retired I have the luxury of never having to leave the house in bad weather, and yet there are times when I walk out of my frigid house to get the mail, and find that it is warmer outside than within.  I try to keep the temperature at 64, and sport a homely black knit hat that covers my ears, double pairs of socks, turtleneck and sweatshirt, and sometimes knit gloves.  And even then I give in and crank the heat all the way up to 66 (sometimes 68).

Back in my Yankee days, I believed that February was that month that never ended, but here in the South, that month is January.

When I had to get up in the dark, I used to check the internet to find out exactly when the days started getting longer.  You may find this hard to believe, but they actually lied to us about December containing the shortest day.  I think it must be the way the earth spins -- if my son ever read my blogs, which he does not, he would chuckle with scorn -- because it takes weeks before the sun begins to rise a minute earlier.  I don't get it, but I surely know it's true.

Here in the South, by mid-February, one begins to feel hopeful.  There is truly more light in the morning and the evening, and suddenly there is a breath of spring in the air.

Of course, just like April up North, February and then March are just a tease.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the average freeze date here in the Lowcountry is March 15, but after too many late frosts to count, I stopped trying to plant tomatoes until after April Fool's Day.  In fact, it was indeed an April Fool's frost that convinced me that, just like the old wive's tale that the days start getting longer in December, the last frost only occurred in March when you had nothing delicate in the ground.

So I found myself, in the depths of the 4th or 5th week of January today, imagining myself planting just three tomato seeds, figuring that I could keep them inside if the weather stayed cold.  Of course, my house is too cold for plants to germinate these days, but just like Charlie Brown, I keep trusting that this time we'll have a warm spring and my tomatoes will be safe from frost.

Of course that doesn't happen.  They germinate late if at all because the house is too cold, and then when it's actually warm enough to put them outside, the rain and damp gives them cold wet feet and they wither and die.  And if they succeed to the point of transplant, there will for sure be a late frost.

And then comes the summer, all of a sudden, too hot and dry for good tomatoes, but a literal picnic for bugs and moles.

So I think I'll just bundle up and enjoy the last 7 to 10 weeks of January.  The tomatoes can wait, and so can I.