December 8, 2016. Madison, Mississippi. The Cold.

Right now, the temperature is 39 degrees outside.  I know because we have a small device telling me the exterior and interior temperature.  I am certainly not going outside.  I look at the outside temperature every morning because Ken always asks.  Yesterday I admired all the pansies on the boulevards at the Renaissance.   They were beautiful even into December but tonights freeze will do them in.  Tomorrow the pansies will all be frozen.   In Ontario, pansies were planted in the Spring but in the south, they are planted both in the early Spring and the Fall.   In the Spring, the plants thrive until the heat kills them and in the Fall they last while the temperatures and moderate.  Some winters they survive the whole season.

Tonight will be cold.  It will probably drop below freezing which for Jackson is unusual.   The front has come in bringing freezing weather.   People stay home because of the cold.   And they wear fur coats and boots.  When the temperature is 45, people speak of it as freezing and they always feel cold.  I have learned that temperatures are relative.   Jackson folks say nothing about a 80 degree day while the Nova Scotians think it is ungodly hot.   In Texas, the workers could not work when the temperatures got to freezing while they would work in 90 heat.  The opposite was true in Nova Scotia.  The workmen worked outside all winter but when the temperature was 80 or above, they were forced to stop working outside because of the heat.   I think we learn a set point in our bodies where the temperature is comfortable.

Ken and I have adjusted our set point a bit.  We have learned to like 80 degrees.   But we can still keep warm in the cold which is a good thing because tomorrow will be cold.  Very cold.  There will be a high of 45.  Whew.  Almost freezing.