Smoked, completely fried, toasted, burnt, and sometimes nuked.
Are these the words that describe my teenage years? No. These are words that describe frost damage believe it or not. I have always wondered why we choose words with the exact opposite meaning of what we really mean. Words like: sick, wicked, bad, killer, real nice. You would think that if someone was describing a cold weather event like a spring frost that they would say stuff like: “Well Wyrthy, looks like my corn crop got popsicled last night.” “Yup, sure as shootin’ Bunkham, my garbanzos got goose pimpled as well.” It would make sense at least right? If someone had no idea what you were talking about, they might be able to deduct that coldness or something cold or icy happened.
I don’t know, I guess we go more by what it looks like happened. Because if you have ever seen frost damage on corn, garbanzos or even grapes you would say, I would bet ,something like: Holy hot sauce Eric, what did you do? You Idiot! Did you have a heat wave, I know it’s hot in Paso all the time, but is it too hot to grow plants? Darn global warming! You know, thoughtful phrases that make sense due to the visual effects on the plants. They look like they got burned, they get limp like over cooked lettuce, they turn brown and they get crispy. You would get the same effect from fire, so it seems logical I guess to use those adjectives when discussing frost damage.
You may have noticed that I wrote:”Eric, what did you do?” This is actually a funny story, well I can laugh about it now because I…..well…. I guess it’s not really that funny. I’ll let you decide. One June a few years back, I don’t really remember, June 5th 1999, I decided to go camping on the Kern River with my friends. I had a fantastic weekend, white water kayaking, camping by the river, drinking beer, burning meat, and marshmallows, donating blood to the local mosquitoes, basically living large in Kernville. So I come back to the grape ranch early the following Monday morning to see a nice even roasting of my newly emerged and as of the previous Friday healthy grape plants. And one of the first calls I received was from a so called friend asking me….”Eric, what did you do?” I had done quite a lot actually, but nothing to the vineyard that would result in the likes of what greeted me that sunny Monday morning. In June no less! Any guesses? Well, on closer inspection, I had deducted that coldness or something cold and icy happened over the weekend. Holy Hot Sauce I’d gotten fried in June! I was as surprised as you, maybe a little bit more than you. Apparently a very late, freakish spring frost had occurred and had hit in a select few isolated low spots including my Syrah. And as a result, I had to explain to every passer by that I was not to blame for the limp over cooked lettuce that was crisping in the sun. With that said, Happy Spring!
Are these the words that describe my teenage years? No. These are words that describe frost damage believe it or not. I have always wondered why we choose words with the exact opposite meaning of what we really mean. Words like: sick, wicked, bad, killer, real nice. You would think that if someone was describing a cold weather event like a spring frost that they would say stuff like: “Well Wyrthy, looks like my corn crop got popsicled last night.” “Yup, sure as shootin’ Bunkham, my garbanzos got goose pimpled as well.” It would make sense at least right? If someone had no idea what you were talking about, they might be able to deduct that coldness or something cold or icy happened.
I don’t know, I guess we go more by what it looks like happened. Because if you have ever seen frost damage on corn, garbanzos or even grapes you would say, I would bet ,something like: Holy hot sauce Eric, what did you do? You Idiot! Did you have a heat wave, I know it’s hot in Paso all the time, but is it too hot to grow plants? Darn global warming! You know, thoughtful phrases that make sense due to the visual effects on the plants. They look like they got burned, they get limp like over cooked lettuce, they turn brown and they get crispy. You would get the same effect from fire, so it seems logical I guess to use those adjectives when discussing frost damage.
You may have noticed that I wrote:”Eric, what did you do?” This is actually a funny story, well I can laugh about it now because I…..well…. I guess it’s not really that funny. I’ll let you decide. One June a few years back, I don’t really remember, June 5th 1999, I decided to go camping on the Kern River with my friends. I had a fantastic weekend, white water kayaking, camping by the river, drinking beer, burning meat, and marshmallows, donating blood to the local mosquitoes, basically living large in Kernville. So I come back to the grape ranch early the following Monday morning to see a nice even roasting of my newly emerged and as of the previous Friday healthy grape plants. And one of the first calls I received was from a so called friend asking me….”Eric, what did you do?” I had done quite a lot actually, but nothing to the vineyard that would result in the likes of what greeted me that sunny Monday morning. In June no less! Any guesses? Well, on closer inspection, I had deducted that coldness or something cold and icy happened over the weekend. Holy Hot Sauce I’d gotten fried in June! I was as surprised as you, maybe a little bit more than you. Apparently a very late, freakish spring frost had occurred and had hit in a select few isolated low spots including my Syrah. And as a result, I had to explain to every passer by that I was not to blame for the limp over cooked lettuce that was crisping in the sun. With that said, Happy Spring!
Comments