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The freeze continues… mid-20s overnight at the weekend, and still just under or at freezing point since then. We’ve lost a few plants to the cold, including some shrubs that we really liked. Our trees in front of the house look dead as well but I am hopeful they will recover once the temps get back up. Of course this is nothing compared to the huge losses in the citrus and other crops in California. A head of lettuce could soon get expensive.

Mother Nature was having some fun with us yesterday. In the afternoon we had a series of a 10 or so little tremors, nothing really worth talking about, biggest was a 2.7. Then overnight the temperature got down to at least 25F – isn’t this supposed to be the desert?! Back up to 60F right now, though. Looks like we are going to have sub-zero temps overnight for much of this week.

[25F is -4C for those lucky readers using a metric system]

Last week someone wrote a letter to the local paper complaining that it seemed ok to fly Canadian flags in the Valley, but not Mexican ones. Completely unrelated to his point in the letter, the writer had a go at football saying he preferred the kind of football where games didn’t end scoreless or in a riot. I put pen to paper and and my response appeared in Monday’s edition.

Voice: American football puts you to sleep

I write in response to the statement from Wednesday’s PROBE writer that he prefers his football with scoring and no riots.

I put it to the correspondent that the reason no riots occur in American football is that the crowd is fast asleep long before the game is finished.

PAUL SANDERS
Brawley

A lot of big things happening this weekend, many of them without me (can’t be in three places at once):

• The launch of the PS3 in Japan
• The AOPA Expo 2006 in Palm Springs, seems like I miss it every year it in CA
• The Brawley Cattle Call Rodeo. The event has already started but this weekend sees the highlight with the parade Saturday morning, and the various rodeos throughout the weekend. Yee-hah! And all that.

I suppose that if CostCo has Christmas decorations for sale in September, I should not be surprised that the local stores have switched to “winter fashion” and its now impossible to buy a short-sleeved shirt anywhere. Only long sleeve lumberjack shirts and nice wool-knit sweaters for sale now. Don’t worry that the temps are still in the high 90s and, lets face it, aren’t going much below 90 even in the “winter”. This is Southern California and, dammit, we’ll wear scarves and down jackets even if its still 75F out, even if we do look stupid.