Got my computer back. There was a woman wearing a gorgeous handknit cowl at the Apple store as I waited for them to retrieve it, so I sat across the table from her and pulled out my own cowl project, figuring there’s no way a knitter would fail to notice. I wanted to compliment her on hers, whether she’d made it or not–but she had her face deep in her phone and never looked up. Ah well.

And I got the plant covers from Mr Garden, coming via express delivery. I guess they figured if you wanted frost protection in the dead of winter you wanted it right now! True that.

I pulled one over the mango as the sun went down, and thinking there was no way that fabric with all those little holes in it could seal in enough heat from the lights I ended up putting the thick plastic bag I’d been using previously over it to double-layer it. The forecast was officially for 45 tonight, but we’ve gone eight and nine degrees colder than the daily local forecast pretty consistently. Good enough for the Page mandarin, not so much for the Alphonso.

I kept checking the remote reader in disbelief and finally grabbed that black bag off so as not to cook the tree. I was impressed: okay, this thing does work. I expect it would not have the condensation problems of the other and, fungus-wise, to be much healthier for the tree.

Hours later it is still 19 degrees warmer than the ambient air. But we’ll see in the morning if it’s dry under there. Letting in 85% percent of the weak levels of wintertime UV is not enough longterm, but it is good enough that we could leave it on for a day or two should we need to before spring and that alone makes the purchase worth it.

It is, though, compared to the black cover, kind of like having a nonstop full moon out there.