EARLY FROST

816 Words2 Pages

The leaves had turned and were starting to fall. The partners were busy washing the morning’s harvest of carrots. Oliver spread the carrots out to dry in the sun. He hoped it would become cooler before they picked the cabbages.
Mr. Rat walked through the farm gate and up to Oliver. "Terrible sky."
The sun beat down from a cloudless sky. Oliver looked at his partners, their mouths open, speechless. Finally Timmy spoke. “What are you talking about, Mr. Rat? There isn’t a cloud in the sky.”
“That’s my point,” said Mr. Rat. “The clouds keep the heat in your fields overnight and prevent frost. Clear skies this time of year means a killing frost tonight. Come sunrise tomorrow your fields will be white and your crops wiped out if you don’t do something."
Oliver stopped washing carrots. “There was a small fortune still left in the fields.”
“Cats!” Timmy dropped the carrot he was holding. "What can we do to put the clouds back in the sky?"
“Nothing, it’s the weather,” replied Mr. Rat. “Rodents have talked about the weather for years, but none have done anything about it.”
Oliver through his arms in the air. “There must be something we can do. My share of the pumpkin crop is enough to buy the piano. We need another two weeks.”
“Your only hope is to protect your plants tonight.” Mr. Rat paused. “Maybe tomorrow night as well. Frost warnings typically last only a day, two at the most."
“How do we do that?” asked Oliver.
“Well, you can do nothing. This will work for your hardy crops like cabbage, carrots and turnips. Some say the frost improves the flavour. As for the rest, you will have to either harvest or use a plastic sheet to protect them.”
Timmy pointed to the shed. “We have plastic sheets in the loft.”
“They’re not enough.” Brianna wipe...

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...h time to set up the plastic sheets and we can easily pick the few tomatoes still in the field. It’s getting all those pumpkins from the backfield to the shed that’s going to take the time.”
"But we don’t have to store the pumpkins in the shed today," replied Oliver. "We can roll them up to the ten that will be under the sheets tonight and store them tomorrow."
"Works for me." Timmy ran into the shed to start taking out the sheets.
Oliver and Brianna followed. By sunset, the trio had moved all of the small pumpkins under the sheets, except for the three the mice were rolling back to the shed.
Brianna rolled her pumpkin into the shed “Too bad, we couldn’t have let them grow a bit larger. The smaller ones will be harder to sell, because they won’t keep as long.”
Oliver grinned. He wasn’t worried about the small pumpkins. He had a plan to get a premium price for them.

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