Winter at Lake Jovita

I can't really talk about how refreshed I feel in this weather. The last two weeks of cold air with lowered humidity leaves me invigorated and energetic like the horses and calves I see trotting in the roadside fields. If I appear wide-eyed and content, I risk ostracism for my insensitivity. Yesterday was the coldest morning in Central Florida so far this winter. Here in Dade City, the dawn temperature was nineteen degrees. Again, I hear on the radio and from the community that landowners are concerned about losing their orange crops. It will take a week to determine the damage. I don't know what it's like to rely on the weather for my livelihood in such a fragile way. A mere 15 degree difference can cause an orange grower to lose everything he or she has worked for. The last devastating freeze in this county was 20 years ago when the 1989 prolonged freeze altered the citrus industry. Dade City’s Lykes Pasco Plant, the largest orange juice plant in the world at the time, closed down. A man whose groves were worth three million dollars couldn't save his trees from that freeze, and overnight his business was worth negative $200,000.
Behind Saint Leo Abbey, I walked down the hill that leads to the heart-shaped lake. The orange trees are lined up as if parading lakeside. It’s a balmy thirty-five degrees, and as I walk through the grove, flanked by orange-decorated trees, the browned, dried grass crunches underneath my boots like tortilla chips. The golden spheres look healthy, and I notice the leaves which are usually a deep, evergreen, are curling and blackening at the edges. The sky, like azure milk glass, is cloudless. Its complementary color to the oranges could be found on a painter’s palette. The Saint Leo Abbey monks own these trees, and each winter I buy 5-6 lb bags of Hamlin oranges for one dollar. I hope I'll get to juice them all winter.