It's HOT in Here!
Originally appeared in VioletsFun Photo Journal, issue no. 2 (1998)
The best part of growing and selling violets, working in our violet shop and greenhouse, is that the temperature is always very nice--not too hot or too cold. It is heated in the winter and air-conditioned in the summer. It was the beginning of summer, my first after Rob built the greenhouse and my first summer in America. To me, a person from a subtropical climate, summer in upstate New York should be great, especially since the greenhouse is air-conditioned during the warmest weather. As spring was ending, and there were fewer and fewer cool days, the temperature gradually climbed. After two weeks of beautiful, sunny days, the greenhouse was filled with humidity and hot air. It was like being back in Taiwan--no, even worse!.....a customer visiting from Florida, quickly soaked her dress with sweat after touring the greenhouse. Rob would run out to bring her first, a towel, then a wet cloth, and then a glass of ice water. Nothing seemed to help. We were surprised that neither the plants, customers, nor ourselves had collapsed from the awful heat and humidity.
After more than a week of this, Rob and I were getting very frustrated. After all, he had spent a fortune, and a lot of time, installing an air-conditioning system just for these reasons. We tried to find a way to solve the problem--adding sky windows, ventilation fans, another air-conditioner....we didn't have the money for any of them, and none would be done before all of our plants had been killed by the heat. We could barely stand to spend time there working with the plants. Our full-time helper, Brenda, kept coming to work in less and less clothing. Rob and I began to plan for the morning she would arrive, immediately break into a heavy sweat, and then quite, unable to bear the heat any longer.
It seemed there was nothing we could do to make the greenhouse cooler. It was only the first day of summer--how was I going to survive the next three months? I stepped into the furnace room to finish our laundry. It was the coldest room in the barn because of all the pipes running cold air out into the greenhouse. I reached above my head to feel the big pip, desperate to get just a little coolness, but all that I could feel was a warm pipe. How could it be?
Well, it seemed that the blower of the furnace was working, but the air-conditioner wasn't. We could hear the fan running, but all this time it was just circulating warm air! Rob ran outside to find that the compressor wasn't running, then came back inside to find that the electrical circuit had been tripped. He turned the circuit on and, within 20 minutes, it was nice an cool again in the greenhouse and shop. Apparently, and electrical storm had caused the switch to trip (isn't it always the last place one looks?). Alas, now I could finally enjoy my "wonderful, violet growing live"......before my first winter.