21.   In order for your trees to survive and reach bearing age, you will have to take steps to protect them from a hard freeze.

22.   In Texas, a hard freeze forecast for the weekend did not materialize, prompting the cancellation of a disaster committee meeting by agriculture officials.

23.   In order to protect tender buds from a hard freeze in the Southeast this week, growers sprayed plants with water.

24.   Indeed, a hard freeze will occur Saturday night as far south as the Gulf Coast.

25.   In the North, hard freezes will likely scorch the plant before it blooms.

26.   It had come during the night out of nowhere, a hard freeze at the end of April.

27.   Liquids like mercury freeze as hard as lead, balloons shrivel to small prunes and rubber balls shatter when dropped.

28.   Many gardeners prefer to treat mums as annuals, yanking out the plants after a hard freeze has blackened the foliage.

29.   Protect during hard freezes with a heavy layer of mulch.

30.   So, we feather our nest with tissues and handkerchiefs, inhalers and expectorants, decongestants and nasal sprays and wait the blessed coming of the first hard freeze.