Doctor to Farmer: Staying cool

It's hot. We may be blessed with dry heat here in California, but it's still heat. Gone are the days of sitting in my air conditioned office oblivious to the weather outside. Now, I am intimately aware of the weather because I spend all day in it.

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice," begins the poem "Fire and Ice," by Robert Frost. Given a choice, I'd take ice. My reasoning is that there you can always put on another layer, but there are only so many that you can take off (at least in public!). Surprisingly, however, our response on the farm to the heat is not to minimize clothing. Rather, most of us wear long sleeves and long pants to keep the hot sun off our skin, and a big hat for shade. For hydration, most of us wear Camelbaks, drinking water from a tube attached to a backpack reservoir, allowing continuous access to water and keeping our hands free for work.

My Camelbak, which holds 70 oz of water.

But given how much we sweat working in the field, just drinking water isn't enough. All that sweat means salt loss, and the lost salt needs to be replaced. My preferred electrolyte replacement beverage is Gatorade. Initially, I tried to carry a small bottle of Gatorade with me, but it always seemed to get left behind. I switched to a small jug with enough to share, which made my coworkers happy, too.

Drinking fluids helps, but it's not enough. I also want shade and a cool breeze. Since these can be hard to come by in the middle of a vegetable field during a Sacramento summer, I decided I'd have to make my own. Alison and I spent a couple days of our vacation designing, buying parts for, and building a hydration and cooling station for the farm. Using a large, two-wheeled Rubbermaid cart as the base, we added a plywood shelf with drilled cupholders, a spot for a 5-gallon jug of Gatorade, two battery-operated fans, and two pressurized personal mister bottles. Inside the cart, there is space for two lawn chairs, a small cooler that holds wet washcloths and Otter Pops, and pretzels (for salt). On the side of the cart, we mounted a 9-foot umbrella. So far, the hydration station has been a big hit, with the misters being the most popular component. With just a little bit of pumping and flipping open a valve, you get delivery of a cooling mist that feels AMAZING on a hot day. I highly recommend these little gems to anyone who spends a fair amount of time outdoors in the heat. It's almost as good as A/C!