Lessons in Hibernation

For six or eight months a year Yuma is sunny, breezy, and perfectly warm. Perfectly warm in a way that you are so comfortable you don't feel or even think about the air around you. Then there is the rest of the year which provokes statements like "you can fry an egg on the sidewalk" or "after Yuma, you will need a down coat in hell". Simply put the sun is brutal and poisonous; something that you need to avoid and protect yourself against. Dense plantings of trees, covered awnings, and large porches are all aesthetic and logical lines of defense against el sol, except if you live in Yuma. In Yuma scores of residents remove all greenery from their property so that their homes literally glow against a white-wash backdrop of sand, rock, and sometimes weathered stumps of forgotten trees. Tin foil covered window and doors to shield homes from the penetrating poison. Behind these sheets of thin metal the residents hide and wait for the winter to return.