whoze bin messin' wif da weather ?

[stetto]

Hang in there, guys. Let us know if you need to come up north to warm up...

Oh, and the farmers here calve all winter long, the critters are pretty tough. I'm sure the Buckaroo can vouch...

[Onepoint]

glad see you got it back and were not shivering the whole time.   I have used 2 bottles of rescue 911 in the tractors during this, that should have been enough for like 300 gal of fuel.    They still chugged along at times trying to gel.  I don't get any grade one fuel as its usually not needed, and of course stock up on starting fluid for everything normally for winter anyway.

We were lucky I only had to carry water for a day, other than that it was the 1st actual 'normal' winter we have seen this year.  Snow was so cold its relatively dry, compacts down to hardly anything when moving it, but its not going anywhere either since wind has not been an issue, yet.

Calves are fairly tough, if they can get dry right away, you might have some short ears come summer. We are going to start about mid march.

[balsum fractus]

Hope you pull through okay...I never realized a lot of houses use electric heat down there.

Pullin' for you!

[balsum fractus]

Warm weather is on the way! +32 today, and supposed to be +50 F on Sunday!!

[stetto]

Warm weather is on the way! +32 today, and supposed to be +50 F on Sunday!!

Yeh, we'll get a weekend warmup, then a week of average, then the guessers are claiming a return of that wonderful -20s for the first part of March.

Good thing I'm skeptical, or this would depress me...

https://weather.com/forecast/national/news/2020-02-21-march-2020-temperature-outlook-forecast-the-weather-company

[jetmex]

Finally above freezing here for the first time in five days, going to be a balmy 42 today.  The weather guessers say one more hard freeze tonight and we're back into the 70's Saturday.

Carl, I feel your pain.  My place is all electric as well, but we were only out of power for about 18 hours.  Always seems they turn it off at night, so it got a bit chilly.  My daughter was out of power almost three days, which caused a water pipe break that flooded her house.  We've been dealing with that for the last few days, which is really fun when it's cold and there's no power.  Back up and running for the last 24 hours, hope it stays.  Whoever manages the electrical grid here in Texas should be shot after spending a week in the cold with no lights.

[balsum fractus]

Silver lining....how glad are you that you don't have to go to work??

[wtxsflyr]

Today was our first day above freezing since February 8th.  Nony, almost all houses down here are total electric.  We are about to change that here.  I am going to have a propane tank set, and plumb the house for propane heaters, and cooking stove. I have a generator that can run lights and refrigerator.  I can tell you 3+ days in the cold and dark is no fun. Neighbor up the road loaned us a Dearborn heater that was a lifesaver.  We are both so tired, of chopping ice and hauling water in 5 gallon buckets to fill up the water troughs for the cows, horses, chickens and dogs.

[balsum fractus]

Glad you got through it... up here everyone is on natural gas...even the fireplaces. Wood burning ones got a nasty rap with all the smoke they produce, but sure would be handy in circumstancesl like those you just went through... If I remember correctly, Fubar headquarters has a wood burning stove.
I, myself, have a generator in the garage, along with a propane heater.......just in case....I really, really hope never to have to use them for that purpose - we hit 50-something below one night!
Anyways, hope you get thawed out, and rested!

[Onepoint]

Yeah, well aside from cost benefit, I will never be without a woodstove and generator.  Too many times the power was out, or the roads were shut even you wanted the propane truck to get out. Granted it's different if you live in town, but a woodstove in this climate is just simple prep, and I guess TX has SE WY climate now.    

Shelter, heat, water and food are the basics of not just survival but comfort, and comfort goes a long way to aiding endurance.

[balsum fractus]

.......and a wood stove sure provides comfort........especially considering the alternative!👍

[Onepoint]

Here I said that all bragging etc, and the damn stove pipe must have sluffed down a bunch of creosote overnight and blocked most of the chimney and tried to smoke us out this morning when I threw a log on.   Had to pull out the burning logs and let it cool to clean it.  That will teach me to be all smug.  Thankfully its not blistery cold like last week and the windows could be open to air the house out.

Still not giving it up though. 

We are actually at 48 right now, I am starting see trickles of water through the yard and walks, and its looking kind of soggy on the edges.  I bet tomorrow morning is going to be treacherous though.

[jetmex]

Definitely going to get myself a generator once the screaming hordes attacking Tractor Supply settle down.  This bad winter stuff only happens once in a blue moon here, so there's never been a need for one, and we've been really lucky during the hurricanes.  I think we're on a power grid with the two fire stations that are within walking distance of the house, so it could have been worse.  And I guess it's probably time to clean out the fireplace here in the house we've never used....

Didn't get as warm as they thought, but 60 degrees and no ice is a beautiful thing.

[wtxsflyr]

63 here yesterday, most of the snow is melted and things are getting plenty soggy around here.  56 already this morning, but the stinking wind is blowing about 30.

[stetto]

Pretty astounding what the earth and her nature can do without our interference, eh?

Other than the 10 day cold snap though, we've had a mild, fair dry and relatively wind free winter this year. Go figure...