The National Weather Service asks that all of us check on the elderly during tonight’s frigid cold.. I guess this means me, although no one but Maria is checking in on me that I know of.
The NWS warns of “icy wind chills expected. Wind chills as low as 15 to 25 below zero.”
That got my attention. We do everything we can for the animals, but there isn’t much we can do. They will undoubtedly feel that kind of wind and cold.
But they will have sheltelr from the wind, good grain and fresh and nourishing hay. That is about all anyone can do for them.
I am one of those people the weather service and my electric company is warning to stay inside. I like being warm, but I hate feeling guilty and useless.
I understand the reality of this. I can’t go onto that ice an I can’t be outside in that temperature for more than a few minutes.
A good chunk of this will fall on Maria. Almost all of it. She says she is fine with it. I believe her. She is very strong in a storm.
I helped prepare for the cold as much as I could.
We put out a lot of bedding – old hay and straw – and the Pole Barn will protect them from the wild.
We’re going to feed them inside of the pole barn tomorrow, out of the strong arctic winds. We’ve attached warming cables to the water pump and the water bucket for the donkeys and the sheep.
The barn cats are in the basement,, where the temperature never goes below 50 degrees. They have soft and warm beds, fresh water and a few mice for a snack.
Bud will probably refuse to go outside at all – he is not built for that cold – and may choose to do his business in the bathroom on the linoleum floor on paper we put down.
We rarely do that, but they do it in New York City all the time.
When I first moved to the country, it was not unusual for the temperature to go down to 30 below in January and February. The ice was treacherous and almost impassable, and the cold was bone-jarring. The blizzards shut the world down.
That doesn’t happen often much any more several times a year in January and February we are reminded of what it used to mean to live in upstate New York and Vermont.
This kind of cold changes matter and transforms life. I went out a few minutes ago to check on the donkeys and sheep, and they were visibly anxious and circled around me, expecting me to do something.
I see tha tthe air does get thinner and the sky bluer.
The temperatures are already plumetting. I gave the donkeys their alfalfa treats and tossed around a bit of second cut hay for energy for the sheep.
They have everything they need, and probably everything they want.
“I’ll see you guys in the morning,” I said, leaving the pasture. “Stay warm. Stay strong.”
Jon…
Good luck with the freeze. I sympathize with your ordeal, and am relieved you guys are prepared.
When it gets that cold, all bets are off.
For a 1970s bunch of greenhorns from Texas, our project team’s winter trip to Cedar Rapids, IA, was an adventure. But it became old really quick.
Some of our programmers never left Texas before. Others didn’t own winter coats. So, they scurried to a second-hand store before the company flight left.
Due to the installation facility’s daytime operation, these programmers did much of their work at night. But as they were leaving very late, the team’s driver dropped the keys into a snowdrift – and couldn’t find them. They spent that night in the warehouse (at least, it was heated).
I spent a few mornings there at minus 30 when I left the motel. Automobiles make the strangest noises when it’s that cold. (No dipstick heater.)
I was walking between buildings when a local supervisor honked. He invited me inside, and warned that walking around in those conditions could cause permanent skin damage.
For the resident Iowans, water pipes several feet below ground still froze.
Bud is smart.
Thanks Donald, I appreciate the concern, but I’ve never seen the winter, even this cold night as an ordeal. I moved to upstate New York, not Arizona or Florida and I knew what I was doing. The harsh winters make the spring ever so much more beautiful and I appreciate them all the more. I’m grateful for winter. It is hard, but it is also beautiful and challenging and part of life.
Jon…
I also find winters enjoyable. Because the desert’s dry air doesn’t hold heat, Phoenix winters can drop below freezing at night. And even in Arizona, there’s a spring season. Although I don’t enjoy 110 degree summers, I wouldn’t trade them for harsh winters. So, I think we’re in “to each his own” territory.
Arizona’s weather is highly variable. In elevations 2 hours northward, where the elevations reach 7,000 feet, temps can drop to minus 20 and snowfall amounts support local skiing.
Having lived in both places, I don’t equate Arizona and Florida. South Florida’s weather is often sticky and uncomfortable. And then there’s hurricane season.
I have a friend, who is a few years older than me. When there are weather announcements, I always call him and tell them that I called because the weather reports told me to check on the elderly. He usually just tells me where to go. It is a long running joke between us.
I’m from Montana originally and I can remember days at 50 below….that will get your attentin!
As a truck driver In West Texas oilfields, I remember blue norther’s blowing in and temps dropping 40 degrees in 2 minutes as the fronts passed. The first couple were unnerving. Later, very late nights listening to weather reports with Stockman’s Warnings weather broadcast on the scratchy AM stations that faded in and out. The middle of the oilfield in winter is an especially desolate and lonely place. The winds howled and frozen equipment wouldn’t operate and was frozen into place. I’d never touch equipment with bare hands, fearing my flesh would freeze to exposed metal. I don’t miss ANY of that. You’re gonna have it so much colder. Glad you can stay indoors some.