This is the storm that won’t quit.

This morning, we woke up to a bit of everything. Ice covering one side of the house, gates frozen, animals restless and uneasy.

There are two things sheep and donkeys hate – ice storms and nothing to graze on. Soon, they’ll start nibbling on the gates and the barn itself.

The snow is heavy on and off, the ice treacherous. I almost went down several times just walking out of the house.

It rained all day yesterday, and that water has frozen. The roads look impassable, and we’re not planning to go out today.

I can only be outside for ten, i.e., 12 minutes, and I start to feel the warmth draining out of my body; I get dizzy, even nauseous. That’s hard for me to swallow, I was alone at the first Bedlam Farm for six years, and I love being out in storms, feeding the animals, shoveling, pouring hot water on the gates.

The chickens get a rest day, they’ll be in the roost until tomorrow. The donkeys are grumpy and possessive about their hay, they aren’t sharing a blade with the sheep.

I’m heading out shortly to clean off the car and run it for a few minutes. I doubt we’ll be going anywhere until late Saturday or Sunday. Fate and Zinnia love the cold; Bud stays inside by the farm.

He did go outside this morning and did his business, a brave young man.

 

My 9:30 radar map suggests (we are the blue dot) that we are out of the ice danger – all of our friends in  Southern Vermont are without power. So far, so good. I’m glad we got the generator. Whether we need it or not, it’s perfect to know it’s there.

The pink is ice, the green is rain, the blue is snow.

We have a few more hours of the on-and-off sofa, and the endless storm will be away from us by late afternoon.

I’ll be inside for most of the day, venturing out for some photos. It’s pretty good writing weather. I’ll need a couple of naps today; this cold sucks the energy out of me.