The Old Folks Home

[microchick]

Yeah, there's one across the road not far from us.
The power company said power would be on by 3 pm the next day. Then they said the same thing the next day. Then they said 10 pm today. Then they said our power had been restored. NOT. Hubby called and they told him we were among only 27 homes where power had not yet been restored. 10 pm tomorrow. I am certainly not holding my breath. I just want to scream. I have chicks in the living room. I am going to need to clean those bins tomorrow. Hubby goes nuts over smells.

Oh I'm sorry, Cap, I feel your frustration.

A year or so before we retired we had an ice storm in IL that knocked out our electricity. It went on for 3 days. Luckily we had a generator on board but when day 4 hit and we had no electricity while everyone around us did, I called the power company and they informed us that power was restored to our area. I told them it wasn't because we didn't have any power. They sent out a crew and it turned out that there was a long driveway about a half a mile from us that they found a tree down that had fallen over the power lines running back to the house. They fixed it. Power on.

That was a looonnnng 4 days though and we didn't even have chicks we were trying to keep warm.

 

[ronott1]

I keep seeing these posts about the weather, and am having a real "count your blessings" moment. I took this on my back porch a few minutes ago:
View attachment 2532433

That's not a pond in the background, it's my pasture, which is underwater again, again, again. We got about 2" of rain last night; I keep telling myself, "it could have been snow/ice." We've got wind about 20 mph steady, gusting over 30, but it was worse last night . . . folks about 40 miles to our south had a tornado came through about midnight. They are reporting 3 dead and 10 injured. What am I complaining about?!!

That was fairly close to you! Good thing the tornadoes were not more wid spread

 

[Alaskan]

I keep seeing these posts about the weather, and am having a real "count your blessings" moment. I took this on my back porch a few minutes ago:
View attachment 2532433

That's not a pond in the background, it's my pasture, which is underwater again, again, again. We got about 2" of rain last night; I keep telling myself, "it could have been snow/ice." We've got wind about 20 mph steady, gusting over 30, but it was worse last night . . . folks about 40 miles to our south had a tornado came through about midnight. They are reporting 3 dead and 10 injured. What am I complaining about?!!

Oh good grief! That is horrid!

 

[ronott1]

Oh I'm sorry, Cap, I feel your frustration.

A year or so before we retired we had an ice storm in IL that knocked out our electricity. It went on for 3 days. Luckily we had a generator on board but when day 4 hit and we had no electricity while everyone around us did, I called the power company and they informed us that power was restored to our area. I told them it wasn't because we didn't have any power. They sent out a crew and it turned out that there was a long driveway about a half a mile from us that they found a tree down that had fallen over the power lines running back to the house. They fixed it. Power on.

That was a looonnnng 4 days though and we didn't even have chicks we were trying to keep warm.

Luckily we have not had long term power outages on our side of town. Our power lines are buried so storms do not hit us that way too much.

We have had outages in the summer heat though when a transformer blows. That is usually a one day fix.

 

[Bunnylady]

That was fairly close to you! Good thing the tornadoes were not more wid spread

Yeah. I woke up about 1 a.m. to wind and thunder, and checked the radar picture. There were storm cells to the west and east of us, traveling more or less north. I'm not sure which one was responsible for the twister, but if it had happened just half an hour later, it would have been in a much more densely populated area, and caused a great deal more carnage.

 

[Peep_Show]

With no electricity and 7-14 degree weather, my TX friends are now storing the contents of their freezers in the backyard. Yikes!

 

[microchick]

Poor folks in the south aren't used to this kind of weather at all. No snow removal equipment, no nothing.

I said earlier this month before all this frozen stuff hit that I have a feeling that Spring/summer might be one to remember around here. The last 3-4 years have been mild to cool wet spring/summers with very little severe weather. Not that I wish to see severe weather because it can be as much if not more problematic than this cold, frozen, windy, Godawful bout of winter we are having is. If this is indication of things to come, whether it be Missouri, Texas or the Virginias are currently experiencing, we'd better get our little duckies in a line, think about the 'what ifs' and make sure we are aware and prepared, not only for ourselves and our families but for our feathered flocks, also.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Hey Morning Old Folks woke up late 10 am
half the day is gone

 

[CapricornFarm]

33? If it was 33 here I'd be running around outside in shorts and a tank top thinking it was spring! grumble grumble.

@CapricornFarm, I am so sorry to see the damage you suffered at the hands of mother nature. She is a B isn't she? Yesterday I looked outside at the blowing snow coming down and the whole world looking frigid and told DH that Mother nature must really be P'eed off at us mortal humans at the moment because she sure is throwing a hissy fit at us. Luckily metal and glass can be replaced and or repaired.

We had a low of -10 last night, it's up to 4 right now. The past 4 days have been miserable here. The wind chill hit -30 at one point. I think the warmest it has been the past 4 days is 7 degrees and that was Saturday I think. Today it's supposed to get up to 10 and back to normal temps by the weekend.

To add insult to injury, we have had snow every day. One inch to 3 inches per day with more called for overnight. We have about 9 inches on the ground now, deeper in the drifts. I feel like Shackleton every time I trudge up to the coop with my jugs of hot water and hot treats for the birds.

They are doing a lot better than I am handling this weather. One has frost bite on big dangly wattles but I expected that. All I have been doing is staying as much on the sofa, bundled up in a warm throw, sipping hot chocolate and catching up on my reading/working on the article for BYC....and complaining....lots and lots of complaining and for once my husband is complaining along with me.

@bruceha2000, I have electricity. My heated water bowl took a powder on me and quit in it's tracks. Discovered that happened on Friday when I plugged it in for the first time. To make matters worse, we haven't gotten any deliveries here since Friday. Fed EX called that they are holding our deliveries till the weather settles. UPS said they are trying to get through today. I told them deliveries would be nice as most of our packages contain non perishable food items that we need. I don't even think the mail has gone through today. And even if I ordered replacements, they would be sitting in some UPS warehouse and not get to me in time to do me any good as they are calling for temps in the 40s next weekend/week.

To say this is very unusual weather for us would be an understatement.

Needless to say spring can happen any time for me. And in the meantime, I'm looking at all my packets of seeds and imagining little sprouts growing in the garden....

@microchip, the insurance guy offered to write off both of the vehicles. But we really don't want to go through looking for new ones. And don't feel like dishing out over $80,000 for two new vehicles from a dealer. A full sized bed pickup with 4x4 and decent mileage is super hard to find , especially at a reasonable price. I need to empty out the stuff from my truck. We just had a new CD player put in, a very nice one. Ugh.
Thursday we are supposed to have another nasty ice storm. Still no power here, though my friend up near Farmville VA finally got her power restored. She had expensive shipped eggs in the bator, so she wrapped up the eggs and strapped them to her body. Not a fun thing, but she was desperate.

 

[ronott1]

Poor folks in the south aren't used to this kind of weather at all. No snow removal equipment, no nothing.

I said earlier this month before all this frozen stuff hit that I have a feeling that Spring/summer might be one to remember around here. The last 3-4 years have been mild to cool wet spring/summers with very little severe weather. Not that I wish to see severe weather because it can be as much if not more problematic than this cold, frozen, windy, Godawful bout of winter we are having is. If this is indication of things to come, whether it be Missouri, Texas or the Virginias are currently experiencing, we'd better get our little duckies in a line, think about the 'what ifs' and make sure we are aware and prepared, not only for ourselves and our families but for our feathered flocks, also.

We may be in for a lot of odd weather in the near future for sure!