Oh for Heaven's sake!

We're still in the deep freeze. This is getting a bit ridiculous! We don't get cold like this for days and days on end and frankly, we aren't prepared mentally for long cold spells like this starting in December and rolling on through well into January! BRRR!! We woke up this morning again to Minus 21...sheesh.

I have to take a moment to thank a good friend of mine for supplying me with some wonderful compressed bales of flaky timothy hay. The bales come in on a van from the lower-48 for hay sales to horse people, but there were a few bales here and there in the van that were dirty...as if the floors had been swept up and the dirt baled with it. When you take the bales apart and shake them out, dirt falls out of them. No, not mold, just earth. Not good for horses or any animals indoors, but fine if you take the time to shake out the flakes onto the snow-covered ground for the sheep. They love it! You know how sheep don't like stems, well there are no stems in this stuff! So, she's been selling the hay to me at a reduced cost so the sheep can keep their energy up especially since we're at the end of breeding season. They are eating VERY well! The bales weigh 60 to 80 pounds each, and although heavy to pick up are so small it makes them pretty easy to heft around. So in this cold we've at least had the luxury of feeding everyone some really nice rich hay and that's kept up their energy and health.

They say it's suppose to get into the 20's next week, that the cold snap will be over with soon and we'll be relatively warm again. We all here can't wait!!!

Weird winds bring a 27 degree rise in the temperature....temporarily

The winds are desperately trying to bring in some 'normal' temperatures. All day we sat around -20F. Suddenly this evening the winds picked up and in came some warm temperatures - relatively speaking! Check this out - from the NOAA weather site in Wasilla. And you ALL know where Wasilla is now after the Vice Presidential run for the Republican Party this year...hehehehe.....
it will crash back down to -20 or -30 when the wind lets up. It did this yesterday too, except in the middle of the night when you couldn't appreciate it. So here's hoping and waiting for the long cold snap to go away and things to go back to normal again! The sheep are really tired of this too!


04 20:36 NE 13 G22 7F
04 20:16 NE 15 G 36 7F
04 19:56 NE 15 G 29 7F
04 19:36 NE 9 G 20 7F
04 19:16 E 7 -0F
04 18:56 E 9 -4F
04 18:36 E 5 -20F
04 18:16 NW 3 -20F
04 17:56 Calm -20F

Houston, we have a problem....

looking out at the sky at 5pm on Saturday, I think we do have a problem. It's the temperature. At this point I can stand being outdoors for an hour, ensconced in insulated snow bibs, down coat, trappers hat secured over my ears and under my chin, warm gloves and shoes. If I go out to work on goats, dogs, or sheep, I can work out there for about a half hour then I need to go into the dairy room to get warmed up and eye lashes dried back off from the frost.

I'm a super-cold-weather wimp.

I don't tolerate THIS kind of cold very well anymore. I am 51. I have frostbit exposed parts since I was a little kid and those ear bits, face bits, and hand and foot bits just don't tolerate the cold like they used to.

Oh, did I tell you today's HIGH temperature here was -20F??? The low was -29. We haven't hit -30F yet. Perhaps tonight it will happen - the coldest we've ever seen at this house in the 9 years we've been here. This is a serious cold snap that has me out checking the animals 4 times a day. It takes me 2 hours to get the burning sensation out of my cheeks - like you've been smiling too long and your face hurts. Once I'm thoroughly warmed back up I can head back out again. Seems rather silly doesn't it!

How are you doing? Are you staying nice and warm??

Happy NewYear and 18 Below

Happy New Year!

We're at 18 below zero Fahrenheit. Lovely. A good day to have stayed inside as much as possible, get a little extra rest and a good nap in, and then do the chores in the evening like usual. It was a good relaxing day.

How was yours?

Very Very Very Cold

Well........so you think it's cold? It's not cold here by Fairbanks (Alaska) standards. They are located 6 hours drive north of us. But we're still pretty bad right now. We're in a cold snap.......earlier than is usual for around these parts. The cold snap is expected to last a total of 2 weeks from beginning to end. We'll hope that's not true, but the forecast doesn't look promising.

Right now it's only 5:30pm on New Year's eve. Rick and I both just got in from an hour or two working outside.......Rick unwrapping round bales and feeding them out to the cattle and horses. Me feeding and watering the dogs and the goats and sheep. Face cheeks feel a little dry and achy, but that will go away. I even got a new pair of cheap snow bibs at the end of year sales and those have made a very nice difference in comfort. So anyways, it's cold out right now.... it's -20F already. It should go to around -25F by sunrise when it's coldest out. That's -31 Celsius for Jenny and friends in metric areas. Fairbanks on the other hand is supposed to go to -50F which is -45C. Friends want to have a bonfire at their firepit tonight along with a few fireworks perhaps. I'm not quite sure if we're going to go and enjoy or stay in and watch a good movie....hehehehe.....

funny, when the temperatures drop, you can hear the wood framing and siding creaking and cracking. Pouring warm water into ice cold dog buckets makes any ice in the pop loudly. Silly cattledogs tho, they love the cold and still venture out in it with great bravado. Starting last Saturday through Monday, we had lots of wind here.......gusts all the way up to 60mph. Tuesday morning we awoke to quiet - no wind - and instead of 5 above during the winds, the temperatures began dropping. So yesterday I was able to take my 90 year old mom to town so we could both do our grocery shopping. Today I made the big run for plastic wrapped compressed bales of pine shavings for dogs and goats, filling up my truck with shavings bales, alfalfa pellets, and cracked corn for the poultry. A few odds and ends and several stops later, I came home and unloaded it all where it was needed. It does feel good to know everything is topped off, all the animals nice and comfortable, the house bin filled with firewood, and plenty of phone calls coming and going as people hunker down to make it through the cold spell.

I hope you have a wonderful and safe Happy New Year!

Well good morning!

I promised I'd be back again! Here we are, waiting for the temperatures to fall through the floor. It snowed all day Christmas day, and as of Friday we were buried in it. Rick worked hard all day long with both snow plow then our big 4 wheel drive tractor to pile it up out of the way. Quite a huge snowfall for us too, although not the worst we've ever seen by far. Somewhere around 8 or 9 inches. We normally have had about 30 inches of snow by now - often we don't get much in January or February with most falling by December. According to the Anchorage NOAA website, we're 20 inches more than usual so far. That's allot! Yesterday morning it was fairly calm out, a little breeze here and there, as I went around doing chores. It was also nice out for winter, temperatures in the high teens. Then, out of nowhere, high winds hit us. We don't usually get winds here like they do in town. By 8am it was noisy. 45mph gusts. And that kept on all day long into the night. We still have some gusts coming through this morning, but it is also still 8 degrees above zero. There is a cold snap coming - a BAD one. I can't believe we didn't wake up to it already but that is great news, as I still have more hay and grain to haul and bedding to put into place. There have been plenty of weather warnings issued already......predictions are for a week to 10 days straight of daytime highs of zero, nighttime lows of -20 or worse. You HAVE to prepare for cold like that! Poor Fairbanks, they predicted their HIGH today is going to be -35! Ouch.

Guess what Santa brought me for my barn? A brand new big bullet space heater! YAY!!!!!!! Warm barn warm barn warm barn!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Just wanted to drop in and say hello. I have been amiss, not posting like I should......and thank you to those who emailed me asking where my typing fingers have been. Well, very busy! We had a guest arrive from Ireland...........that was great, more on that in my next post. We also had our guest bring a new puppy! YAY! Sired by my boy over there, Roisin, Gaelic for Rose, is a beautiful girl full of happy puppy love. More on her later too.

We're buried in snow, so far we're 15 inches over the norm in snow depth. Christmas day is never stopped snowing, and has snowed through the night and still spitting the last of it this morning as I type. We have allot of digging out today to do! Here's a photo taken early this morning.....

How was YOUR Christmas? Are you doing good?? Looking forward to hearing from you!!

Oh, and I should add - the building with the lights on 'in the distance' is our chicken coop with automatic lights already on for the day. The photo was taken about 8:30 this morning!