Thursday, January 19, 2012

It's Warming Up!

This is our balmy forecast for today:

Rest Of Today ...Mostly sunny. Highs around 10 below. West winds 10 to 15 mph. Wind chills around 40 below.

Tonight...Increasing clouds. Lows around 20 below. West winds around 10 mph. Wind chills around 35 below.

Friday...Mostly sunny. Highs around 5 below. West winds 5 to 10 mph. Lowest wind chills around 40 below in the morning.

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Well, I could give you some jokes that start with, "It was so cold that ... " but it's no joke.  I rushed out of bed this morning because I overslept, a result of wearing a hat to bed and didn't hear my alarm through the knit material.  I now understand why in former days people would wear nightcaps.  They sure would come in handy!   I help Peter every morning and evening with milk chores, and was a half hour late getting into the milk room.

I'll have to post a photo of what we've been using my future main floor kitchen for, and it hasn't been to wash dishes.  Today it was 21 degrees up there.

And then I discovered there was standing water in the laundry tub -- when there was no plug in the drain.  FROZEN PIPES!!  Hopefully it will warm up enough today and the guys can figure out how to thaw the pipe.  In the meantime, I'm learning one more lesson in how to be flexible and figure out alternate ways to dispose of water.   Thankfully the septic drain field is still operational.  I have worried about that, because there's no real snow cover for insulation and we didn't have enough straw scrounged from area farmers to insulate the ground above the drain field.  Last spring was so wet that crops weren't planted, so not much straw was harvested.

I'm also in the market for a pattern to create udder covers for our 3 dairy cows.  So far so good, but we don't want to take any chances. 

The weather should moderate soon, and hopefully we'll adjust to a real winter instead of the mild temperatures we've had up until this week. 

Tomorrow we'll start butchering pigs!  Hopefully I can take some photos to share in another post.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Brrrr!

Looks like winter finally caught up with us.  After mild temperatures in the 30's and even 40's, we are now in for some bitterly cold days.

EXTREME COLD WATCH IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH


THURSDAY MORNING.



THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BISMARCK HAS ISSUED AN EXTREME

COLD WATCH, WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT [TUESDAY] THROUGH

THURSDAY MORNING.


* TEMPS ARE FORECAST TO FALL TO SUB ZERO READINGS LATE

TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY MORNING.  BRISK NORTHWEST WINDS

POSSIBLY TO 25 MPH MAY CREATE WIND CHILL TEMPS BETWEEN 30

BELOW & 45 BELOW ZERO.

Time to spend the day making animals comfortable and as warm as possible.  Time for us to increase our wood pile, too. 

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Simply Amazing Weather

I guess you could call this our "January Thaw," although we haven't had enough cold weather yet  to give it that title:

Today ...Mostly sunny. Windy. Highs in the lower 50s. West winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts to around 30 mph increasing to 25 to 30 mph with gusts to around 60 mph in the afternoon.

Tonight...Partly cloudy. Breezy. Lows in the mid 20s. West winds 20 to 25 mph.

Friday...Partly sunny. Colder. Highs in the lower 30s. West winds 15 to 20 mph.


Friday Night...Mostly cloudy. Lows 15 to 20. Northwest winds 10 to 15 mph.


Saturday...Partly sunny. Highs in the mid 20s. Northwest winds 5 to 10 mph.


Saturday Night And Sunday...Partly cloudy. Lows around 15. Highs in the lower 30s.


Sunday Night...Mostly cloudy. Lows in the lower 20s.

This balmy weather is not the best for the animals.  They are shedding some of the thicker hair they grew for winter.  I hope we have a gradual cool down instead of a shockingly cold Alberta Clipper or something else.




We've taken advantage of the warm temps to do a lot of butchering ... Not only chickens, but also our steer.  More about that next time.