Snow and Cold Here in Texas

Yesterday was a pretty nice day - kind of overcast but the temps were in the mid to upper 50's. My son and I spent some time getting wood brought into the house and also on our wood wagon that is in the garage - ready for when we need more wood. We also put some wood outside the back door. As the evening progressed it really seemed like the calm before the storm. It was so nice and quiet. It was still about 48 degrees when when I went to bed.

But all of that changed in the middle of the night. By about 3:30am - I could hear it raining big time plus lightning and thunder. I got up and checked the temperature -it was 33 degrees. Well I knew that the lights needed to be turned on for the chickens. But I was so glad that I looked out the window to see if I could see the red glow of the light coming out of the coop. I would not have to go into the cold sun room to turn the light on. I got back into my warm bed and went back to bed.

This morning when I got up, it was 19 degrees. I looked outside and we already had sleet and snow all over the ground - not 100% coverage but I would say about 85% coverage. I looked out the front window and saw that the road out front had a nice thick layer of sleet/snow. And NO traffic - which is very unusual since we live on a pretty popular road that leads straight out to a major hi-way. I was so thankful that no one in my house had to go to work. This is one of those days that you just do not get out unless you HAVE to.

I looked out towards my chicken coop and even though it was very close to the time that I normally let the chickens out every morning - there were hardly any chickens in the dog run.

So I knew that I needed to get water and food into the chicken coop(a small shed). So I started boiling some water - the water would be frozen solid. I cooked up some spaghetti for my chickens.

So I headed out to take care of my girls. I got to the first gate and the latch was frozen. I poured water over it and was able to get it to move. Then I tried to get the door to open and it was stuck at the bottom. I tried to get the snow moved from in front of the door with a shovel. And finally decided to ask my son to help me. So he helped me get that door open plus the gate to the dog run. I put the food inside the dog run(usually I spread it out in their yard to either side of the door to the dog run). But I knew that they would not be wanting out of the dog run since they were hardly wanting to come out of the coop. I got the water and food moved to inside the shed. My poor girls - the shed is not very big but it has heat lamps going and hopefully they will not freeze.

The sun has come out and the temp has come up some saying it is about 24 degrees out there but the wind chill is sitting at 8.6 - That is cold.

The weather guys are saying that it will get to about 9 degrees tonight and 10 tomorrow night. Wow- we are not used to this kind of weather here in Texas. But we are dealing the best we can. I am finding some things that we will need to do to keep some drafts out of our house - once we get out of this freezing weather.

Oh and they are also saying that we will not even get out of the freezing temperatures till Friday. And then they are only saying that it will get to 34 degrees.

And I think that I have shared with you all before that my washer and dryer are out in the garage that faces the NORTH. This means our garages is COLD. And so I don't get to do laundry till it is above freezing. And I am not sure if that 34 degree will be warm enough to make it safe to do laundry. So I may have to wait till Sunday to do laundry. That will be hard on me. I do not like to let my laundry pile up. And I like clean clothes. I like to wash my towels and night gown after just a couple of uses. But you do what you have to do.

So I hope that you guys are all staying warm. Apparently it is Cold and yucky in a big part of the country today. Keep warm and home if at all possible. :o)