Saturday, December 06, 2008

Cold, Windy and Snowy

This has been a very cold fall and early winter so far. The Farmer's Almanac is said to be right about 80% of the time. There was an article in the paper that quoted the Farmer's Almanac as saying that this winter (everywhere, except the southeast) would be extremely cold and catastrophic. Last night when I went to bed it was 14 degrees. Today, I don't think it got out of the 20's and there was a strong wind blowing and it has been snowing on and off (more on) for the whole day. It is currently 28 degrees with a 15 MPH wind that makes the wind chill around 16.

Someone asked me about watering our animals in this weather. We have to use electricity to keep their water from freezing. There is a big trough heater out in the cow's trough. It does not make their water warm really, but keeps it warm enough that it doesn't freeze. The sheep have a large bucket that is heated. The chickens get fresh water each day, but it is usually frozen by evening. We do have a warming base, but they don't suggest you actually keep it in the coop. All of the animals (sheep and cows) have an extremely thick coat. They are very woolly.

I made bread today. I have my DLX out in the pantry area. It was way too cold out there to work or even to let the bread sponge. The bowl on the DLX is stainless steel. I had to run hot water in it and warm it up.

We hope you are all staying warm and healthy. Michael is now fighting the crud that is going around. We can't complain, neither one of us has been sick in a long time.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Michael needs some more of Mama's Medicine AKA Chicken Noodle Soup. I made some tonight. YUM!