⭐ Kiki's Year Long 🌶️

[Nabiki]

The ones my brother had left home by flying away.

The atrium is part of my house, so it's enclosed. They wouldn't fly away, but they might fly into the house proper...

I'm going to have to think about this.

 

[muddy75]

They changed the forecast again after I cancelled Thursday (makes me look like a total idiot) we were supposed to get another 3-5 in snow Wednesday night with 1-3 Thursday am. I’m a tightwad and didn’t want to pay another 150 to clear the parking lot that close to the weekend, so I cancelled. Now the forecast is maybe 1” Wednesday night with maybe another 1” on Thursday

 

[electrycmonk]

@HappyDuckie.
Proof that I have feet:
View attachment 2532737

(Giggles) Annnnd, ya still find a way to hide a majority of those tootsies. (Slaps knee while continuing to giggle)

BTW kiddo nice work showing the effort of digging into the deeper snow too! Kudo's!

 

[R2elk]

Sex ed.
Zygocactus pistil

Zygocactus stamens and pistil

 

[electrycmonk]

Glad you're not froze. Been thinking of you. We got above freezing (34°) for maybe an hour today. I know it's not the same, though. Hope they get the solar panels and windmills deiced soon for ya'll. We have some, but it's just ugly jewelry to us. We don't have to count on it.

FWIW the news story of the "iced windmills and solar panels was pure politics!" It's been all over the news...
The LNG, coal & fuel power stations are entirely to blame. The factual numbers were a massive slam against them for the seriously epic fail!
1st many stations were built without weather gear for the gauges. The equipment around the gauges were not setup with typical cold weather insulation like up in your neck of the woods so the switch's froze up and shut the systems down....

To the tune of more than 20+Gigawatts!

Yes the iced over turbines was an issue but, even with that the system was only going to see at most 10% of the total grid from turbines and solar. About 2-3% of that was iced up. And solar also actually out preformed the projections. Solar was supposedly expected approx 2.5 Megawatts and preliminary numbers talked about ~3.4Megawatts

The LNG liquified NG was being actively withheld from the power stations too... For customer heating.... So the planners shot themselves in both feet as it were.

There are more details but, that's the heaviest parts of this fiasco that is nowhere near solved....

95% of Galveston island has been without electricity for much more than 36 hrs at this point. The article I read was posted earlier in the day and *then* was titled 36+ hrs.

Other folks out near Abilene also have seen 20-40 hours without electricity.
Some areas around DFW have seen 6-12hour cycles of power outage....

For the 2nd day in a row I've felt with rotating hours... Where ~1hr off and 30-45 minutes on. Once today I think was a full hour on. Right now... I'm minutes from darkness cycle starting.... It's 21:52 now CST.

 

[electrycmonk]

We have the block heater in the 2500 HD diesel.....we’ve only plugged it in a handful of times. dS1 thawed and started his car this evening and mr muddy drove it around the block to see how it performed (Since the roads have not been plowed inside the neighborhood) if for some reason he is not able to drive his car tomorrow am and has to drive my truck, we will see how the diesel does without plugging in but it’s never given us a problem before in single digit weather to the best of my knowledge.

When I used to OTR I routinely would buy a bottle of anti-gel with runs up into MN, IN, Mi, Canada, etc. That stopped in 2007/08. The occasional freeze down here was at most a night of teens or even a single digits night with near calm air.
This storm that rolled through was a seriously different beast. Wind-chills were a constant 10-15 then 15-20 with gusts into the 30's here on our hill.
First night temps hit teens, 2nd night single digits (we stopped at 2° or 3°), 3rd night we got -5°F and wind chills sustained over night -12-19°F were recorded here on our hill meter, other local sites showed -2 to -4°F and near identical winds.

That crap is what allows diesel to gel up something fierce when the wind is blowing right under the truck at those speeds. I had her backed up to the house to try and minimize the wind on the engine with the tailgate facing North up to the house and the engine facing South. It cranked over fine and started easy but, quickly ran outta fuel from the filter bowl.

Thermal dynamics are a relentless so-n-so with this "nearly perfect storm".

When the thaw finally happens this weekend I'm fully expecting to find multiple pvc pipe fractures in the wellhouse when I can power it up and test pressurize the system with the air compressor. I'll get to hear the the ever famous "hissing."

 

[CindyinSD]

Well! I have an after hours call in to our propane provider.
I am not a happy camper!
We have been on a propane auto-fill program for 25 plus years....the driver checks our tank when he is in our area and automatically fills the tanks at both the farm and rent house. I have not had to call about propane until last month (Jan 15) when the tank here at the rent house went empty.
The manager was driving our driver’s route because Carl was sick with Covid. He also made the after hours delivery. I was assured by the manager ( Eric T.) that this would not happen again.

It has happened again!!
We were out all day tending to farm chores, came home to a nice warm house at 5pm. I fixed dinner and then hubby mentioned he was chilled. Checked the CHA thermostat and temp was below 65. Propane wall stove is out...means the tank is empty. They close at 5 pm.

8:21 pm. I just got off the phone with the regional manager for emergency calls...same lady I visited with last month. She is putting in a call to our Eric (local manager) to see what he can do tonight but she made no promises.
The state/region is in crisis with the frigid temperatures and high use of propane and other utility services (electric and natural gas, etc). She said there have been 7800 plus calls just this week from propane customers from the eastern half of the state about customers needing propane. It is taking more propane to heat homes this winter than what was needed last winter.

I understand all of that. We will make do until we get propane. I drove down earlier to the farm house and retrieved the twin sized electric blankets. Now hubby has one for his recliner and I put one on mine. We will survive...just hope the pipes do. I turned on the electric stove in the kitchen for the main water lines.

If you have pipes in outside walls, run the water—just a drizzle. If you have hoses attached to outside spigots, take them off this minute and they're not already frozen.

 

[CindyinSD]

Now mr muddy has me scared! He just said he can’t believe I didn’t run a supplemental heater out for my birds in the main aviary tonight

My birds all just went through three nights @ -30 and they appear to be fine.

 

[NanaKat]

How well do they fly? The atrium will be kind of open to the rest of the house. There will be a half wall on the pond side so I can have breakfast or whatever looking over the pond. The other side will be accessed by a door to my bedroom and another door to the back yard.

good question. I can think of two more...
1) Do call ducks foul their water as quickly as the standard ducks?
2) Tilapia feed on waste products...will the Calls feed on the tilapia?

It's more that I'm worried about them flying around inside my house. I supposed I could put a curtain between the pond and the breakfast nook. They probably wouldn't fly through that unless really spooked.

Ducks poop everywhere, anytime they want.

The atrium is part of my house, so it's enclosed. They wouldn't fly away, but they might fly into the house proper...

I'm going to have to think about this.

Yep!

 

[Sara L]

Am I counting 8 kits? How big is your pretty Sage?

Bigger than the pure Rex, but I haven't weighed her. I think she has some throwback to the Flemish Giant. I have her two half sisters as well (different dad) and they are just as big. I mainly free feed, so it's possible I'm over feeding them. I'm pretty sure she's over 10 pounds, her full sister was around 9 pounds at 3-4 months old.

I didn't want to handle the kits too much as it was her first litter, but I counted at least 6 kits in the picture. I'll probably look at the kits a little closer in a couple days.

Pepper, my first rabbit, just had her litter today while I was at work. She had 5. I think I need to replace my first buck, his last litters were 3, 4, and 5. While the second (younger) buck's were 6, 8, 6+ and one more litter expected tomorrow.