I am still completely swamped under in work and chores around the place. Again the broken record of being sorry for not hitting all your blogs or getting back with replies to comments not to mention keeping up with my fiction writing.
It's just been insane here.
The final loss count came out to one tarp, my rain barrel and the blower on my beater car. Not sure if I can blame the actual cold for the blower but it worked fine until the sub-zero temps and then when I turned it on it acted like it was frozen and just wouldn't move.
Oh and my bullet heater stopped working. My guess is the jet nozzles are clogged up again that seems to happen every few years so I need to take it in to the shop. I have never been able to fix em on my own.
The good news is every bee hive is still alive and looks to be doing quite well. Even the two I was worried about looked good this afternoon when it warmed up enough to refill their emergency sugar feed. Only a few of the hives appear to have even touched the sugar this time around and the one with the new type of cover that had all the dead bees last time I opened them appeared fine and healthy this time. Only the bees in the North Apiary appear to be hitting the hummingbird feeder though but all the hives were active and out flying yesterday and today.
The constant weather and temp fluxes may make a bit more work in Winter but this is one reason I am convinced the MidWest in general and Missouri in particular is the ultimate survivor zone in North America. We get enough cold snaps to thin out the roving hordes of zombies and enough breaks in the cold to set things aright. From Northern Oklahoma and Arkansas to Southern Iowa and Nebraska taking in Just about all of Kansas (the Western part is too dry) and Missouri you could not wish for a better mix of climate, rainfall, population, food/fuel/resource production or even population density then you will find in the Survival Box. Plenty of waterways for trade and travel and lots of trees and rolling hills easily defended and easy to isolate for a time if needed. Not to mention solid Conservative politically (What goes on in Eastern Iowa is beyond my comprehension here) before the collapse so we are not hindered in our prepping.
You just can't do any better than the Survival Box.
OK there's my Mid-West sales pitch off my shoulder once again :)
Time to get back to work. I cut another load of firewood yesterday and I need to get it all unloaded so I can make another run tomorrow. The ground is really too wet to get to some of the places I need to go yet but temps are dropping fast this afternoon and set for a high of only 26 tomorrow with another single digit low. This should freeze the ground back up and allow me to get to the big trunks I left laying out.
Hope to catch up more this evening.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!
Happy your bees are doing OK.
ReplyDeleteWhy Thank you I appreciate it :)
DeleteThat's good news about the bees. And yes, Missouri in general (away from St.L & KC) is pretty conservative. It's a nice place to live.
ReplyDeleteRP - Columbia is pretty bad as well they usually sway the entire county because of the liberal population education connection. Sometimes Springfield goes liberal as well.
DeleteSTOP telling people about this area! It's full of chiggers and ticks and rocks an a bunch of liberals and it's too hot and too hilly and too, well, too something or other.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn - LOL I have to proclaim how great this area is every once in a while. Luckily it has such a bad rep with the hoity toity liberals they will never move here.
Deleteand adding to Carolyn's list: isn't St. Louis somewhere in or around your box?
DeleteHappy to hear that the bees are doing well.
STL would be at the far Eastern edge but wouldn't be as much a problem as some may think. The rivers in the area in and around StL would lend an easy solution to the problem that I am sure the government would jump on before things got real bad.
DeleteKC on the other hand is less easy to isolate but far smaller overall. The other larger cities are all small enough they would be literally eaten up in the vastness. Des Moines, Omaha, Little Rock on the Southern end,
My guess is any refugees from the big cities would end up like the ones in Braken's third novel.
I have been down right lazy lately, only doing the chores that have to be done. Soon it will be wood cutting days and there is always the stuff like fixing the plumbing as I can't seem to pay anyone to do it right. Glad the bees are making it, you must have some good hives.
ReplyDeleteSF - I am mostly putting out emergency fires myself. I have gotten a long way on clearing out a short fence line behind the barn though.
DeleteYay for the bees! So does your house still look like the manger scene? I have been out if touch as well..just had lots going on too.
ReplyDeleteJUGM - It's back to that again tonight. A low of 6 degrees here again.
DeleteAnd I have been swamped it'll be next week before I am back to blogging regularly.
Glad the bee kingdoms are doing well. I wondered if the cold would defeat your set up and kill them.
ReplyDeleteHarry - Well if they don't have enough food it will kill em quick. I been feeding the hell outta them and I am hoping the insulation around the hives helps em some as well.
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