Monday, January 6, 2014

And Then My Eyeballs Froze

Sometime around 6AM this morning the wind shifted from the North to the Southwest/West and picked up speed. The house is not nearly as protected from the Southern side for obvious reasons and the wife had just woke up and I decided to catch another hour or two of sleep.

Big mistake.

When I did wake up the house was once again down to 50 degrees and the Mrs. is about in tears demanding I take her to work so she can get warm. I finally got the truck started and almost got stuck after dropping her off but at least she is out of my hair for a few hours. I am thinking about just calling and telling her to rent a hotel room for the night or something until this cold snap breaks.

Someone, and I won't mention names, has thwarted my drip method and the cold line froze in the kitchen. That is just as well because for the first time ever the actual sewer line is frozen and the kitchen sink isn't draining anyway. So far it doesn't seem to be effecting the toilet or bathroom so I am guessing it just froze in the trap. I am attempting to handle that situation right now with a small space heater.

God I miss my bullet heater bad right now if I had it working none of this would have been an issue.

The basement is getting frozen because I don't have hay bales on the South side so the floors are freezing once again. This drafty old house is just not made for this kind of weather.

All the horses and sheep are fine. The wife captured one of the stray cats and brought her inside so she survived the night at least. The others made up of the family of four (Mother and three 1 year olds we couldn't find homes for) survived as well holed up where ever they go. I just saw the mother cat using the clear ground by the barn door to lure birds in when she would jump out trying to catch one.

This morning as I was helping my Mother feed the animals and pitching hay to the sheep the wind chill was so cold my face froze and I literally could not see out of my own eyeballs. All I could do was stumble to the waiting truck and place my face as close to the heater vent as possible and thaw myself out. Things are much better now though as the temps have climbed up to about -3 and the sun is shining. The house is once again back up into the lower 60's and rising and according to the forecast the temps should now continue to rise on into tomorrow.

It's still going to be another rough night tonight though until this arctic push breaks.

In about another hour or so I am going to try and get the tractor started and see if I can remove some of the drifts out of the driveway.

No telling how long it's gonna be before I have a working kitchen sink again now.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!




12 comments:

  1. Thanks for the update. I hope your eyes are okay.

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    1. Thanks TB. I been browsing your blogs some this evening. Good reading...

      My eyes began working normal again pretty quick not sure what was going on it may have been the muscles that allow me to focus them were overly cold?

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    2. Thank you for the kind words.

      I'll be honest that I have never heard of anyone having that sort of issue before. Are you seeing (no pun intended) any aftereffects? That is what I would be concerned about.

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  2. I was hoping it was going to warm up on you as it moved our way. You might have to stick a bucket under the sink and pull the trap off and just dump the bucket once in awhile. I haven't been as cold as you got, I have had to put a scarf on to breathe and my eyes have teared up from the cold but not the freezing. I doubt goggles would help, probably would just frost up.
    Lucky we have global warming or it would really be cold!

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    1. SF - Well it actually got it's coldest about 6AM yesterday (Monday) morning. When the wind shifted. I wasn't expecting a wind shift and thats when the pipe froze as well. It's -9 now but the wind has been slowly dying down and it is suppose to start warming up about 1 degree an hour from this point on.

      We will see.

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  3. PP,

    Not good to be out and about in this weather. It's to easy to get frost bite or hypothermia. Be careful!!!!

    At least your truck drove, ours did want to even drive. It wouldn't shift at all too cold.

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    1. Sandy - Yep I was surprised the truck started as my battery is getting a bit weak but it did. It has a brand new clutch and tranny over haul so shifting shouldn't be an issue. The tractor tried her damnest but just couldn't get going though. :(

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  4. Our water is still frozen, no use of heater yet. Maybe tomorrow. Schools closed another day. No dance for youngest daughter. I want to sty close to home. Hope this breaks soon for all of us.

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    1. Rob - I don't blame ya for staying close to home at all. Usually I run my bullet heater for an hour or so if they call for temps below say 5 degrees or so and that keeps any cold air that sneaks by my hay barrier from freezing anything but it's broke. Looking like I may be bailing water for a few days.

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  5. Even in balmy NC it got down to 14 this night. It will warm up to the low 20s today. Not that unusual to get a short spell like this though. It's just that people, unless they are recent arrivals from up North, tend not to have the cold weather clothing to deal with it.

    One good point with your sewer freezing up, for once you can really say that your sh_t really doesn't stink!

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  6. You sure have a way with words! Hope you've thawed out, or will soon!

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  7. Preppy...glad to see you posting and know your eyes are fine. Never heard of that. Must have been a little scary. We are 18 degrees this morning with a windchill of 6 degrees. Too cold for Florida. I think my greenhouse froze. Waiting on daylight to check things out.

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