The Deep Freeze Update

Yes the cat shelf is full to the brim again plus one as the old old barn cat finally couldn't take it anymore and drug/limped herself up to house. She usually wants nothing to do with the house at all but I think age finally got to her. By the time she made it up to the house she couldn't walk anymore and was dragging one of her back legs. She is now bedded down and fed and we been checking on her every so often to be sure she is still alive. Not sure if she is suffering from frost bite or what at this point and no way to take her to the vet to get checked.

I don't care how crowded it is dying alone in the cold for any creature is not an option if I can stop it. I know that particular cat is ancient, well above 13 years old as she was here before I moved back out here and took the place over.

So add one more life form to the manger I guess.

Even the outside dog refuses to go out unless I am with him and that is saying something because he can't stand to be inside the house longer than five minutes without having some kind of nervous breakdown.

The roads are completely unusable for anything but four wheel drive trucks with plenty of weight on the back or tractors loaded with hay bales. They have been plowed a few times but the wind just drifts the snow back over them as fast as they are plowed. Just before writing this I was watching a five car backup down the road about a quarter mile where some idiot tried to get out with their small car and promptly got stuck in a drift. Another idiot in a small car tried to go around him and got stuck in the same drift and now they are totally blocking the road from both directions.

Heat is the major issue here now. I really need to venture out to the wood furnace about every hour to tweak the stove and assure the proper mix of slow burning and fast burning logs just to keep the inside temperature above 65 degrees. The pipes along the North wall of the house will freeze if I shut them off from a constant drip even with a wall of square bales stacked against the foundation. The 35 MPH winds and sub zero temps have totally defeated the blower on the wood furnace and if I don't leave it on full blow it will shut itself off and not come back on so I have to constantly check the hot air coming out and be sure it is still in fact hot.

You know it is cold when icicles form on the wood furnace. I have never seen that happen before.

Strike one against me for not checking my bullet/jet engine heater soon enough to get it fixed before this hit. I could really use it right now.

This old house was just never designed for this kind of cold and wind combination and I haven't done much in the way of improvement because we are suppose to be building a new house anyway.

So now as night hits and the temps drop even further the real battle begins. At the rate things are going I will be lucky if I can keep this house above freezing tonight and the high tomorrow is only suppose to be 1 degree. Of course if this wind would die down we would be fine it's what's really causing all the problems right now.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!