Still freezing

[altivo]

Tonight is supposed to be the worst, then it starts warming again, all the way to a possible 50°F by the weekend, with two days of rain.

Work was fairly quiet today, thank goodness, though our door count was 555 which is moderately high.

Gary's brother is back in the hospital, having had another episode of some sort. I suspect this time they'll do bypass surgery before they let him out.

Comments

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping this "warm" spell will FINALLY start to melt the ice in the driveway and snow on the lawn. This snow has lasted longer than even that "storm of the century" last winter.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Snow on the lawn is beneficial. Leave it. :)

Driveway ice has to be prevented before it happens, alas. If we get the rain they predict for this weekend, though, you might be trading ice for floods.

[alaskawolf.livejournal.com]

stay warm and dry down there, if possible that is

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Working on it. We're subzero this morning.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Gets Gary's bro on the prayer chain.

Yeah its supposed to be fifty hear later on in the week
too, I'm gonna go surfing after this cold. I don't mind
it, I like to play in the snow, but theres that cold
that makes you ache in your joints and you slur your
speech and you can't zip up a zipper or push a button
on a camera.

Thats cold.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Or when it's so cold the camera won't work, period.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Hope the bro-in-law's ok. And the animals, in the cold.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The animals aren't much bothered. In fact, the sheep are so well insulated that they walk around with snow piled on their backs and it doesn't melt. I brought them in Monday night when it was snowing, and when they went out the next morning they still had the same snow on their backs even after being indoors overnight. Their body heat doesn't escape through the wool at all it seems.

The horses get all snowy too, but they melt it themselves. They aren't called hayburners for nothing. Two horses keep the interior of an uninsulated barn (5 x 10 x 3 meters plus loft) as much as 20 degrees F. higher than the outside temperature at night. We do scrape the wet snow off them when they come in from outdoors, but it never seems to bother them much.

Ducks are also very well insulated, though I do wonder why their feet don't freeze. ;p We have had incidents in the past where they sat down on icy snow and stayed in one place so long that their feathers froze to the ground and they couldn't get loose. That happens because they insist on swimming in their water trough and then sitting on the ice when they are wet underneath. No one said ducks were smart. We use a teakettle full of warm water to unstick them from the ground...

As for bro-in-law, no idea. Apparently it's a combination of genetics and lifestyle issues. The whole family run high cholesterol, and they're all very stressy and anxiety ridden.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

I like hearing about your animals. As an urban cat-sharer and occasional gerbil-visitor, the big stuff is very much outside my experience.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You're right. I should probably post that sort of stuff in the main entries more often. We get to where we take it for granted, but I'm sure most of the folks who read what I write live in urban or suburban settings.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I think that's the only thing that would keep me from living in the Chicago area and that's the temperature during winter O.O Ruddy blimes.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Nah, it isn't really that bad. The severe cold, when we get it, lasts only for a day or two once every couple of years. Remember we're among the Great Lakes here and they moderate stuff. It's folks out in the middle of the plains who have it bad. I find the heat and humidity of late summer much harder to take, and you're already used to that I think.