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Whoa...6 deg and windy.

Had to shovel the back deck , so's I can get to the ash bucket , dump ashes, and feed the cats.

Bring in some more firewood as long as I'm already freezing my butt off.

Got my coffee going strong now.

Batten down the hatches... Colder tonight with big monster snow storm moving in at 9 am till tommorow morning.

Hope y'all have a greater day.

Jim
 
I’m working on reorganizing and redoing our big boy’s room today. His medical supplies and medication stash has gotten unruly & needs to be tamed. He has more clothes than the rest of us put together, 4 shelves of cookbooks he doesn’t look at anymore & I need to put together his new desk. Then there’s his paperwork but we may save that beast for another day.
 
Sunday I had removed the new mailbox to bring it into the house to warm up before putting our address on it.
Put on long underwear, three shirts, two coats, Carhartt overalls, Mickey Mouse boots and mittens.
Shovel snow off the garage driveway and sidewalk.
Remount mail box on the post.
Wheel the garage bin out for pickup.
Fire up the mule and plowed out the driveways. How many days to spring?
Take off mittens, Mickey Mouse boots, overalls and both coats.
Eat Breakfast
Make bed.
Reply to an email, "Yes I still want the items that are backordered."
Fingers have thawed out. How many days till spring?
 
Watered plants this morning.
Sipping coffee.
Went out with Strawberry this morning shoveled snow slowly.
Needed to be able to open back door to let Strawberry out when needed.
So we can get out if need be in emergency situation.
Changed my wet socks for dry ones, same with the shoes.
Strawberry is sprawled on my lap snoozing.
She has such a hard life you know.
It's just exhausting for her to go out and take care of her business, roll down the hill in the snow,
stick her nose inside of the snow and snuffle, run around nose to the ground.
Come inside sprawl out on my lap wrapped up in a blanket to snooze.Well she gets to snooze until I need more coffee anyhow.
My middle little sister called to tell me:
My drunk bitter a*$$ cold Missouri weather was drunk on her front yard, Come and get it.
Nope, I was taught to share. She could keep it. She also told me people don't know how to drive down there in the cold,ice,snow.
All I said way"you think", she hung up on me. oh, well.
You all stay dry, safe,warm.
 
Based on the weather we called off construction work for today . But just checking now the radar has cleared and the new forcast is only calling for 1" for the week ahead! What a changed.

So I will sitting in front of my laptop searching for duct work.

Ben
 
Good to "see" you again, @Tsrwivey!

Purging and cleaning here - indoors!
You'd think this place was really spic and span (and minimalist) with the way I keep working on purging and cleaning. But no, I'm just very slow.

Spent a lot of time yesterday trudging through the snow, moving wood. My husband's wood piles make no sense to me, but I'm thankful he does the splitting. So I figure if I want the wood up by the house, I better put it there myself. Worked until 10:30 pm replenishing the stacks near the house and covering with tarps. We're ready for the storm.
 
I was busy last night and this morning prepping the house for the ice storm. Trees are starting to ice now, will probably lose power.

I got the house cleaned, fresh linens on the beds. Kitchen scrubbed, everything put away. I made a pot of gumbo and made rice, easy to warm on the stove. Salad fixin’s are ready. Lots of fruit and fruit cups ready for snacks.

Critters have been fed and watered. The only thing left is heating my parents house. They have two small space heaters. If that’s not enough I have an oak tree top ready to cut into firewood. They have a big fire place that’s still usable.

So, now it’s just watch and wait!
 
My electric company is beginning to shut down blocks areas for periods of 30 minutes to an hour to conserve energy.
They are starting up where my youngest son, wife and baby Reign are.
Up by St. Joseph, Missouri, up near the Iowa border.
I have gathered my candles, extra blankets, oil lamps.
When the shut down hits my block Strawberry and I will go to bed in my bed.
You guys stay safe, warm and dry.
I don't have anything on right now but furnace just came on and it's turned down, freezer.
Phone, laptop are charged.
And it is still snowing beginning to drift in low areas.
 
Thanks for the kind words all. We have on the shy side of 2 ft of snow and it’s still snowing. For 2 nights that it was pretty cold, we brought the bunny and dog in the house for the night. They both have houses and heat lamps but didn’t feel good about leaving them out there. We don’t have the temps some of you have. Supposed to be back to work tomorrow. Will see what the short week brings.
Am working on making my own slipper/moccasin pattern- getting closer to what I’m after.
 
It snowed last night but we still have power. Something is wrong with the ducting so my room is very cold. My brother has an electric blanket. I just got one of my heating pads back from him a few minutes ago because it's supposed to be colder tonight.
Cows went into the remains of the barn for shelter & made it through fine.
Two of the cats went out this morning and decided they didn't like the cold. Dogs spent less time outside.
We got a couple inches of snow so a state of emergency was declared. Roads shut down. Stay home order in place. All businesses closed. Wish I were joking, but it's true.
Cats & one of the dogs piled on me last night and are back on me right now.
I found a space heater to set up for the kittens in the front room & they have been happily sleeping in front of it since last night. I have it up on a desk and they are on a bed adjacent to it.
 
@Firepolice271 and I resumed the work to support the roof with a single beam. He had started before I arrived and this is what I found when I showed up.
20210216_141629.jpg


I assisted as he worked to build up the beam.

20210216_160401.jpg


That is now a beam of (4) 2x12s glued screwed and nailed together with staggered joints.

We capped of the day building the pillars that will support that beam.

20210216_171303.jpg


Tomorrow may be the day we jack up the roof to install the support pillars.

Behave

Ben
 
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We’ve had 9 inches of snow, it was -6*F (a record for us), 4.5 million people without power, water mains are freezing/breaking so many people don’t have water either. The roads are completely covered in snow so most people are stranded. Those who are able to get out are at the grocery stores apparently. All the stores are completely out of water and most are out of gas. There’s one snow plow in the closest city of 100,000 people. We’re fine. We have a well, wood burning stove, gas stove, generator with enough fuel for a week, and enough food to outlive the zombies. Our power has only been out 8 hours so we have been lucky. The kids and grandkids are here along with my niece and her 3 kids.
Sleet and more snow are predicted for all day today. The sleet will weigh down the pine trees, breaking the branches that then hit the power lines and knock out the power so we may lose power completely yet. I don’t ever remember it being this bad for this long. Usually we have snow for a day, maybe two before it heats back up. We’ll be above freezing Saturday and back in the 50’s & 60’s next week.
 
Ben, the roof supports look good!

It got down to the coldest it's been in over 100 years here & our pipes froze. Nothing frozen inside the well shed & we're not sure where the freeze is. I hope nothing ruptured but we can't tell because it never got warm enough to defrost. There was a pretty bad leak inside the well house but nothing appeared to be cracked or broken. We had faucets dripping but stuff still froze.

One upside is I noticed that the snow on the roof is evenly distributed so it doesn't look like there are any spots of heat leaking in the attic.

Got kittens set up with a space heater. Got my heating pad back from my brother. Cats have decided they want it so they are now my foot warmers instead of the heating pad. Got a cat on my shoulder purring in my ear.

It's supposed to snow again Thursday and get down below 30 again. That means roads are still icy and my friend may have to postpone his dental appointment. We're out of milk and need to figure out how to get water running again. I'm going to melt some snow in a bucket when the current buckets run out so we can flush the toilet.

I don't want to have to go to the store this week but it's going to be necessary at some point. My truck can probably handle the roads OK, but I don't trust the other drivers out there. Many have never driven on ice/snow before & they also drive like morons in good weather. I wonder how many of the PD cops will get wrecked. The cops here are notoriously bad drivers & constantly cause accidents.
 
8 degrees this morning, big improvement! Didn't get a text from the school, so I think school is on today. Just had to wake the twins to get ready for the bus. They've been off since last Friday, so must of slept through their alarms.
I'll be walking dogs every few hrs today, and de icing the chicken water every few hours, too.
 
Yesterday, I had a folding door on the cupboard split at the lower pin support, took the door to the living room, opened up the split and glued the break, then clamped it back together while I tried to figure out how to mount a new pin..... I found a 6" steel strap 1" wide with 6 evenly spaced small holes, I marked where the support pin should be and drilled the plate so the pin just fits, mounted the plate to the bottom of the door, re-drilled the pin hole in the door and reinstalled a new lower pin. Let it sit over-night with everything clamped, installed it this morning... you would think these things would last longer than a few decades.....

Today, I am triple booked so I need to pull myself away from the computer and get to work... Have a great day... ;)
 
It's cold, and I'm hanging by the wood stove today (as much as possible). She's doing her job, but it's hard to get on top of things when it's this cold, lol.

BUT - we've got electricity and water (had the cistern topped off last week). So compared to some of the other folks here, I can't complain. Our chickens might. But we'll do the best we can by them.

Youngest drove himself to his orthodontist appt. That's a freedom (for me) that I'm still not used to....
 
Neb said:
@Firepolice271 and I resumed the work to support the roof with a single beam. He had started before I arrived and this is what I found when I showed up.
View attachment 59426

I assisted as he worked to build up the beam.

View attachment 59427

That is now a beam of (4) 2x12s glued screwed and nailed together with staggered joints.

We capped of the day building the pillars that will support that beam.

View attachment 59428

Tomorrow may be the day we jack up the roof to install the support pillars.

Behave

Ben
Click to expand...
Busy morning girlfriend's car broke down so I got a real early start. Two new post in and part of the temp. wall is out and looks great. My brother will be surprised
20210217_110014.jpg
20210217_110106.jpg
20210217_110051.jpg
9
20210217_110046.jpg
 
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