F this weather

The kids and Jim had a day off today.  It was a teacher development day, and a holiday (an imaginary federal holiday ahem).  I don’t get federal holidays - I can take them off, but they are not paid.  I got up early, and didn’t complain too much since my car has remote start!   So much better than the bus heat wise too!   I made it to work, but it is so cold that the salt they put on the roads isn’t melting the snow.  The roads were slick and it took me longer than usual to get to town.  This is day 8 of this polar vortex storm.  I think it is safe to say that everyone is done with it.  Today the literal temperature was -10.  The wind chill made it feel like -30.   Freeze the snot right in your nose weather.  Every single livestock producer in this area is suffering.  It isn’t unusual for us to get a day or 2 of cold weather here, but this long stretch of this sort of cold hasn’t happened since 1983 I heard on the morning news.  I hate the cold. I am not interested in Kansas being colder than the dang North Pole.  I certainly don’t want to set records for cold.  And they say tomorrow is going to be worse. Honestly, I don’t want to even know how it could be worse than today.  I was thrilled when they called off school.  I don’t want to deal with driving a bus in this junk.  My dad, mom and brother are in the middle of calving season. I cannot imagine being born outside  on a day like today.  I know they are working their butts off to keep everything fed, watered, warm, dry....I am sure nobody is sleeping.  It is miserable.  

And added to the cold weather, the power grids are being taxed beyond what they can keep up with. Our area has been given several warnings to turn your furnaces down and turn off any lights or electrical things you can do without.  They were shutting down power to parts of the state for 30-60 minutes at a time.  I do not know how that helps, seems like when you turn it back on every furnace in the area will turn on and tax it all over again.  We are doing what we can, watching tv in the dark.  We have shut off everything possible except the tv and the furnace.  The girls took their baths by candle light.  I’m ok with that, but I sure don’t want to be without heat right now.  My heart goes out to Colin and the rest of the people working to keep us all warm, safe, streets cleared, etc in this mess.  I appreciate their work.  

We don’t have any livestock right now, as we sold our goats last summer.  I am thankful for that.  We do have some poultry though, and they are suffering. Today Quincy, Harper and Jim spent quite a bit of time pitching a tent in our feed shed and then they caught all of the birds and put them in there.  Getting them out of the wind, and protected from critters we hope.  Luckily, Preston bought a few tents a few years ago on some weird sale.  I’m sure this tent will never be used again by people but it is hopefully saving some chicken lives.  We also have a few outdoor cats.  One is friendly so we let her inside, probably not a good idea, since she’s not potty trained but I just felt so bad for her.  The two wild cats are still out there, but they have hay in a shed with the chickens and have been fed a feast of tuna and eggs.  I would probably let them inside if I could  catch them.  I’d Be sorry later, but it isn’t fit for man or beast out there.