Like a walk through the country side living on a small farm is full of daily surprises, sometimes wonderful and amazing, and other times puzzling and sad. I hope you will walk with me as I live out my dream of living on this tiny farm. You will come to know the dogs, cats, Shetland sheep and chickens that make up this farm and what goes into keeping them happy and healthy. Come and join the journey with me.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

How to Pass a Rainy Icy Day

Boone & Ariel (Notice who is hogging the blanket)

Well, so far we still have power. The temperature is hovering right around the freezing mark, and the rains just keep coming. We had heavy rains overnight with thunder and lightening, but the temps were warm enough to keep it at rain. Today it's starting to freeze on the fences and trees, but not anything too alarming yet.

I've done up all the laundry, have about 4-5 days worth of water in buckets for the sheepies and water in other various containers for house use. And I've got the soup on. Cell phone and camera batteries are charged. I took a shower. Now just waiting it out. I'm praying this is just going to be a minor storm, but time will tell. It's suppose to extend into Tuesday, so it's hard to say how much accumulation of ice we will get.

The sheep have been hanging out in their barn most of the time, they will come out when the rain lets up to a mist and eat at the hay bale, but when it comes a downpour they dash back to the shed. They will happily lay out in a snowstorm, with snow piled up on their backs, and a little melted sheep size outline under them. However when it comes to rain they stick to the shelter. Especially a cold driving rain.
Meshach in Front of the Fire

The dogs are bored, but snuggled up in their bed--actually sharing it for a change. I went out earlier and Boone sat up and he was sitting on Ariel who was still laying down. What's up with that? Ariel looked like she had a few things she wanted to tell the big baboon. Can't blame her either.

I myself am holed up in the house, occasionally sticking my head out to check on the sheep to make sure they are behaving themselves. I got in enough wood this morning to last the day and cleaned out the ashes, so the fire is going really good right now. I have this wool thingy-scarf-shawl that I found at a thrift store, and I put it over my shoulders and it helps keep me pretty warm, but I can still move around in it. My gloves, boots and coat are all draped or sitting near the stove to dry out, so they will be ready for round two at chore time tonight.

I left the chickens up much to their fowl dismay. I didn't want to be chasing chickens through an ice storm if things went sour fast.

So far so good. Maybe I'll get out some Christmas things here after awhile and see who I still need to get presents for.... or maybe I'll read or work on a project or.....

Meshach
Is there anything that can look as content as a cat?

4 comments:

Kathy said...

We started out with rain, then freezing rain, now snow on top of that. The cats haven't moved much from the front/sides/back of the woodburner. :) Keep warm!

Kathy said...

I hope you're OK, Tammy...I've been hearing about your storm throughout the day when I come in to listen to The Weather Channel about our storm. I hope this is one you can stay in and snug with the animals until it passes.
As I write this we're in white-out conditions with much more snow to come later tonight and tomorrow. Good thing the sheep have nice wool coats 'cause from the camera in the barn I can see they are all outside in the thick of it! Silly sheep!

Tammy said...

So far so good here, Kathy.
We got some ice, but mostly on the trees and fencelines-nothing on the power poles. Lots of rain, raining again today. The temps stayed steady just above freezing last night. This morning it was near 50, then dropped down to about 37, and is now climbing again and is at 41 now (and pouring). Crazy. We missed the really bad stuff by about 40 miles. I'm sorry for the folks that got it, but so glad we didn't get it again. We still haven't climbed outta the mess from the January one. Sounds to me like you are getting quite a fierce storm your way. And here I thought all of Arizona was sunshine and desert! ;-)
Tammy

Kathy said...

Well, technically we are desert - high desert. The Ponderosa Pine is listed as a drought-tolerant high desert tree. Yeah, right...I'll believe it when I see it. ;)

I keep hearing about all sorts of power outages, trees down, etc. from your area and hope you're still OK. I remember one ice storm in Kansas where we had to dress by the gas stove (we had a window cracked when we had the stove on) and kept dringing warm drinks to help with the cold. Thank heavens we had lots of quilts and blankets. Even our daughter who was about 4 when this happened, remembers it still.

People here have been asking me if I have coats on the sheep to keep them warm...I say "Heck, no! They have a better wool coat than I do!"