Frustratedearthmother's Journaling Journey

[NH Homesteader]

5 tonight. Will be - 3 Sunday night. Brr!

16 is super cold for you! And the baby lambs! Our critters are nice and fluffy and staying warm. Yours aren't prepared! Lol

 

[Mini Horses]

Well, I'm not prepared for this cold either! Snuggies & all, still too cold to like.

Yes....cold and hot water totes. It's a job!! Esp if we get the amount of snow predicted. BUT, if the snow gets going before the tubs freeze much, it will insulate enough to keep it from getting a heavy layer of ice.

FEM, I worked doing much of what you did. Then a late day run to be sure truck & generator cans were full of gas....never know.

 

[lcertuche]

Well it's around 20 degrees here and my chickens have decided to stay in their coop. Silly chickens. I don't know how they can stay in that cold, dark place for hours on end. Our electric is so bad here I'm afraid I will burn the coop down if I string a light to them.

 

[sumi]

We got a few strings of Christmas lights last year that's powered by small batteries. Perfectly safe and they give off a fairly good amount of light too. I'd put something like that in the coop if needed.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Was stupid cold here this morning. We hit about 25 with a wind chill of 15 when I got up at 2ish to let Gracie out to potty. Last night was the first night she's been left in the house without being crated...and she did well. Nothing was out of place. So proud of her!

It felt weird walking on solid mud...except for when I broke through the ice and started slip sliding. Couple days ago I got totally stuck in the mud....and I'm not even exaggerating. I saw a couple of chickens that tried to sneak into the boars pen and steal some feed and they paid for it. They were stuck up to their bellies in the mud soup. I went in to try to rescue them and I almost never came out! The mud was to the top of my boots - so at least 10 inches deep.

One of the boars bumped me and I went down - right on top of the other boar, lol. I didn't even get muddier because he just stood there with his face in the feed trough and supported me until I could get myself upright. I could NOT get my boots out of the mud unless I reached down with one hand (while the other hand held on to the fence) and physically pulled my boot out of the mud. Had to do that several times before I was able to get back to semi-solid ground. Good thing those AGH's are so darn friendly. The next day one went right between my legs to get to the feed trough (after I moved them to another pen) and I ended up sitting on him. He didn't care - just kept right on eating.

I totally forgot to take care of my house plants on the back porch. Hope the Aloe Vera will survive, but it's not looking too wonderful. Hope the others will come back from the roots. Need to check on my little tomato plant -but it's doubtful that it survived last night. This has been the coldest weather we've had in 3 years. As much as it's a PIA - we needed a hard freeze to control the garden predators and everything else! Hope it will knock down the parasite count in the pasture too.

Maddie, with her heavy Pyr coat, seems to thrive in this weather. She was out patrolling last night. Cowboy seems to be ok with it too. He was out with the gang when I went outside this morning and Maddie was tucked up between two round bales resting after her late night.

Piglets loved the pile of hay that I threw down for them yesterday. They didn't know if they should play in it, crawl under it or eat it, lol. They were all out foraging this morning when I got outside. (I kinda slept in a little bit - my bed was too warm to crawl out of)

Some of the does are really starting to show their baby bellies. Cocoa is looking like a tubbo already. Not even sure if Red is bred though. If so, I doubt that she's gonna pop out trips like she has the last couple years. I'm ok with that.

Bout to get ready to watch the Texans game. Go TEXANS!

 

[Mini Horses]

Yes -- my piglets did the same, ran thru & played in it. Then mom placed most of what was outside into the hut with the other I'd thrown in there. This AM they were all snuggled into their huts with straw and the little ones were not sure about coming out onto the snow we had -- and was still going on. We got 10".

Next week, I'll have mud.

Supposed to be 7 degrees in AM... I'm like you, not used to the cold those northerners endure. I could not do it!!!!

I bet you were laughing as you wondered how to unstraddle that pig! An animal cam would have given us ALL a laugh

 

[NH Homesteader]

Wow you got a lot of snow! Bigger snowstorm than we've had this year. It is very cold here too though. Should be -3 tomorrow night.

Yikes it is a good thing you have guinea hogs! Otherwise those hens may have been dinner! The guy we got our pigs from has a boar that's around1000lbs. He got the grumpy look on his face one day and that man has never moved so fast in his life. He managed to dive over the pig hut haha

So really, where are all the baby belly pictures?

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I'd take baby belly pictures if my DH would have gotten a memory card to go with the camera I asked for for Christmas. Next year I guess I need to be more specific with my list, lol.

Would have been a good photo op for sure when I was "riding" the boar. But I had another missed photo op tonight in the house.

I've been keeping gracie in at night because of the cold. I was going to put her food/water dishes back in place after vacuuming today. Had the mat that I set them on in one hand and had both her food and water dishes stacked in the other hand...food bowl on bottom with water dish balanced on top of it. I was leaning over putting the mat down when Gracie came through the door. Seeing me bent over she decided that she should probably sniff my face or some other nonsense. She got right up on me and her head came up right under the two bowls that were in my hand, knocking them straight up...into my face. Dog water - USED dog water full of dog germs and dog spit flew full force into my face. It got in my eyes, went up my nose, and because my mouth was open in shock- it got In there too! Gross, gross, gross!

I can tell you that it takes a lot of Crown Royal to disinfect the inside of your mouth when it's full of dog germs!

 

[NH Homesteader]

oh no! So gross!

 

[baymule]

Crown Royal and water....... hic.....

Our cold is letting up and I am glad. Tired of toting buckets of boiling water. Poor chickens were pecking ice, horses were licking ice, dogs and sheep said, oh hell no! But they all liked their warm water. DH fed the GP's canned chicken backs in broth, mixed with their kibble night before last, and it froze in their bowls before they could eat it all! They got canned chicken backs, feet, and broth the past few nights. I canned it for them when we butchered chickens and give it to them for a special treat. If 13 to 16F degrees doesn't qualify for a special treat, I don't know what does.