411 The Walters Bunch

  Happy Valentine's Day Ok. We really didn't go to Alaska, but it felt like we could have. The lowest temperature we recorded was -6! I never thought I would ever be anywhere where the temp was below 0. I absolutely hate being cold and the absolutely frigid temperatures were rough. What made everything even worse was, like most Texans, our power outages. I knew the brutal weather was going to be rough since we have farm animals, but I definitely did not plan on no electricity in freezing weather. When our power is out we not only have no heat, but also no running water and no sewer. They all run on electric pumps. I was really worried about not being able to drip faucets while we were without power. I was afraid the pipes in the well house would freeze without water moving constantly. Luckily, so far it appears that we have avoided pipe damage. Many, many homes and businesses have extensive water damage from burst pipes. We were also very fortunate that we at least had power oc...

  L enjoys the last bit of nice weather by using her aerial silks. The calm before the storm. Well, easy come easy go. Our absolutely beautiful weather has been replaced with new freezing temps and a couple of days of brutally cold weather. We have been well below freezing for over 4 days now and have at least 8 more to go. In fact, our highest temperature has been a balmy 26, which will be about 20 degrees warmer than next week's weather! We are going outside every three hours to make sure the animals have access to water. It is usually frozen over after 3 hours. Eventually, I think all the water in the horse trough will be scooped out and sitting next to it in ice form. We have multiple chicken waters so we just rotate them out every three hours. They are easier to deal with. The horses have a 5 gallon bucket in their stall that we change out 3 times a day. Lugging 5 gallons of water in freezing cold weather across 2 acres isn't very fun, but at least we have running water no...

We were gifted a portable fire pit for Christmas, the solo stove, and it is designed to greatly reduce the amount of smoke from a fire. It worked well. Now we can have a fire wherever we want while we camp. Texas is wonderful sometimes in winter. We had a great stretch of nice 70 degree days. Unfortunately, we also had 25-30 mph sustained winds on a couple of those days, but windy days still beat cold wet ones! D and I used the nice weather to our advantage. We reorganized our shed and D tilled up the gardens. We also planted our onion sets. Spring is almost here. Unfortunately, that also means 100+ degree days will be here soon too, but we're Texans. We know how to handle hot weather. Basically, you just get your entire day done by 10am and then stay indoors until the sun goes down. D has a lot of training coming up later this month so we got somethings done that I have to have his help with.  T made breakfast calzones. They were yummy! D tilled T's little garden out front. An...

Our big outing....to get the tires rotated!  Now that two weeks have passed since the well pump was fixed, we have finally caught up on all the laundry and other chores that we were unable to do without water and things are feeling a little less overwhelming.  I was really happy that about a year ago my in laws gave us a new water pump that they had used for only 6 months before they needed to have a new well dug. At the time I thought it would be years before we might need that pump. It turns out it was just barely a year before we needed it! It was a VERY long two weeks, but we managed. We have been campers for a long time and know how to make the best of what you got, but we are really excited we don't have to drive 45 minutes away every other day in order to shower, wash clothes, and get 55  galloons of fresh water. I think the hardest part was trying to keep the horses trough filled for them. They drink a lot of water!  The kitten, Noelle, is doing better. I did...

Oh my goodness! We are only to January 13, 2021, and already I am done with this year! First, around noon on January 1st, our fairly new water pump went out and caused us to go without running water for almost 2 FULL weeks! I won't even go into what all that entailed in order to get by. I promise you don't want to know. Second, my last surviving grandmother passed away this week. I had not seen her in about 20 years, but I have very fond memories of summer visits with her and my grandfather. She was a good lady. She had promised to live to 100 and was only about 6 months short. Third, the cute adorable kitten we adopted had an intestinal disease we had to treat ( not fun). Fourth, D's cousin was hospitalized with sepsis and his fever has been so high they have been unable to amputate his leg. It doesn't look good for him. Fifth, our kitten now has ring worms ( have no idea how that happened since she doesn't go outside) so the treatment is a bath for 10 minutes with...

  Ok, the Bunch children rang in the new year. The Bunch parents were in bed asleep by 10pm on New Years Eve. We did stay up a little later than normal to play some new card games we had received for Christmas 🎄 with the kids, but ultimately we just wanted to go to sleep and wake up to a new year that was full of possibilities and hope. However, in the Bunch household 2021 has been even worse than 2020. Not only do we have all the restrictions from 2020 still going on, but now it is even more personal. No kidding, on January 1st at about noon our water pump went out. What is a water pump my city dwelling friends may ask and why is this that big of deal? A water pump for us country folk is the difference between living like hobos and having a functioning homestead. It could literally cause animals to die. It is very important and after only experiencing this 4 years ago, it happened again. Our water pump went out. Last time it was expected. The pump was about 17 years old. It died ...