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...