The Bunch Start a Period of Freezing Weather

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 now. We are really happy that this wasn't the moment the water pump chose to go out. It would have been 10 times worse than it was. Since it is going to be so cold, we added more tarps to both the horses and the chickens to help block wind and snow. It will still be super cold, but hopefully this helps. They aren't use to all this extremely cold weather, neither are we for that matter, but it is what it is. Hopefully, our little improvements help them handle the cold better.

My little helpers...I could NOT get them to leave me alone.

So I sent them outside with treats and finished real quick. I hope this helps them keep the heat in.

You can see the layers of ice from each time I have to break it up.

The solid form of the horse water is next to the liquid form.

I think the extra taps on their stall will help with keeping warm.

I also put down 6 bags of stall chips to give them something warm to lay on.

D had to stay at my parents' house this week since it is very close to his work and we had some icy weather. He went a couple of days without seeing us and I am glad that for the worst part of this bad weather stretch that he will be home and off of work. We plan on only going outside to care for the animals and staying home and indoors for the next 4 days, the kids and I will probably stay here without leaving longer. Unfortunately, for my kids since we homeschool, there will be no days off, but we will probably go play in the snow for a few minutes and we definitely plan to watch movies and drink hot chocolate in the afternoons.

T starts flag football in 2 weeks. Hopefully, we are back to nice mild Texas temps by then. I can't believe it has been more than a year since we have been able to do anything outside the house. Unfortunately, indoor sports are still banned here so L is not able to play volleyball with her team. We are hopeful that she can play this summer. Otherwise, she will age out and not be able to play again. A has been busy making her memory board for her graduation. Her graduation is scheduled for May 15. It has been great fun to go through old photos with her. Time goes by so fast. C is planning on getting married on December 31. However, they had planned to rent out a state park for the weekend and make it a fun filled weekend celebration, but apparently the state parks have decided for all of 2021 they are not allowing events. C and his finance started looking at chapels this week. He accidentally shut his hand in the door at one and ended up having to have 2 holes drilled in his nail to release the pressure from the blood. He isn't very tolerant of pain so you can imagine how well his week has gone.