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Ridgetop
Herd Master
We have a tractor but no blade. LOL I don't think we will invest in one because this ice and snow weather does not last long enough for us to need one. I don't like living on a highway, but it does ensure that sooner or later the county will clear the road. Rick sentthis picture of me with Ozel to the kids titled "Nanook of Northeast Texas". LOL It takes me 10 minutes to put on my ski bibs and boots. Thank goodness I didn't give them to DD1 for their trip to Pittsburg after Christmas. They will go back in my winter wardrobe for next year. I also have a furry hat with ear flaps. After a while it slips over my eyes, but I think today I will wear a shorter ski jacket. I was blaming my bad back, but now I think this long thick jacket may be to blame. With my long underwear and ski bib I should be ok.
In the meantime, we do have a problem with water. Our lines from the pump were buried 18"-24" deep which we were told were below the freeze line. DS1 also looked it up on the internet and for or area of northeast TX it should have been enough. We bought the special water connections designed to work in zero degree weather. We disconnected the hoses from them before the freeze and put freeze caps on all other outlets. DS1 insulated all the pipelines outside the pump shed but during this intense freeze we may not have insulatedthem enough. That situation will be fixed this spring. We installed 3 of our 4 de-icers and they keep the tanks clear except for a thin rim of ice around the edges. In the meantime we don't have water to the barn and like everyone else are having to carry water to the barn. The ice on the stock tanks was 3" thick. The water refreezes during the day since it has remained about 18-20 degrees during the day. Between the 3 of us we are able to get through the water chores in about 2 hours. DS1 found this propane burner on line last year and we are using it at the barn with the 50 gallon trailer propane tank to heat the water and melt the ice. We also filled a 50 gallon barrel in the barn last night with warm water from the house and put a de-icer in it which we are hoping will keep it from freezing so we can dip water out of it to boil and melt more of the trough ice. This propane burner is large enough and with my large water bath canners is doing the trick although very slowly. It does suck down the propane though.
The lambs are lively and eating in the creep just fine. The sheep are huddled in the barn screaming at us to make this ice stop and bring their hay INSIDE! We callously refuse to do more than feed their daily grain allottment. They can trot outside to the hay bale. We are cruel animal keepers. Last night DS1 said he thought Josie the Mule had ice build up in her hooves and wanted me to pick them out Since Jose T.M. refused to be caught in the twilight I told him we would wait until today to check her feet. Skittles' hooves seem fine.
This ice looks pretty from inside as we sit in our cozy house with the fire, but it doesn't show any footprints. We have to avoid low spots where we remember. Luckily we haven't had any rain so no slick ice on top. People are staying off the highway. Only a handful of cars have come by on the 154 since Saturday. There was a lot of noise and shouting up the road on Saturday so someone may have run off the road up there. This morning DH saw 5 ot 6 Asplund Electric trucks and crews go south toward Quitman and Tyler wth tree trimming equipment so probably some trees or branches came down on power lines south of us. We had a momentary power outage on Saturday night but it didn't last long enough to trigger the generator before it came back on.
The window replacement people did not arrive today. The window manager had not responded to my texts about them coming in this freeze so I was worried. This is not the weather to remove all the windows in the house and replace them! Even though they do them one room at a time, we would have frozen to death while even a couple of windows were removed.
Thank You God!
I keep expecting the rest of the ewes to lamb in this freeze OUTSIDE to give us some excitement. It would be just like them. There are 4 FFs that are developing udders. I am happy that they are actually lambing, but not at the timing. Of course if this weather continues we will have to put off our return to CA since we don't want to be on the roads. If necessary I can fly back one way for my doctor appointments the end of the month, leaving DS1 and DH here to tag any newborns. We can give them vaccinations and dock when we return. Probably should vaccinate the moms before we go to up the lambs' immunity. I just wormed everyone with lye so that should hold them.
Then they can head out to CA when this weather clears up enough to travel. All three of us can drive back together. We keep putting off the CA trip and we really want to finish clearing out the house and putting it on the market. We want to be done with the property in CA.I did talk to Payton and he said he would ear tag the new lambs for us with the scrapie tags and Barb can write down the lamb and mama numbers for us. He also said he will be able to come and move more hay bales into the cradles. She can have him come over and move more grain into the barrels. We have 5 empty jugs at the moment and I plan to set up a 6th. We have 7 open ewes so with the large pen we use to acclimate ewes and lambs to each other after the jugs, we should have enough space. If the rams don't arrive before we have to leave, I will ask Kerry to hang on to them until we return. Missouri is in the dead of winter at the moment and Oklahoma is not much better. The transporters don't like to make their runs during extremes of weather - hot OR cold. I will talk to the vet and leave a credit card number and they will have to do a farm call for any emergencies. Expensive $$$ but no help for it.
The Co-Op has rolled barley and I will be buying several bags of it for the sheep to mix with their corn. I am going to stop buying the larger pelleted 20% feed (3/8" diameter x 1") for the lactating ewes since one greedy lamb almost choked to death on a pellet. He was a prime ram lamb that wanted to keep of course. The lambs like to squirm in between the ewes and eat that grain as well as theirs. What I have left of that larger pellet can go to the pregnant ones in the far field later.
Here's a laugh! All the years we lived in CA and tried to get DD1 to go on a cruise with us she refused. Now they are going to Mexico with DS1's brother and wife in July and taking all the kids! Apparently DS1 is worried he will be bored on the ship since he spends most of his time on his computer. DH told her that there were all sorts of activities on board, and she is always complaining about no time to herself to read. I told her i would bring her some of my "Cruise Clothes". She has a pretty long formal and with a dressy pair of black pants she only needs some dressy tops and jewelry to dress up for dinner in the restaurant dining. They can go to the buffet for breakfast and lunch, but I really liked derssing up for the restaurant dining and being pampered by the waiters. Our friends taught us to tip heavily in advance and the waiters will give you priority service. Loved it.
Hope everyone is holding up during this bad weather.
Frozen everything! 
make and then can clean up the living room. We have not been worried about it during the ice storms with our boots tracking stuff across but now we are getting annoyed at all the mess and dirt. And fabric scraps which appear when sewing no matter how careful you are. Once the machine sewing is done I will do the hand sewing, embroidery. and appliques for Annabel's doll clothes. The doll I bought had a rain coat, hat and boots so I will look for some My Friend or My Life doll shoes at Walmart. She can't weat her rain boots to bed or with her fancy dresses. 
She is goimg to start tumbling class next week. So sweet and loving. 
