Winter is Still Here

But the brutally cold temperatures are gone, at least for now. We bottomed out at about -26° C early on Saturday morning, with wind chills reaching -45°. We had heat lamps set up in the chicken coop for a couple of days, and everyone came through fine. We even got some eggs out of the deal. Bonus points!

So, we're back to normal cold temperatures, around -8° or so. With snow, of course, because why not? But it's a lot better than getting frostbite from letting the dogs out to go pee. As long as we continue with this sort of weather, we'll be fine. I'm hoping we don't get another cold snap like that, though. It was really rough for the weekend.

I must say, though, feathers are a great insulator for those chickens. Even with the heat lamps, it was really, really cold in there, but the birds were doing just fine. Walking around, cuddling up under their wings at night, they did great. Feeding them oatmeal laced with cumin, paprika and chili pepper flakes might have helped with the warmth, of course. Sure as hell would have woken me up.

The bunnies did well, too. And they didn't have a heat lamp. Or at least the bunny girls didn't; they are still separated from Bugs, because three bunnies is enough for now. He was in the coop with the chickens, since rabbits don't like to be alone, and he was chilling under the heat lamp to sleep. Hey, why not? But the bunnies have enough fur that the cold didn't do them in, so that was a good feeling.

As for our house, we came through just fine. No burst pipes, no horrible mess to clean up. But we did run out the electric bill from running a heater in the front entrance for two days, and we kept the pipes from freezing by trickling water in the bathroom sink for the whole cold snap. It worked; all else is secondary.

That last point is especially relevant considering we know of three separate locations that did have burst pipes. Friends of ours, my job, and the place where my wife does her workshops all had major problems with frozen and burst pipes over the last twenty-four hours. Not good at all. We'll see how long it takes for me to get back to work, especially since my desk was right under the worst of the flooding. Yikes.

So, for now we will remain grateful that we came through so well. That's twice Mother Nature has kicked us hard in the past few months. We got through Fiona, and we got through this. Here's hoping we don't run into another test in the next couple of months.