Snapshots: Weathering the Storm

Happy Valentine's Day! We're celebrating by trying to keep everyone and every thing alive.

We were anticipating that the brutal cold affecting so much of the country this weekend would arrive here on Sunday, after a night of snow.

Instead, we woke up in a frozen cloud on Friday morning, with eight degrees and some snow.

Surprise!

It didn't let up, either. We lost one lamb the first night we had the frozen fog--lambs don't do well with moisture, and definitely not cold moisture--and another we brought inside Friday to warm up by the woodstove. 

When night fell, A. caught all five lambs and shut them in the kids' bathroom for the night, absent any other options for keeping them warm during yet another foggy, well-below-freezing night.

"I can't believe we're having a lamb party in our bathroom!" Charlie exclaimed. Yeah, me neither.

Unfortunately, that lamb lying down in the photo--the same one we had to warm up inside during the day--didn't make it through the night, bringing our total count of surviving lambs now to four.

Boo.

The lambs were not exactly quiet during the night, and were definitely not quiet at 5 a.m., when they let everyone know they needed their milk, STAT.

A. got up to bring them outside to their mothers, then went back to bed. Charlie and I got up, too, and so we were awake when the power went out around 6 a.m.

Luckily, Charlie was prepared for just such an eventuality, and went to retrieve his solar lantern from his desk.

 

Nothing gets between this boy and his book.

I was also prepared, with my grandmother's rotary phone, which I plugged into our landline in place of our cordless phone so I could call the electric company and let them know our power was out.

My children were fascinated by this relic from ages past.

The lady who answered the phone was not at all surprised. It was a widespread outage.

We expected it would be out for awhile, so A. fired up the generator.

Meanwhile, outside, everything was covered in rime, an excellent word for a substance that is very dangerous to animals. 

Beautiful, but dangerous.

Even the dogs were all frosty and shivering. For the first time in their lives, we brought them inside. A. had to carry them into his office to thaw out, as they were too freaked out at entering a door to go in on their own. 

I kept the lights off, hoping they would sleep rather than destroy things. A forlorn hope, as you can see. These are emphatically NOT indoor dogs.

A. also managed to set up a space in the barn/shed with a heat lamp for the lambs. He arranged it so he could put hay near there for the ewes but keep the horse out. This way, the lambs can get off the snowy ground, where they were lying next to their mothers. Those ewes are so woolly they don't notice the weather at all, but it's obviously deadly for their lambs. 

It's supposed to be below zero for the next two nights, as well as dump several inches of snow on us, so everything that can be sheltered, must be.

I feel really sorry for the ranchers here, many of whom are in the middle of calving, and none of whom have shelter for their hundreds of cattle. There are going to be a lot of livestock losses this weekend.

We can only hope there are no more at our place. We've done all we can. Now we just have to wait for it to warm up.