I knew it was going to be cold this morning, so last night I prepackaged some grains, pellets and lots of meal worms to put in their henhouses because I knew they weren't going to leave their warm(er) houses to eat from the feeder, plus I was wanting to keep my time outside to a bare minimum. I could throw their food into a couple dog dishes, shut the chickens back in and go back to the house.
At 8 this morning, it was an invigorating minus 4 or minus 7 degrees, depending on if I was checking the weather report or my porch thermometer. No big deal, I've hunted coyotes on the east slope of the Sierras in that kind of cold. Not for long, but I have hunted in that kind of cold. I've got the gear for it.
So I dig out my wool stocking cap, my 40 year old wool army scarf, my insulated bibs, hunting parka and gloves and started getting dressed for the whopping 10 minutes I was going to be out there.
I got all bundled up and then like every 3 year old kid in a snow suit, I had to piss. Stripped off my gloves and pissed.
Got ready to go out and realized my gun was still in my holster. Undressed part of the way, put it in my coat pocket, got dressed again.
Finally made it out the door. It was fucking COLD out there. Yeah, I've hunted in zero degrees before, but not in a 25mph wind which dropped the temps down to minus 25 degrees. Holy shit.
When I went to open the Daisy's henhouse, the sliding lock was frozen shut in spite of the WD-40 I doused it with last night to keep it from freezing, and my multi-tool was on my belt. Unzip, unbutton, reach across for the Gerber, then rebutton, rezip, and put my glove back on.
That blast of cold air went right through my thermal shirt and my dick said fuck this and retracted clean up inside of me.
I got the lock undone and opened the door to feed the Daisys and every one of them looked up from their huddle and screamed, "SHUT THE FUCKING DOOR, ASSHOLE!!!" I put their food in and shut the door. I can take a hint.
I looked for that asshole dog Jack and he was running along the fence line carrying his right rear foot. Asshole must've cut it on some ice. I'll patch it up when I got back in.
I went to the other coop where my monster rooster Two Point Five and his two bitches reside. Same problem with that lock, but at least my multi-tool was in my pocket this time.
I looked over my shoulder and there goes that asshole dog Jack, this time carrying his left rear foot. What the hell?
I lifted the lid on that coop's henhouse and there was Two Point Five laying down with his wings spread and a hen under each one, keeping them warm. Good rooster. I patted him, put their bowl of food down and shut the lid.
I looked for Jack again and there he was down at the treeline and now he's carrying his front left foot.
Now I'm really wondering what's going on.
We got back into the house and when I went to check his feet, there was nothing wrong with any of them. That's when I realized it was so damned cold out there he was alternating carrying his feet to keep all four of them from freezing at the same time.
Oh, then about a half hour later I looked out my window and there's my neighbor Tim, the one who moved down here from Alaska a few years ago, filling up the bird feeders in his yard - in his fucking shirt sleeves.
Does make a difference how far north you are. I plan on doing some deer hunting Monday so sometime I need to get the ATV fired up and make sure it is ready. It looks to be about 4-9 degrees on Monday with wind. Should keep the deer moving but I will be dressed like Ralphie's brother to be out there for 4-6 hours. Should be a good time.
ReplyDeleteOutside thermometer read -20 when I went out this am to shovel the driveway. The weather fear porn predictions was wrong and we only had maybe two inches of snow to shovel. Wind was howling and I don't know what the wind chill was but it was NASTY. I used to work construction in this kind of weather and don't miss it a bit.
ReplyDeleteWe were forecast for 1 to 4 inches of snow when I checked yesterday, we got maybe 1 inch. We did get rain, then freezing rain before it snowed, but my road's clear of ice.
DeleteI spent three years in Kodiak when I was in the Coast Guard. I lived in a trailer park up there, and there was a couple who had just moved to the "big island" from a lumber camp on nearby Raspberry Island. They lived in the trailer directly across from the front of mine. 'Didn't matter how cold it got; the wife would be outside every morning to get the paper... Completely nude!!! They'd obviously lived at that lumber camp for quite a while...
ReplyDeleteI was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone during the Vietnam War and got quite used to the nonstop hor weather. My first winter when I got home, I thought it was going to kill me, and it wasn't a particularly harsh one.
ReplyDeleteI had the opposite happen to me. I left Germany for a leave in California. It was maybe 70 degrees when I flew out of Rhein Main and when I finally made it to California a week later, it was 105.
Delete"...frozen shut in spite of the WD-40..." I've lived up north for 40 years and can tell you WD-40 is only slightly better than water when it gets that cold. Lithium spray is much better in all types of weather. That's all I use even though I live in the south now. It's great for keeping rust out of locks, etc. -sammy
ReplyDeleteI've used WD-40 for the past 6 years and never had an issue with it. I use it on my padlocks too to keep the moisture in them from freezing up.
DeleteBringing in some weather a bit like what I grew up with is carrying that southern hospitality thing a bit too far. As I get older that cold weather bites into the bones much harder than when I was young.
ReplyDeleteThat's the reason Tim moved back to Tennessee, said he was getting too old for that shit.
DeleteWelcome to my world…I live in Interior Alaska. I’ll end up on the North Slope every now & then to fix a broken stranded airplane. We’ll get into the -50’s occaisionally here, but it’s usually dead calm when we do. It’s been -40ish for the last week or so. Up there it’s those temps with 40 knots of wind. Any skin exposed freezes right the hell now.
ReplyDeleteThank you, but no. At least here I know it'll warm back up in a couple three days.
DeleteSeriously though, it wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't for that damned wind. It should peter out a little later today, though.
I went to the grocery store around 0900, upper 30's with wind gusts to 50. Better than yesterday, at least the sun's out. I can tell it's gonna get cold though, milk, bread, eggs etc were getting cleaned out pretty fast. I'm NE of Columbia SC
ReplyDelete- WDS
Merry Christmas!
Lived in the NE all my life. My neighbor still tells the story about when she looked out the window after a snowstorm and I'm outside snowblowing the driveay, in shorts.
ReplyDeleteWell, having moved from Texas back to West Virginia this summer, I was kind of wondering how I would handle winter again. Me and the dog went out this morning for our walk about and I ended up coming back in after about ten minutes. She fucking loves the snow, but the wind was bitter for me so I wimped out. Good thing this isn’t normal. Only about an inch of snow, but 25 mile an hour gusts at 7 degrees sucks! Weather guy said wind chill of 25 below. Good thing I got some arthritis medicine last week, shit seems to work pretty well. Eod1sg Ret
ReplyDeleteI have a cousin who was in Palmer, AK. Then they moved to Arizona. Now they are in Junction City, Kansas. I think her husband is a Pastor, but they are in KS now because my aunt is there due to my dad's brother was a lifer in the Army, and was working as a civilian contractor for Ft. Riley, his last duty station.
ReplyDeleteHere in Muskegon, MI, right on the coast of Lake Michigan, we are sitting at 5 degrees, this early afternoon. We got about 10 inches of snow last night, with wind starting to really whip things nicely.
I remember working in about 1982, when I had to drive my lift truck outside and pick up skids of scrap steel for melting into heats, weighing them up along with virgin metal, to melt the next day. That winter, with our factory within one mile of Lake Michigan, the winds coming off the lake, combined with the bad winter, we had wind chills of -70 degrees. You read that right. Minus seventy degrees. And I had to drive outside and try and pick up a skid with 4 barrels balanced on it, and drive back inside. The skids of course were frozen to the ground, this was before we had concrete paving installed there. If I got stuck, of course you could not try and get unstuck, but had to go inside, warm up, and then go back and try and get unstuck.
I could not wear enough warm clothes for that job. I did it for 8 years, before I bid off, to go back on the melt floor. Hard to believe, but they actually had to get 2 guys to do the job, when I got off it.
On the melt floor, we did 12 hour shifts, almost all the time. I actually did less hours then when I was weighing up heats. And I even had time to eat lunch every day.
Either don't lube at all and keep it dry, or carry a small crack torch in the coat pocket. If it gets down in the negative numbers graphite powder is to only thing that won't either freeze or turn to jelly. I have more issues with the snow melting partially and then water getting in and refreezing.
ReplyDeleteI've had that problem with padlocks too. I generally wrap a piece of tin foil around my shed's padlock if I know we're getting rain and freezing temps. It opened fine this morning but the sliding locks on the coops were encased in a layer of ice.
DeleteIf your padlock freezes just put the key in, hold the lock sideways and and hold yer lighter under the part of the key that aint in the lock. It don't take long atall to unthaw a lock that way. I've done that more times than I can count even at thirty plus below.
DeleteYeah, that works, or heating the key first and letting that melt the ice, but regular lighters don't like working in the wind, hence the crack lighter (small butane pencil torch) in the coat pocket.
DeleteI've had problems with lock and while WD40 and graphite work semi-OK, I've never seen anything work like Houdini lock lube. It's a citrus base, believe it or not, and that stuff is flat out unbelievable. I've had combo padlocks completely seized up, both the combo and hasp mechanisms, and a couple of shots of this and get it worked into the guts of the lock, and they work like a greased champ. Amazing.
DeleteI’m in Northern WI. I’ve been using Amsoil MP spray for 30 + years. Guns and locks. Doesn’t freeze up.
DeletePaul J
Central Wisconsin SLIP2000
DeleteMy wife moved me from Texas to Florida eight years ago. Do I miss Texas ice storms? Yeah, because you never know what the artistic outcome will be.
ReplyDeleteWe are -40 high winds and about 40foot visability.
ReplyDeleteExile1981
We used to cut out a rectangular notch in coffee cans and been cans to cover locks on our magazines to keep them dry and working in cold weather. And a little powdered graphite. Eod1sg Ret
ReplyDeleteI don't live in a cold climate, but I do live in a wet climate. Off-grid.
ReplyDeleteThe only way I could keep the moisture out if my house was to buy one of those cheap Chinese diesel heaters. It's the 5k ( larger model) and uses about 1/2 gallon of fuel for 16 hours of dryness on the lowest setting. They really pump out the heat. I know it's chinese but the German made version is 10 times the cost.
the cines ones work great until they kill you with CO. Until then they are just as good as the German ones.
DeleteI mounted it outside under the stairs. I have about a meter of clearance under the house, venting is no problem.
DeleteI've hunted caribou at -20° to -40° degree temperatures, but your neighbor Tim can probably tell you tales like that.
ReplyDelete