Last night and early this morning, it rained on the edge of a cold front that came in. And by cold, I mean that as I was packing lunches and feeding critters and making myself chai and the hubby coffee, I watched the outside thermometer drop almost 10 degrees in 30 minutes. Eeek! The low today was 23. During the day. It's actually warmer this evening!
I got super bundled up to go take care of the boys this morning, because not only was it about 28 degrees, we also had steady 30 knot winds coming from NNW, making the wind chill close to single digits. Not what we southerners are used to for sure! I even put on my ski gloves for good measure.
And as soon as I stepped out of the house, I remembered what ice storms are all about. Nothing works.
The car door was frozen shut. So was the door handle.
The latch on the gate at the end of the driveway? It took us 5 minutes to pry it open.
The lock on the shed door? That was fun. So was the bull snap on the paddock gate. What was even more fun was having two starving (STARVING! AND HOW!) horses fight for position at the gate as I fought with the iced-over snap. Oh well, at least we were on opposite sides of the fence.
Did you know the bearings on the wheelbarrow can freeze? It made mucking the paddock a challenge. And poopsickles. Those are a whole new kind of ridiculous.
Remind me not to complain when it's 110 degrees, OK?
Ice is the WORST.
ReplyDeleteWhen my gate freezes, I figure the ground's frozen and Dixie won't eat too much sand, and I just pitch a flake over the fence to distract her while I break in to the paddock. ;)
ReplyDeleteWow....
ReplyDeleteAnd I used to complain as a kid because we had to break the 1/16 think ice of the water troughs for the animals....
I have never experienced anything like that, ever.