You Know Hold Cold It Is Here? Well...

[margecat]

When I went out to feed the Fabulous Fifteen (Ferals), one of the black buzzards was shivering, poor little guy! I've never seen a bird shiver before, but they do. The buzzards (really black vultures, but I like the word "buzzard") are cute close-up. They're used to me, and get within one-two feet. That's how I noticed him shivering.

Later in the day, I had a can of soda in the car's cup holder, and sloshed a bit onto the stick shift area. Within 5-10 minutes, that mess started to freeze!

I had a loaf of bread in the car for about two hours. It had started to freeze.

 

[nansiludie]

Poor Buzzard. I believe it. It's just too cold this year. The high here was 20. Lows tonight into at most, single digits.

There are six kitties that will not come inside. Not even tempting with food. They stay on my porch. So far everyone's winter coat has come in beautifully. They do have several shelters packed with straw, unfrozen water and free access to dry food all day with heated wet meals brought out twice daily. I am rather grateful it hasn't snowed this year or it would be a horribly frozen, icy mess.

Under my water hose hookups there is a bucket that catches the dripping water to keep the lines from freezing, that has frozen into a nearly solid block. With an ice puddle around it.

 

[neely]

The news reported this would be the coldest New Year's Eve since 1969. Windchill Advisory -20 to -30

I've been watching the squirrels in our yard curl up in a ball to keep warm.

 

[Margret]

Under my water hose hookups there is a bucket that catches the dripping water to keep the lines from freezing, that has frozen into a nearly solid block. With an ice puddle around it.

Do I correctly gather that you are relying on the fact that the water is running (slowly) to keep the pipes from freezing? If so, you have a problem. I think your pipes are frozen. Sympathy. Been there, done that, and it wasn't worth buying the tee shirt.

Margret

 

[Willowy]

Come to think of it, I never see turkey vultures in the winter. They must go South. I suppose with their naked heads they would get frostbite. The bald eagles like the cold weather though.

A couple of cans of carbonated beverages exploded in the storage area :/. I had to bring the unexploded cans inside. My table is half-covered in La Croix cans, lol. The bottled water has frozen too but water bottles usually survive freezing without exploding so that's OK. The storage area, while uninsulated, is attached to the house (sort of like an attached garage but without a garage door) so it usually doesn't get below freezing in there. But it's just so cold for so long.

 

[muffy]

The news reported this would be the coldest New Year's Eve since 1969. Windchill Advisory -20 to -30

I've been watching the squirrels in our yard curl up in a ball to keep warm.

It's 16 here and with the wind chill it is around 3. My squirrels sit on my deck railing eating their nuts with their tails wrapped around them. I feel so bad for them.

I'm worried about my ferals. I have a dog house with some straw in it but that is not enough to keep them warm. Only 2 of the cats use it. I am not able to make the cardboard houses that I used to have for my old colony.

 

[denice]

It's 1F here right now. It's supposed to be negative tonight. This is supposed to break Sunday but that is with snow, it always warms up a little when it snows. I hope this doesn't turn into a winter like we had in 2013-2014. That year when this started it didn't end until March.

 

[Winchester]

Rick and Miss Beast just came in the house; he said it's -1. It's that cold that it's bothering Miss Beast's paws and she doesn't stay out any longer than she has to. It's way too cold for the beginning of January. Right now, it's too cold to snow.

 

[jcat]

It sounds absolutely miserable in much of North America!

 

[artiemom]

0 degrees when I got up at 7:00am..

 

[posiepurrs]

It was -7 at 8AM this morning. This is when I miss living in Florida!

 

[nansiludie]

Do I correctly gather that you are relying on the fact that the water is running (slowly) to keep the pipes from freezing? If so, you have a problem. I think your pipes are frozen. Sympathy. Been there, done that, and it wasn't worth buying the tee shirt.

Margret

Yes. So far, so good. They've not froze entirely yet. I'm hoping they don't but I'm expecting them to with the weather we've been having.

 

[AbbysMom]

0 degrees when I got up at 7:00am..

Same here.....

 

[Willowy]

-23 right now! And the water isn't running in my bathroom :/. I thought maybe the pipes between the water meter and the house froze, but the water in the kitchen is running. Maybe the line between the kitchen and the bathroom runs too close to the outside wall and froze? I hope it didn't burst, that would be a disaster. I put a space heater in the bathroom to see if that helps.

 

[nansiludie]

-23 right now! And the water isn't running in my bathroom :/. I thought maybe the pipes between the water meter and the house froze, but the water in the kitchen is running. Maybe the line between the kitchen and the bathroom runs too close to the outside wall and froze? I hope it didn't burst, that would be a disaster. I put a space heater in the bathroom to see if that helps.

Sorry to be a bearer of bad news but if its froze, it most likely has burst and will start leaking once it thaws.

 

[Willowy]

Sorry to be a bearer of bad news but if its froze, it most likely has burst and will start leaking once it thaws.

My dad says it shouldn't burst (he and my uncle, who is a retired plumber, are the ones who remodeled the bathroom) because they used PEX line, and PEX is flexible enough not to burst when frozen. I hope he's right :/. I've been running a space heater in there since this morning but still nothing.

 

[Margret]

It sounds absolutely miserable in much of North America!

Yes. On the East coast and around the Great Lakes the weather is much colder than usual, with a lot of snow, and in the West we're still in the middle of a drought. The Thomas fire, the largest wildfire in California history, is still burning; as of a few hours ago they were reporting that it's 92% contained. (I checked the meaning of "contained" last year during some of the Colorado wildfires. It means the percentage of the circumference of the fire that they think the fire can't cross. I feel like that sentence was unwieldy, but don't know how to fix it.) And Puerto Rico is still without electricity after the hurricanes that hit it earlier this year.

Feel free to skip this rant. President Trump says the East coast could use some of this "global warming" everyone talks about. Well, I have news for him. The East coast is experiencing global warming. Weather patterns are changing because of global warming, and it has resulted in an unusually cold wet winter in the East while the West is dying of thirst and fire.

Yes. So far, so good. They've not froze entirely yet. I'm hoping they don't but I'm expecting them to with the weather we've been having.

In Colorado we build for snow and cold, but we still get our sprinkler system blown out every autumn.

The only time I've had pipes freeze was when we were living in Bend, Oregon. The dining room had a water pipe running through the ceiling to a mother-in-law apartment that had been added over the garage, and it wasn't properly insulated. One bright winter day after a hard freeze I came home from work to get a bit of lunch (the town was small back then -- home was about as close as a fast food joint) and discovered a rainbow in my dining room from the water spraying down from the ceiling. I got a plumber out and he said that from the state of the pipe it had obviously burst several times before, and recommended that we wrap the pipe with heat tape to keep it from happening again, which we did. Then I got a cleaning service to come vacuum the water out of the carpet, and they left us with some huge space heaters to encourage the remainder to dry out. It was awful; I never want to do that again.

Margret

 

[nansiludie]

That sounds absolutely horrible but just think, if you hadn't come home for lunch, how much worse it would've been.

 

[LTS3]

Rick and Miss Beast just came in the house; he said it's -1. It's that cold that it's bothering Miss Beast's paws and she doesn't stay out any longer than she has to. It's way too cold for the beginning of January. Right now, it's too cold to snow.

Will your dog wear booties? Paws can be frostbitten easily, not to mention road salt and chemicals can irritate the skin

 

[Margret]

True. Very true. I couldn't even find the water shut-off for the house; I had to call one of my co-workers to come help me. And Roger was back in Denver at the time, so I was the only one there to handle it all. I was afraid to run those huge space heaters without supervision (fire hazard) so I had to turn them off when I felt myself nodding off. It was a difficult week; and it could all have been prevented with a few dollars' worth of heat tape. I'm surprised the previous owners didn't do that themselves, though I know why they didn't tell us about it before we bought the house. They were afraid it would keep us from buying, or give us cause to ask for a lower price.

Margret