The Big Chill

The last of January I put on a short sleeve t-shirt. The highs were in the 70’s and it was a beautiful sunny day, perfect to go out and spend a few hours doing outside chores. I love days like that.

Around 1:00am on February 1 I was woken up by gusting howling winds, hard rain, thunder and lightning. The storm the weathermen had been promising us had arrived earlier than expected. Unable to sleep I got up to hand wash a few dishes. I have a weather station monitor near the kitchen window and every time I looked at it the temperature had dropped. Around 2:00am I decided it was dropping to fast and decided to bundle up and go lock the cats in there kitty condo (formally a makeshift cabin the previous owners lived in). The cats greeted me with lots of meows (not normal for them to meow so much) and were thrilled when I filled their dishes full of food. I left, closing the door behind me. Now the cold air would have a harder time chilling the kitty condo off.

I was able to fall back to sleep around 3:00am, only to wake up to bitter temperatures. For the next three days it would remain below 20F. Records are not kept out here but if they were kept I am sure a few records would be broken, or some close to being broken. I know San Antonio broke a few records this week. I stayed inside as much as possible, but I have 10 month old kittens to take care of so several times a day I would go check on them. One result of such cold temperatures is their water kept freezing up. So every few hours I would bundle up and walk out to the cabin with room temperature (or often a bit warmer) bowl of water to replace the now frozen water out in the cabin. I also would get up in the middle of the night to exchange warm water for frozen water, so my cats always had water to drink.

One danger of freezing temperatures is frozen pipes and frozen well pumps. Out here our pipes cannot be buried, only covered with caliche. Monday I did walk the length of my pipes to make sure there were no exposed areas. I also have a heat lamp aimed at my well pump.
When I woke up Tuesday morning and realized just how cold it was outside I quickly started turning on faucets to let them drip. Unfortunately the pipes to the small bathroom had already frozen up. I still had water to my bathroom and the kitchen, which I am very grateful for. I have several neighbors who have not been so fortunate. Wednesday morning I learned of several nearby friends whose water had stopped flowing. Since then I have heard of others. I have taken water to my neighbor and a little food.

Another consequence of rain followed by freezing temps—the backdoor lock is frozen. I can turn the deadbolt lock on the inside but I cannot put the key into the key hole. Obviously some water got into the key hole and froze up.

One nice thing about living in South Texas is this kind of weather is very rare and when it does hit—lasts only a few days. It is suppose to start warming up and tomorrow I and the rest of the folks out here should get above freezing.

Before it does warm up though the one event that many children in South Texas never see happened—it snowed last night. I saw on the news this morning that San Antonio basically shut down, partly because they got freezing rain last night before the snow arrived. I went outside around 3:00am to exchange the cats water bowls only to discover it was snowing. We didn’t get a lot of snow, but even a dusting out here is a big deal.

As I write this it is mid-morning and the temperature outside has reached 26, the highest it has been since Tuesday before the sun came up. After days of clouds the sun has come out. We are all now counting the hours tell we can put the thermal underwear back in storage. I am sure the ranchers out here are even more anxious for warmer weather then I am. I personally know folks who must spend hours outside daily feeding livestock. My heart goes out to them as I find it tough just running outside to give my cats’ thawed water. Though it has been a tough week for the ranchers, I have to think about those ranchers in the northern climates. Many of them deal with weather much worse then what I have been living through, not just once in awhile but every winter for months at a time.

So today as you sit down to eat, remember the rancher who went out in freezing temperatures to feed that cow or chickens or…. Some of those ranchers and farmers braved temperatures well below zero with wind chill factors of minus (pick a number). Without them you and I would not have food on our table today. So we need to thank God for them and pray for them daily. They have a very tough job.

The Picture to the right--left side is the kitty condo.

The open door is a small shed.