How’s Eddie?

[Rich B1]

Re: How痴 Eddie?

Good to hear you are doing better Eddie. Stay warm. Take care of those critters.

I have largely recovered completely from my Covid bout as well.

 

[Wakey]

Glad you folks are feeling better! That is an excellent shot of the birds, their color pops.

Have you ever skimmed a rock over water? Try it on your frozen pond, trust me lol

 

[ultrarunner]

Eddie... any updates on the weather front?

What work around did you implement to meet the challenge.

 

[airbiscuit]

Re: How痴 Eddie?

Considering the weather that we are having here in East Texas right now, I'm actually happy that I got Covid when I did. I'm probably 99% right now. I still have a slight weeze in my breathing when I exert myself, but it's nothing serious. I just notice it when I'm done doing whatever it is that I was doing.

With the temps below freezing and so much snow on the ground, just walking to the barn and back is a workout. Our water lines to the barn are froze, so I'm carrying it in a 5 gallon bucket. We have heaters in our water tanks and waterers, but the only way to keep them full is by carrying that bucket out there. I'm doing this three times a day. Two buckets at a time that are filled with about 4 gallons of water.

Before I got the Covid, I had cut and split about a cord of firewood. I also had quite a few rounds cut and sitting there that I needed to split, but didn't have the strength or energy to deal with. Two weeks ago, I split and stacked all of those rounds. Now that we've been burning wood non stop, I'm really happy that I did that.

Yesterday morning we set a new all time record for the coldest day ever in recorded history for my County at -6F. The previous record goes back to 1930. Our high temps have been in the 20's and my wife and I are keeping busy feeding animals a lot of extra food so they can deal with the cold. I stocked up on feed last week, so that's worked out well.

The song birds are really getting hit hard by the cold and the snow not melting like it normally does. My wife has been obsessed with making sure all of her bird feeders are full, and then a bunch more to the ground for them. We've only found one dead sparrow in the snow, so we think it's helping. We have never seen anything close to this many birds in our yard. Normally we might have a couple dozen, now there are hundreds of them!!!!

We had 20 baby chicks in our barn that where relying on heat lamps to stay warm. I ran a cord from my generator to keep the lights going, but after doing that for two days, we moved them into our upstairs bedroom where it's 66 degrees. That was a lot more work then I imagined. I think that everything you do in the snow is 3 times harder then doing it without snow!!!

Now that they baby chicks are safe, we turned off the generator during the day. The power went out Monday morning and only came on a few times that day for half an hour at a time. Tuesday was better. We actually had power for a full 2 hours in the evening. It turns out that our internet is also on the same power grid as we are, so when we lose power, we lose internet. Thankfully our cell phones are not affected by the power outages.

If I had Covid now, or if I had gotten it in January instead of December, I don' think I would be of any use right now. The amount of energy that I have now compared to then is night and day. My wife would being doing everything, and nothing would stop her, which means she would be killing herself having to deal with the farm all by herself.

We have two more days of freezing temps, then it's all done on Saturday. The mud will be horrible, but also a relief with the snow going away. Both of us are off this week. Most of Texas is closed. The roads are frozen with a layer of ice on the pavement and almost a foot of snow on top of the ice. We measured 8 inches of snow on Monday, and we're at 3 inches so far today.

Here are a few pictures that I took today now that it's warmed up to 26 degrees outside.

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Eddie,

Glad to hear you are doing well. Amazing bird pics. Why didn't you use a a tractor and loader to ferry the 5 gallon buckets of water to the barn?

When I bought a skid steer, my wife was skeptical about the need. When she came home from grocery shopping, I used the skidsteer to take them from the car to the house. She was not impressed

 

[cqaigy2]

^^^^^^^^^:laughing:

 

[MoKelly]

That male cardinal has an attitude. :laughing:

He knows we signed Nolan Arenado. He should have an attitude!

MoKelly

 

[goeduck]

I lucked out and scored an appointment for my wife to get the Moderna Vaccine last Tuesday. She qualified due to her cancer and other health issues. It was the second to the last appointment the pharmacy had for the week. The last appointment was a no-show so the lady asked me if I wanted it. It was the last dose of the last vial and the pharmacy was practically empty. So I rolled up my sleeve.

Good thing too, I woke up with a fever this morning and have some of the COVID symptoms, but very, very mild. I doubt I have COVID because I am not going anywhere except the grocery store and Post Office once a week. But at least having the one shot would give me a leg up on it.

 

[Hay Dude]

That male cardinal has an attitude. :laughing:

Glad you are coping well. Hope the weather warms for you soon.

Thats nothing. You oughta see the attitude on a Blue Jay :laughing:

Eddie, what a year! Covid and now this. I had Covid as well and it only managed to snow 7 times here. :laughing:

Cant get over the snow pictures! Looks like up here in PA! :shocked:

 

[EddieWalker]

My wife is the deciding factor on getting the Vaccine or not. At first, she was all for it and told me that I was getting it, no argument. She can be kind of pushing on medical stuff and I've learned it's better to trust her judgement then to try and argue with her about things that I really don't know very much about.

That was before we both got Covid.

Now that we are both recovered from Covid, she is no longer afraid of it. Her words. But the more she learns about the Vaccine, the more doubts she has about it. She has a PhD in nursing and she is the Director of the BSN program at UT Tyler. She knows a lot of people in healthcare, including those in charge of our 3 local hospitals, and the surrounding hospitals. Her 85 instructors all do clinicals at those hospitals, so it's if something happens at any of them, she knows about it.

One of our good friends does research for new cancer medicines. When the Vaccine started to come out, she was part of the team that worked on it's effectiveness and how safe it was for humans. The company that she works for was removed from the testing due to issues that they had with not being able to follow through with some of their concerns. She does not know if it's good or bad. She does not know if there is a risk to taking it or not. She said that there where so many shortcuts taken in getting it out as quickly as possible, that she isn't comfortable with it.

The other issue is with the Variants of the Virus. Covid is mutating unlike any other virus even discovered. It also survives any weather and in every climate. There is a growing number of health care people that are coming out and saying that the Vaccine does not do anything with the new Variants.

Finally, there is a growing number of people that have had Covid, and then after getting the Vaccine, they have become Covid Positive again. This is becoming more common with Health Care people working in the hospitals treating Covid positive people.

So for now, we are not getting the Vaccine. If more info comes out to support getting the Vaccine, she might change her mind, but for now, there is no reason to get it.

 

[EddieWalker]

One week ago today it got down to -6F and today it might hit 80F

I'm in shorts and a tshirt today, working on the exterior of a house. I figure that I have 3 or 4 days this week to do what I can outdoors, then it's going to start raining and cooling off again. Texas mood swings are out of control!!!