Snow and More Snow
I grew up in the mountains, and I lived in Illinois before I moved to Texas, but this sucks because it's so rare. None of our systems are prepared for it.
We've had the first round of snow, and it is the lovely, light powdery stuff that we never get here because it doesn't get cold enough. The second round is going to be mixed with sleet, so, yuck. We've been told to reduce our electricity usage to spare the power grid.
That leaves me between choosing to lower the furnace to spare the electricity or raising it to spare my pipes. I don't have a very big house, so that's a plus. Unfortunately, due to the location of my thermostat, the furnace is struggling to get the temps inside over 66F (18C). So I've lowered it anyway, and reversed the rotation of the ceiling fan in the one room with a high ceiling. We had been closing off the bedrooms to keep them warm, but that contributes to the furnace struggling.
I've hoarded water in every container with a lid, just in case, including all the pots with lids. I've lived in a house with a well before, and when the pump broke, that was not fun times.
If the electricity goes out, I have towels ready to stuff under the doors, I have a radio with a battery back up, and we're keeping everything fully charged. Unfortunately, I don't have any flashlights at present (I had several at one point, but they've evaporated or wandered off to school or friends houses, or been left somewhere, who knows?). The advantage with this over summer storms that knock out the power is I'm not concerned about anything in my fridge going bad - I'll just stick it outside in a cooler.
We've had rolling blackouts before due to the cold, so I'm prepared for that. Remember the year that Dallas hosted the Superbowl? 2010 maybe? It was in the 80s one day and then two days later, everything was encased in ice. All the out of town visitors were all WTF? I thought this was the south? Well, yeah, it's south, but it's also the plains, so shit changes quickly.
Incidentally, I was working from home on the day of that horrific crash in Fort Worth, so I wasn't driving that day. I go in much later when I do go to the office, and I work in Dallas which is slightly warmer.
I'm going to go out and spread some bird seed around, but rats got into the bag and left little shards of plastic in it, so I've got to pick all that out. I discovered it a few days ago, so it's been sitting in the aluminum trash can where I used to keep my dog food (when I still had a dog), until I could get around to dealing with it.
I saw some sort of woodpecker on my tree this morning, it was either a downy or a hairy. I know there's not much difference between them aside from the size. This one seemed quite big so I'm tentatively calling it a hairy woodpecker. Male because it had a small patch of red on the back of its neck. I tried to get a picture, but it was pretty far away.
I hope everyone is staying warm and safe! And happy valentine's day, no matter how you celebrate - I wish you love!