JohnLiu, I know that many of the homeless suffer from mental illnesses or substance abuse issues and won't seek help or shelter for various reasons. Some, though, are just regular people who have escaped domestic abuse or lost a job or suffered an illness or injury and were living one paycheck away from the streets already. It's easy to be complacent, living in small rural communities like mine, but the homeless are here too, just not as noticeable. They are living in tents in the National Forest, or "crashing" in the homes of friends and family or living in their vehicles. Just because they aren't sleeping in doorways or under bridges doesn't mean they aren't here. I only wish I had an answer. (sigh)

I don't worry about my animals, but I feel badly for them. I have one "surprise" calf who is only a couple of months old, and the big cows put him in the middle, then surround him. He's warmer than anything else on the place and is so woolie (that Scottish Highland blood) that he looks like a baby buffalo. The digestive systems of cattle actually help produce heat, and mine don't get a "ration", they get all they can eat, so the colder it gets, the more they eat. Cattle survive out on the prairie and in the mountains in place like Montana and Wyoming, so mine are relatively pampered with regular food and shelter, but I still feel badly. I'll be glad when this weekend comes with the warmer weather, for people and for animals, although I think the chickens will miss the "treats" I've been making with suet and sunflower seeds.

My girls keep telling me that I can't take care of everyone and everything, but I sure wish I could!

Annie

didn't know bragu was just up the road from me...
Yep cold...what else is new...it's Iowa...wait a few days and everything will be a melty slushy mucky mess.....then boom! it'll all freeze solid again and all the slush will be solid ice!

The Salvation army here closed at 4 and didn't open their doors for anyone needing shelter....and the food bank was closed because" those staffing it couldn't make it because of the weather"....so a local bar/party venue took over and offered shelter and food and clothing and transportation to anyone needing it these past couple of days.
And who gets the tax exemption???

Stay warm.

I saw the awful weather on TV. Stay safe!

1. Some areas will need electric car battery warmer and engine block warmer.

2. Let your engine coast for a few minutes before start driving. Your engine oil may not be rated for extreme cold.

3. Read your windshield washer liquid spec and see if it is rated for extreme cold.

4. It is a good idea to put a large thick warm blanket in a big garbage bag in your trunk. you never know how long you may get stuck on the road.

Stay home, if you can.

dcarch

Take what Annie wrote in her first post and apply it to Chicago. Now add the ice quakes where you hear booms coming from inside and outside your house. This is groundwater freezing and as it expands the pressure causes a blast. freaks out the dog and me.

We haven't left the house since the weekend and cabin fever is starting to set in. How much can I cook for 2 people? And Emma is in the dumps too not having or even being able to go out for walks and play. Potty time is not fun as the little paws freeze up fast.

But all in all, we are lucky. I heard this morning that Minnesota is running low on natural gas and they are asking people to lower their heat to 63 or under.

Stay in and stay warm as best you can.

Peppi, our governor did that last night too, asked everyone to keep their heat at 65 or less. There was a fire at one of the Consumer's Energy facilities and a text was sent to all cellphones stating that if use wasn't voluntarily curtailed, selected brief outages would be instituted. Businesses were especially targeted, which makes sense, I guess.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/michigan/articles/2019-01-31/urgent-appeal-seeks-to-curb-energy-use-in-michigan-amid-cold

We don't have natural gas way out here in the boonies, we use propane, but it's horribly expensive. Our geothermal system works well, but can't keep up. Elery did install a pellet stove last year, and we have two tons of pellets in the garage, so we've been running that. I have Mother here and it's just too dangerous to go anywhere, so we've been here since Saturday, with her pacing the kitchen, wanting "something to do". It's like having one of the grandkids here, LOL. I park the Enclave inside, but I probably should start it, it's been sitting there for 5 days. The old farm truck sits outside, though, and it's started every single morning without a hesitation, and then goes through the snow at the unplowed farm without complaining. A 1994 Chevy Silverado with about a million miles on it, and it's the vehicle in the neighborhood that always starts and goes through the snow, LOL.

Elery did clear a path up the sidewalk, down the driveway to the mailbox and out to the front for the dog, but last night's wind just blew the snow all back in so he'll do it all again. Of course, there's been no mail delivery for two days now, maybe tomorrow. Right now he's raking snow from the roof, if it gets warm and creates an ice dam, the roof will leak. If it gets in the 40s this weekend the people in the southern part of the county along the river will flood because of ice dams. Crazy, crazy weather.

I saw the news last night some 82 year old woman in Muskegon was out snowblowing her driveway, then was on her way next door to do her neighbor's house. She said the noise from the snowblower reminded her of riding her Harley in the summertime. Now THAT'S a Michigan girl! (grin) They were calling her "snowblowing granny" and she's gone "viral", this story is from Tucson!

https://www.kgun9.com/news/national/82-year-old-snow-blowing-granny-goes-viral-after-clearing-own-driveway-in-below-zero-temps

It's all just inconvenience for us, though. The snow and cold makes me mutter when I'm gearing up to go water the cows and gather the eggs, but then I just go back inside and stand in front the pellet stove and be thankful that I am able to do that.

Plus, no groundwater "blasts" or fiery train tracks, like Peppi, and I think it's heading East, so those states East of us are going to get it this weekend. Stay warm!

Annie

I hate the cold, it's minus 4 this morning, up from minus 8 when we got up. It's not improving much, the sun is shining though. My dog just wouldn't let up with begging to walk. So I put on a bunch of clothes and took her out (with her coat on her too) just to prove to her that it was too cold. So we went down three houses and back and by the time we got back, she was holding one paw up. Out for maybe 5 minutes. UGH! This is a dog that doesn't blink at the cold weather but this is too much for her even! It's bad!

Generator is good to have.

If power is out, you may have no heat.

dcarch

I just cannot conceive of temperatures that low!! It seldom even gets as low as 0F up in the mountains here (fully covered with feet of snow at this time of year), let alone anything below zero!! And I really dislike snow anyway, so avoid the mountains in winter (and we get minimal, if any, snow here at sea level, thank goodness!).

You folks are much stonger and braver than I, tolerating those conditions. Extreme cold in winter and extreme heat or humidity in summer is just not in my play book, which is why I choose to live where I do...never too hot and never too cold.

I would hibernate in my bed or under a pile of afghans for the duration :-) And with the gas fire and space heaters going as well. Stay safe and warm and thank you for taking care of your pets and livestock as well.

Here in PA we've also battled the cold. Wind chills between -25 to -30. We do have a generator, hooked up but haven't run or serviced it in years. No way we could fiddle with it if our power went out. I have a power outage plan. Guess I'd turn the dining table on its side, surrounded by chairs, pull a queen sized mattress into the center and make a tent with the old wool blankets. Toss in blankets, hats, gloves, socks, water bottles, 2 young kids, a chronically I'll daughter, husband, 2 tiny dogs, and myself. We should survive unless we kill each other. Actually I'm surprised our power hasn't gone out(knocks on wood). We've had it happen often enough that it's been a concern the past few days. My goal this spring is to make sure the generator is serviced and ready to go at the flick of a switch in the breaker box.

My dogs are tiny, 4 pounds and 8 pounds so there's no outdoors for them. They do very well using potty pads in the mud room.

I've considered a wood burner but one child has chronic asthma so that's probably not a good idea. Anglo, what's your thoughts on wood burners and pulmonary issues?

Stay warm everyone.

I should keep my mouth shut!! Just checked the extended forecast here and they are predicting snow(!!) Sunday and Monday!! Temps are still mild enough that any accumulation should be minimal. And I live so close to the water that it is unlikely I will see any anyway.

I have friends talking about their frozen pipes now. . .

In extreme cold weather, no heat means burst pipes and major house repair damages.

dcarch

Did I hear right that temps will soon go up to 40-50...at least in the Chicago area?

They haven't asked us to lower the temps but I did anyway to 67. It's sunny, so we are comfy. I dred the gas bill!

Emma gave up on walks, poor thing. Instead, i let her up on the kitchen table that overlooks the garden so she is watching the birds and squirrels, her own TV show.

For you dog owners, one tip I learned the hard way. If you put down salt, even the pet safe stuf, it will melt and wet their paws. If they run into snow the water will freeze and be very painful. Please use caution.

Chloebub, yes we will be in the 40's on Sunday with rain.

Same temps here, in the 40s on Sunday, 40s and rain on Monday. That ought to make a nice mess.

Detroit crews say it'll take a couple of weeks to fix the broken water mains and my small town asked everyone with city water to leave their faucets running just a trickle, until the cold moderates. After that deep freeze a couple of years ago when we had to haul water for the cattle all winter, we had the well guy install a freeze resistant spigot, and we had him bury the water line 10 feet down, as the frost line actually reached 6 feet that year. Hopefully it'll never freeze. Hopefully....

Here at the house we do have a generator and it's gassed up and ready to go. I had my choice: Either I can run the big geothermal unit but nothing else, or I can run the pellet stove, the lights AND the well. Yup, the pellet stove won out and that's when we had it installed.

Peppi, would Emma wear "boots"? I tried them with Molly and she just chewed them off, but I help her clean the ice from between her "toes" every time she comes in. Silly dog, she goes out and lies in the snowbanks so she can bark at the neighbors shoveling their porch, but as you know, she's fat, so she has a nice layer of blubber plus that Sheltie double coat. I still make her come in after just a few minutes, though.

Mamapinky, DEFINITELY get that generator up and running, with all your family members plus an ill daughter, you'd need it. Here the "rule" is that power must be off for 4 hours or more before we start the generator but at these temperatures that could be shortened. Elery would like to have it "hard wired" and work automatically, so that might happen in the next couple of years.

Hey, at least I don't have to worry about freezers thawing!

Annie

@pkramer, that sounds much better!

Annie, we also have a time line on how long the electric needs to be off before firing up the gen. I just don't remember what it is. We do have heat tape on above and below ground water lines, however my grand just took the first shower of the day and the tub won't drain..yep drain pipe is froze. Sons on his way. I hope the heck it didn't rupture. I need this like I need a hole in the head. LOL. Until 09 this was my mom's home. I have never known any frozen pipes ect in 40 years so of course it would be me it happens to. Grrr.

Stay warm.

I'm even wimpier than Jakkom - I moved from San Francisco because it was too cold for me, and when I did live there, I spent two months of the winter in Mexico, plus August (also cold in SF) in British Columbia. I would never open my windows when it is 60° outside - it must be at least 72° for me to do that, and that was rare in San Francisco.

Since I'm close to the beach, we have mild summers here, but we did get central A/C about three years ago. Before that we just opened the windows in the summer and/or used the one window A/C unit that we had. Summers to seem to be getting warmer from 20 years ago. Maybe it is even getting warm enough in SF for me to live there again, but I have my eyes set on Palm Springs.

I don't know how people survive the cold - I have so little experience with it, and growing up in Texas, I loved it when it got cold there, but then it never got all that cold and the cold never lasted very long. Summers were unbearable, and I know a lot of people don't like the excessive heat in Texas.

I hope everyone who needs to will stay inside and will be able to keep warm. I'll send warm thoughts, if that will do any good.

I did hear that mail was not being delivered in some parts of the Midwest. The mail I received today was somewhat damp.

Oh geez, mamapinky, I'm hoping that it's just "kinda" frozen, and that some heat will thaw it out. My old house had a hot water line in the bathtub that always froze, not the cold water, just the hot. I eventually had a trap door kind of thing put in so I could stick a hair dryer in there and thaw it out, and that always worked. I also used the hair dryer to start my old MG Midget. Pop the hood, stick the hairdryer under it, close the hood. 10 minutes later it would fire right up, LOL.

I hope some heat will help yours and that nothing is broken. Ugh. Good luck.

Lars, that's why I told you that you should visit in the summer, LOL, you would not like a Michigan winter AT ALL, not even a normal "in the teens/low twenties" kind of winter day. I don't think I could lend you enough clothing and blankets to keep you warm. I did drive through the Texas panhandle one summer and it was 114F. I thought to myself "how do people even LIVE here". Then I realized that they stayed inside in the air conditioning until the heat moderated, just like we stay inside when it's this cold.

Annie

Above freezing Saturday, 45 Sunday, 55 Wednesday and predicted above freezing all the way to the 14th...daytime temps. I'll take it.

CanadaGoose HeliArtic, Heated vest, (I have three batteries)...toe and hand warmers

My storm list is so thorough after storm Sandy. Put in a transfer switch....all cars fueled, yadayada. Back-up plan is wood for the fireplace, bottled water....lots of freezer meals. Indoor/side door for the garage is open downstairs...who cares what it costs to avoid pipe bursts. So you have city water and not a dug well? Ha, your supplier water co. might just have trouble so have a plan for that also. 20gallons minimum drinking...40-50 for toilets etc. (we don't have much snow for melting right now but in a pinch...) .

I have 3-4 extra old coats in my car, box of hand warmers, box of granola bars, box of gloves....even candles.

So sad the coats were meant for the few I saw on the bridge ramps and HarlemRiverDrive and another traffic clog ...FDR. Have not seen these homeless since I packed my car. (old really good coats i was going to give to a coat drive)...thought best to have them go directly...right out of my window.

Wow, that frigid weather is really difficult for me to wrap my head around. I'm a Cali girl, born and raised in Southern Calif. We do get temps up to 112+ in the summer, but a day in the 40's is rare indeed. This morning we had a thunderstorm and my rain gauge tells me we received over 1 1/2 inches. More rain storms are expected Friday-Sat and again Sun-Mon. Stay warm and safe everyone!

Annie, I had been to Grand Rapids a few times.

I am not sure why, but houses there have the most spectacular icicles, HUGE! hanging from roof to ground, crystal clear.

dcarch

Dcarch, the usual cause of icicles is heat loss through the roof, but some very well insulated houses also get icicles. We get them, for example, although we have 18 inches of insulation in the attic.

I'm told by people who should know such things that snow has an R-value of about 1 per inch. So, if we get a foot of snow, that can be up to R-12. That's enough to trap the heat from the roof and melt the snow. I'm told it's just the snow committing suicide, and that I can't make it stop. Add some sunshine and it thaws a little faster. And that's why we have roof rakes, it's easier than climbing up the ladder and shoveling the roof...

Annie

Here is something I've never understood. If a roof is pitched steeply enough, it never needs to be shoveled, right? So why don't houses in snowy Midwest climates have steeply pitched roofs, like Swiss mountain houses?

Mine does......and every time I have had it re roofed, the roofer swears a lot!
But I have an addition with a shallow slope....and an area that gets a hint of sun from the west ( when the sun is shining!) late in the day....enough to melt some of the snow....and drip and when the sun goes down, freeze into icicles....and ice just outside my door!

Supposedly moderating a bit here in Maine today. It was -12F earlier this morning. Yesterday AM I went out to take the dog for a walk. We got hit with a huge gust of extremely frigid wind which scared my usually game pup. He dashed for the door before doing his business and went back under the covers. I wasn’t much better. Even my extremely intrepid semi-feral cats weren’t interested in being out much. Luckily I have wood heat (and propane). But if the power went out I think my pipes would be unhappy.

Stay safe all.

-6° here but expected to warm significantly. I hear there will be an 80° swing in temps for the midwest. Woo-Hoo!

I'm happy to see a warming trend in our future. It is a balmy 6 degrees right now and is expected to get to almost 20 today. That will be down right warm feeling. At least I can take the dog on a walk for a change. She's about to go out of her mind with boredom!

One more important tip; I just learned two days ago.

All four doors to my car were frozen stuck to the car. Snow melt around the door gaskets and the cold froze the gaskets to the car. in trying to pull the door open, I broke the door handle. It will be expensive to replace the handle and lock/remote control.

This can be very dangerous. Imagine if you went some place, when you try to go home and you can't get into your car.

Tip:

Use a brush and paint all the gaskets with light engine oil. This will prevent the ice from sticking to the car.

dcarch

Topping off the day. My sister and BIL took my niece off to visit a magnet school in the yet colder frozen Aroostook county last night.

Leaving her super high strung daschund at home who is obsessed with me. I came over this morning to feed, medicate and let him out. I carefully looked around for any uhm packages he might have left - good dog no poo. He went out several times. I made a cup of tea and came in to snuggle with him for a bit before heading home and squish.... All over my socks and her rug. Blech.

so now rug washing and then heading home with cold feet...

Ugh.

At least it wasn't squished up between your toes.

<Shiver>

Ugh, agmss, that stinks. In all kinds of ways. I had a dachshund, my beloved WonderWeiner, but the stinker hated to go out in the rain. Loved to play in the snow, hated the rain, so I made sure he really "went" when he went out when it was raining or he'd rush back in and then I'd find a puddle on the floor and it wouldn't be rain. They can be kind of......obstinate.

John, I had a steeply pitched roof in White Cloud, but the snow didn't all just slide off, it would slide down into the "valley" where the garage connected to the house, or it would slide down to the bottom foot of the roof and cause an ice dam which would then leak. A high pitch can create unusable space which must be heated, and a steep pitch creates more roof area, which uses more building materials. Like LindaC mentioned, it's harder to replace shingles or repair problems, so there are some disadvantages to steeply pitched roofs too.

Because of the direction of the wind in this storm, the West side of my roof had about 3 feet of snow on it, topped with a drift right on the top peak. The East side only had about 6 inches of snow on it. We used a "roof rake" to clean off the back side and tossed some ice melt up into the valleys, because we are now supposed to be up to nearly 50 and rain on Monday. If the snow doesn't melt before it rains, it'll be even heavier, so to avoid any possible roof collapse, we raked:

and raked some more to get rid of that big drift on the very peak of the roof:

Then we shoveled out the doorways, so we could get back in, LOL.

Annie

Oh, my. Beyond my ken.

Stay safe and warm, everybody.

Wow, Annie. I had no idea you had that much snow with the low temps. I have always considered it 'snow insulation' when we had that much in the past years.

Good advice dcarch. I thought I had destroyed my car entry handles since they resisted and would not return to their proper position. Hair dryer fixed it.

I have started my car 4am this week, ...leave 5.15. No heat. Thankfully heated seat works. I bundled up for the ride home, WestSideHighway to the HarlemRiverDrive, toe warmers...haha, the heat kicked in and I was a sweat bomb pulling up at home...Could not get the heat to stop. Relief next week, good grief!

Ouch on the door. Hot water will unglue frozen stuff, then apply WD40, silicone, or similar?

Post more pictures of snow! We haven't had any this winter. (Slight chance on Monday but probably not down at my elevation).

On my way to Daschund care...

My wood fired oven and shed viewed from inside...

Pretty! Especially the shot taken from indoors :-)

Meanwhile in Portland, we have about 50% chance of between trace and 2" of sticking snow on Monday.

Clients are canceling meetings for the day, I'm planning to work from home, and we pulled snow tires from the garage and had them installed on DD's car.

You're right; we don't handle snow well at all here.

Seriously, Portland gets snow maybe once a year on average. Most people don't have snow tires or know how to drive on snow. The terrain is hilly in spots. Our snow is wet and on the roads and sidewalks it quickly turns to skating-rink ice. The city has few snowplows. Fifty years ago, snow was a regular condition in the Portland winter; now it is rare. So as a city, we kind of lose our minds.

John, I'm up here close to Seattle and it is exactly the same. Snow here is not at all the same as elsewhere........it is heavy, wet and slippery as snot!! And few know how to drive in it. Everything comes to a screeching halt when snow starts to fall!!

I live only a short block up from the Sound and it has to be a pretty decent storm for snow to accumulate at sea level so I am hoping it will pass me by :-) And the predicted temperatures here wouldn't seem to support much snow either.

I was reading something online yesteday when I was checking out the weather and apparently in January of 1880, 5 feet of snow fell on Seattle!! OMG! And I remember my parents talking about the Blizzard of '52 (I was a mere babe :-)) so big snows were a bit more commonplace back then.

"Our snow is wet and on the roads and sidewalks it quickly turns to skating-rink ice."

John, I saw this on the news from Portland (I think) and wondered what this woman was thinking with her "perfect texture."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2tA7fzugxM

Nice relief today, almost balmy being calm and just about 32. Seeing some drips. Some thaw. Warming all week. The high says 56. (what!?)

Good news is the emerald ash borer will see lower numbers. Not totally eradicated but possibly down by 80%. And some ticks and other insect pests. Very low temps cuts down invasive species quite a bit.

Yup,-30 Celsius this morning (I had to google that -22 Fahrenheit). It’s been that long since Canada went metric.

Last Friday my sister and BIL took my niece to visit a math science magnet school way up in what we call ‘The County’ - Aroostook - potato country. She was impressed by the snowbanks. I forget how big Maine is - the school is almost 4 hours northeast of me. And I live in the willywacks of Central Maine three hours north of the bridge from NH to Me.

I'm so happy that it's up into the upper 40s right now! I'm going around the house singing like I'm actually happy or something...HAHA!

Well, here it's raining. In the 40s tomorrow, then down to 17 tomorrow night, so I'm assuming it'll be slick.

This was a couple of years ago, we can pile up some pretty impressive snow but we have experience and equipment, so we're good at moving snow and getting around in it. That's our old truck, a full size Chevy Silverado with a "crew" cab.

The problem with putting oil on the weatherstripping of the doors is that if you then rub against it while getting in or out, you get oily spots on your clothes. (yeah, ask me how I know) WD 40 and PAM both work too, but can degrade the rubber weather stripping. Rubber conditioner is really best if you want to treat the rubber weather stripping. My problem is that water gets into the locks themselves and then I'm heating my key, or using Lock-Ease. The Enclave does have heated seats, and I have a garage, so I can start the car, turn on the seats, go inside and have a cup of coffee and then leave after the car warms up nicely. It also has all wheel drive to get me though most of the navigable stuff and the old farm truck is 4 wheel drive, of course so we're pretty prepared, usually.

So we're enjoying the break, but it'll only last until tomorrow, then it's back to normal Michigan winter, it looks like the 20s in the day and single digits at night for another month or so.

Annie

62 today. I just washed and cleaned out my car. I counted 19 wild turkeys in my front yard...I've not seen them in a few months. I think I only saw one male, haha. They must have been huddled together somewhere during the cold?

Over here in the upper left corner, the Pac NW had a little snow this week and models suggest it is *possible* we could get a lot of snow this weekend and next week. "A lot" in Portland means more than 6". That doesn't sound like much, but is enough to paralyze The City That Has (Almost) No Snowplows. If the models keep pointing to snow, the "Snowpocalypse" fever will start and the natives will be fighting in the Whole Foods aisles for the last package of gluten-free vegan fresh-caught no-cruelty radicchio. My freezer is full of interesting things begging to be identified, a process akin to archaeology. I wouldn't be surprised to find Otzi the Iceman in there someday, or at least his spare ribs. So I will merely need to toodle to the store to lay in a supply of coffee beans and milk for lattes, and then prepare to hunker down until until the ice melts. There will be cooking.

Have fun cooking, John.

Here we had a little freezing rain this morning, but not enough to stop me from going anywhere and the schools were still open. Grand Rapids got hit a lot harder, South of us, 64,000 people without power. Now more freezing rain tomorrow.

Like John, I need to dig in the freezer and figure out what to cook. Soup, maybe. I made rice pudding for Mother last night, so maybe a raspberry pie tomorrow. Or AnnT's scones with raspberries.

Annie