Heaters are going
our cold spell continuing
the full moon looks on
Our Super Blood Moon has been gorgeous the past few nights, albeit coinciding with our coldest cold snap so far this winter, with two full days that didn't venture above freezing.
That said, our coldest temperature so far has been 16 degrees F (8.9 degrees C), which is a full 19 degrees warmer than our coldest January temperature for the past three years running, when our coldest temp reaches minus 3 degrees F (minus 19.4 C), and the rest of the month is forecast to remain well above that level.
Tonight was predicted to have a low temperature of 27 degrees F (minus 2.8 C), but we reached 24 degrees a while ago, and it has since climbed back up to 26 degrees.
Of course, our long term forecasts have the remainder of our winter at below average temperatures, but as January is nearly always our coldest month, I'm guessing (okay, hoping), that our temperatures won't dip into the negatives.
The worst thing about this cold spell is that it came directly on the heels of torrential rains, which meant that as our temperatures plummeted our roads became an icy mess, which made me doubly glad that I had gotten my errands done the previous day and so I didn't have to be on the roads.
And, as usual, the worst of the weather was to our north, which meant that the messiest of the weather missed us entirely, including the massive snows that crippled so many towns and highways.
In any case, even being at home I had to be out in the cold while feeding the outside animals, and as I still can't locate my good insulated gloves, I wound up having to come inside several times just to allow my hands time to thaw out from the wind chill.
I do still have my true winter gloves, which I purchased at REI in 2010 while we were still searching for our property, but they are heavy insulated gloves, meaning that I basically can't do anything with my fingers while wearing them, so in order to have anything approaching dexterity, I have to take them off, negating their value.
My good gloves I ordinarily keep in the pockets of my main winter jacket,but I took them out so that I could wash it without damaging them, and promptly forgot where I put the blessed things.
I'm typically good about keeping my winter gear together, but not this time, or else the cats have hidden them and are holding them ransom for wild caught sardines. Yeah, that explains it!
The good thing is that the cold doesn't seem to phase the animals. Both rabbit fur and dog fur is reportedly seven times warmer than sheep's wool, and true to form, even in the coldest weather, the rabbits don't even bother with their boxes, but sleep on top of them or on top of their bedding.
If it's -3 degrees, Lolo runs out and pretty quickly wants back in, but at 8 degrees F (-13.3 C), he'd still run around and play first. Tonight, at our coldest 24 degrees F, Hunter came over and he and Lolo played together for well over an hour before Lolo asked to come inside. Tough boys. The advantage of having thick fur.
Before I got Muscovy ducks, I was concerned about keeping them warm, knowing they are native to South America, but I needn't have worried. We have a warm coop for them and the chickens, but the ducks almost always blow it off completely, preferring to roost in the open on top or in front of the rabbit cages. Go figure.
My next-door-neighbor was born near here, but lived for part of her childhood in Ohio, which gets a whole lot colder than here, and for a much longer time.
She told me that her mom had Muscovies, and they used to cut holes in the ice on the ponds, so that they could swim in the dead of winter. Tough birds, very cold hardy, and way more resilient than I realized.
I wish I could free range them, and will attempt to do so when we have better fencing, but at this point both Lolo and Hunter would clearly be their primary threats, so good fencing first is mandatory.
Even the guinea pigs, which I've read consistently are quite sensitive to the cold, have proven to be far more cold hardy than is commonly thought.
I do take care to keep their cages as draft-free as possible, with the only opening to the south, where the wind is blocked by the house, and they are covered well enough that they and their food are protected from the rain.
I also take care to give them plenty of straw to burrow into on really cold nights, but their cages are covered with Tyvek bags and a plastic tarp, uninsulated, and yet they came through last winter's minus 3 and single digit temperatures none the worse for wear, and no one got frostbite to their ears, which is reportedly their weakest point in the cold.
Again, the advantages of having fur coats. They are tough little suckers. And funny. And fast. Ask me how I know. ;-)
So today was a check up day for Lolo with his new holistic vet, which is just over a two hour drive in each direction, which coincided with Marek getting into town, so I took ok with the expectation that we would stay together somewhere in the vicinity of Nashville or Gallatin for the night.
C'est la vie, the fates had other ideas, and so after an all-too-short dinner together, we parted ways and I came home while he continued on to his next stop in Kentucky. Sigh.
So I stopped to get coffee at the Pilot truck stop in Lebanon, the better to not fall asleep while driving home, and ran into a couple of young guys with back packs and guitars (okay, one was a bass), who had a tiny black puppy with them, that set Lolo to whining at once.
So as I started to walk past them, I told them that Lolo wanted to meet the puppy so badly he was whining, and they laughed and introduced me to their puppy, a pit bull/black lab mix (that looked mostly black lab) names Spectre.
Great name, and he was teething, so chewing on my hand was his chosen means of introduction. ;-)
We started talking music, as they said they had just hitchhiked here from California, while busking and playing music along the way, and they loved that in Nashville, nearly everyone has something to do with the music industry.
They had in fact run into a guy, who gave them a ride to the Pilot, who had given them the phone number of a producer that might be able to help them to further their careers musically.
I started to take my leave, at which point the older of the two guys mentioned that they were in fact looking for spare change, as they had no place to spend the night, and didn't particularly want to sleep in the open behind some store.
I don't typically carry much cash, so I had a grand total of a $5 bill, which I promptly handed over and wished them well, and for which they thanked me profusely. I felt good about these guys and it was the right thing to do.
I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
We then talked more about music, and the older guy mentioned that he'd grown up playing all kinds of genre, as limiting your genres limits your growth as a musician, with which I completely agree.
I asked if they were familiar with Steven Wilson, and the younger guy immediately piped up, exclaiming excitedly, "I am! Porcupine Tree! Opeth!"
I was surprised, but delighted, and that led to my asking if he knew Storm Corrosion, the one-off project/album with Steven Wilson and (Opeth front man) Mikael Akerfeldt, which he did not, but said he would follow up on. He in turn turned me onto a couple of groups that I've known only by name and I'll be checking them out as well.
He played bass, and then talked about the different bass players he admired, and I asked if he knew Riverside, as he might well have come to know then through Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree, among their greatest influences.
I recommended that he get to know their music, along with lead man Mariusz Duda's solo project Lunatic Soul, as he is among my favorite bass players, as well as one of my favorite songwriters, lyricists and singers, and his deceptively simple bass lines are regularly among my favorites. Great stuff.
I asked if I could buy them a cup of coffee, since it was already in the high twenties, and they took me up on it immediately. We went in and chose our preferred brews, and when I got in the checkout line, the woman asked me, "Is that it?," pointing to my coffee.
I said "No, three coffees," indicating the two guys behind me, and she said, "You're good." I started to hand her my card, and she said again, "You're good. It's just coffee. Have a nice night."
So I tried to do a good deed by giving the gift of hot coffee on a cold night, and God and the Universe chose, through this lovely woman, to make it a gift for all three of us.
I had told them that part of our plan upon moving here was to start a music studio, which is still not set up, which led to a further discussion of recording equipment and instruments, and the older guy asked once we got it set up, if it had a name so they could find us.
I told him Crescendo of Peace, which is the name of our farm, which he said he'd remember. I gave him the link to my Steemit.com page, and my email address.
When the younger guy commented that a crescendo is a gradual decrease in volume, I said that it is precisely the opposite, and that it is a gradual increase in volume, usually culminating in a loud and vibrant passage reminiscent of the King Crimson "Wall of Sound," to which he replied, "King Crimson! I love King Crimson! I've been telling him all about King Crimson!!!"
Definitely my kind of guys.
I'm sorry to say that, although I know the puppy's name, I didn't get either guy's name, and was so wrapped up that I didn't even realize it until after I drove away. I do hope they contact me, as I think Marek would like them as much as I did.
That said, I was tempted to, and very nearly did offer them a ride to Nashville, but Marek wouldn't have been happy with me giving a ride to two guys I'd just met, even with Lolo in the car, and even if they did have a cute puppy. But the fact remains that, what I really wanted to do, was to give them a ride.
But I am grateful that we connected for the time we did, that I was able to help them out in what little way I could, and that if nothing else, they met a kindred spirit, every bit as much a music nerd as they, who wished them well on their way, and said a few prayers for them as I drove home.
Prayers that they are safe and warm as I am writing this. And now, as I finish this, our temperature is up to 28 degrees F, a full four degrees higher than our low temp of the night.
Life is good, and getting better, better and better.
I am dedicating this post to #gratitudelog, and to further this project, half the liquid proceeds earned from this post will be transferred to the author of the top post(s) chosen using this tag.
The photo above was taken by me on the 19th of January, the day before the full moon, though it looked full when it peeked out from behind its cloud cover.
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