Good Morning All. Cloudy and 21°, possibly going up to 32° later today. We seem to be holding out OK on this sixth day of deep freeze. Still have five gallons of unopened drinking water left and it's possible that the rolling blackouts have stopped. Last night, we had power from 5:10 until 8:10, three hours on after just an hour off. I went to bed shortly after and I don't know about overnight, but every time that I took a bathroom break, the power was on and it's on this morning. Cannot tell if it's back on for good because the electric provider's website has not been informative at all. They just keep the statement from the state's energy grid up that explains the what and why of the rolling blackouts. All plumbing is frozen solid as a result of the water company's failure to provide enough pressure to even keep faucets dripping. Things won't thaw out until Saturday at best although it will get above freezing for a few hours Friday. Mid to upper 60's starting Tuesday. I am already on my plumbers wait list although he can't give an ETA yet. Heck, if I am lucky no pipes will burst since the water slowed to a trickle and the freeze-up was slow. The new beer fridge on the back porch worked well.
The plan is right now to head to Dallas to my daughter's home tomorrow and do laundry and shower up before returning home tomorrow evening. Important to keep the fire going. The dishwasher is full, but we still have plenty of utensils to last another week except spoons which I will wash in melted snow and rinse in some of the drinking water. Wood burning stove has done it's usual remarkable job in keeping the whole house warm so I was able to use one of the supplemental electric heaters to help the ones in the train shed to at least keep everything just barely above freezing out there. I moved these photoelectric LED pathway lights from the porch, inside to provide some light that works better than candles.
During the power outages in the daytime, we've been busy doing a difficult jigsaw puzzle, at night we play strip poker with large readable cards in the reduced light.
Poached eggs and a lot of bacon (if
Jesse left any) with my OJ this morning. I don't drink coffee so I'll pass on his offer for that.
Thanks for all of the likes on the sporadic postings over the last week.
Thanks also for all of the well wishes from all forum members during this unusual weather issue that we're experiencing. It too will pass.
Needless to say, I miss the train shed, although I went out there for about 20 minutes of train running yesterday while we were still in the blackout mode during an on phase.
Can't comment on all of the posts from the past week, but a few stand out.
Tom O - Sorry to read that your trip to the islands was a bust. There will be another opportunity soon.
Hughie - In your area, I see that my childhood buddy and classmate for 9 years during the 60's, J
im "Mattress Mack" McIngvale opened up his furniture stores as warming centers for Houstonites. He had previously done so during hurricanes Harvey and Imelda. I just noticed that the Wikipedia article about him no longer has his interest in race horses documented.
Jim - I am actually about 65 miles north of the DFW area. As such, we were spared the ice and only got snow.
Karl - Glad to read that the recovery is going well.
I am going to sign off now, and monitor the rolling blackout to see if it really is over. Everybody have a great day, Stay warm and safe.
as to what that will be.....
Nice beer fridge.
