4 posts tagged “weather”

Let's review. Last week, temps were appallingly low. I recall one morning being 8F when I got up to let the chickens out at dawn, and that's not with any wind chill factored in. The next day, the morning temp was 5F without the windchill. BRRRR!

Yesterday, we reached a high of 63F. Today, it was again near 60F. The snow has all melted and we are now having thunderstorms, rain, and are under a tornado warning. There's already been a report of a tornado touching down about 70 miles from here.

Crazy stuff!

It's supposed to start getting colder tomorrow, thank goodness. Oh, I love warm weather like this, but not in January. The gardener in me just cringes at this stuff. Last year, many people lost perennials and fruit harvests because of crazy weather like this. We had an extended warm front move in, all the snow cover melted, trees started to bud, and then WHAM! a frigid cold front quickly whipped in and killed things. Not good.

The chickens are doing just fine, though. What hardy girls they are! They were out and about during the day when we had that cold snap. I guess they have plenty of warm feathers and can stand a high of 15F. My winterizing of the Eglu has been successful so far. The lowest the temp has gotten inside the Eglu is 30F, and they seem to be comfortable enough at night.

I know we will see more frigid temps this winter, but I'm really hoping that the days in the teens are limited. Just in case, I've purchased some woolen tights to wear under my pants. Standing on the train platform it can feel pretty brisk!

I often find it amazing how many "wilderness-type" animals you can find in the city. Yesterday morning I was standing at the kitchen sink and looking out the window when I noticed something in the alley. It was a bird -- a small raptor -- sitting in the alley with something in it's talons. It took off after a moment with it's quarry (I think it may have been a mouse or small rat) still clutched tightly. 

I didn't have time to grab the camera, but I remembered it's distinctive look. I consulted my Birds of Illinois book (conveniently located in a drawer on the other side of the kitchen) and I'm pretty sure it was a kestrel. I remember very clearly seeing those black lines on it's head.

Luckily, this little raptor is not capable of catching a chicken!

After our warm interlude, yesterday's weather was quite a shock. When I went to bed early Sunday morning (about 1 AM I think) it was 49 F outside. When I got up at 7 AM to tend to the chickens, it was 17 F. Not only was it bitingly cold and snowing lightly, but the wind gusts were terrible. I don't know the official speed they were clocked at, but they left quite a mess for me to clean up in the backyard.

The plastic covering the Eglu and run was completely blown off, despite being weighted down by landscaping pavers. The run floor, which I had just refreshed the day before with a nice bed of dry leaves, was now covered with a thin layer of snow. The Eglu coop door mechanisms were a bit iced up (this is just the problem I try to prevent by covering it with plastic) but they did open. The chickens didn't seem to mind the cold at all, they still eagerly ran to get their food.

Not only did I have to wrestle the run covering back in place in those amazing wind gusts (and add more bricks to weigh down the plastic), I also had to deal with the cold frame cover being blown off. One side was laying across the yard, even though the cover had been weighted down, too, with some small weights. I had to place a landscaping brick on top of the cold frame covers to keep them from being blown off again.

So, even though I had planned to just quickly tend to the chickens and then return to bed for more sleep, it didn't work out that way. No wonder I was so tired last night that I passed out at 9 PM!

This may be true of many things, but at this time I'm referring to getting soaked by rain. The downpour was so severe this afternoon and evening that even with an umbrella it just didn't matter. I have a 1.5 block walk from my office to the train station. I used my umbrella, but was still soaked from the knees down and from the shoulders down when I walked into the station.

The station itself was like a mini-refugee camp -- commuters stranded by delayed trains due to the inclement weather -- but luckily the line my train runs on was operating on time. Almost a miracle when you consider that the sudden storm with wind gusts up to 80 miles per hour downed trees, limbs, roofs, assorted debris, and power lines across the region. I just wanted to get home to check on my "girls": both the canine and the avian variety. That's why I braved the the monsoon in the first place; I was really quite snug and dry at the office and could have held out for another hour or so.

The chooks are just fine. They had the sense to seek shelter inside their snug, dry Eglu. While they may have had to cut their dining/grazing time short (all the food is served up in the attached run and not in the Eglu coop itself), they at least weren't getting pummelled by wind-driven sheets of rain like some of us. The dogs were enthusiastic about my homecoming as usual, but also extremely anxious about the thunder and lightening. I've given them a bit of Bach Rescue Remedy, although I'm not sure how much it will help Hannah since she gets nearly catatonic in these situations.

Mark, on the other hand, had to do the most foolhardy thing. He decided that the storms were safely past us and that he could ride his bike home. Yes, he thought he could cycle the 10+ miles (about 1.5 hours) home safely without encountering any weather issues. Nevermind that by 4:30 PM the local news sites were full of reports of flooding, downed trees and branches, downed power lines, and general mayhem. And that more storms were on their way. No, he thought that he could just dash home before those new storms hit us. I was still stuck in the office and talking with boss at about 6:30 PM when Mark called me to say "I'm OK. I got caught in the rain riding home, but I'm stopped in a dry spot and I kept my phone dry." Stupid, stupid, stupid!

So, we both got pretty wet tonight. But we're safely home now, snug and dry. And I can reflect on the nicer things that have occurred in the past few days. Like...

• Completing a knitting project. That's all I'll disclose for now since I still have to block it. But the knitting was completed last night.
• Letting the chooks out to wander the yard for the first time yesterday afternoon. They had a ball! Look!

Checking out the greenery

Checking me out

It was really quite difficult to get them back into the run, even though it was starting to get dark. They tasted every bit of greenery they could reach -- even the stuff that really isn't good for them (they seemed to figure that out on their own, too) -- and really streched their wings, too. Yep, it'll be difficult to keep them happy in their run after that taste of freeddom! The dogs, meanwhile, were kept in the house or paraded out individually on a leash to sit several yards away from the chickens. We're still not ready to mix dogs and birds yet. I guess that's more of long-term project!

What a grey, blah day! It started out cool and overcast and has progressed into sporadic showers and drizzle and gotten even more cold. Is is still August? It feels more like late April or early May.

Luckily, the wet held off until after Rachael and I had a chance to hit the Green City Market early this morning. My produce haul included a watermelon, a muskmelon, sweet corn, golden cauliflower, swiss chard, carrots (both orange and yellow), cucumbers, a tomato for Mark, and peaches. I also picked up some pastured pork chops and more lamb bratwurst from Mint Creek Farm. The one pack of this bratwurst I picked up at our previous visit to the market were so lean and tasty that Mark specifically requested that I get more.

The last time we visited Green City Market we didn't realize that the $4 parking validation was only good for one hour. We ended up paying $12 to park in the lot and were not happy about it. This time, we found metered street parking about 5 blocks away and just hauled everything back in the cart. $2 in quarters for 2 hours was much better than $12 for 2 hours! And we had plenty of time to shop, sip coffee, and eat a fresh crepe.

The Air and Water Show was starting in the afternoon and people were pouring in with their gear by the time we were leaving. Poor folks probably got good and wet when the rain really started after noon.

I usually end up picking up a dozen eggs at the market, but still have some left from the last visit. Soon (hopefully) I won't have to worry about getting eggs at all.

The past 2 days have made me really glad that I sprung for the full run cover from Omlet. Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day and not extremely hot, but I noticed that the Ash tree underwhich I placed the Eglu wasn't providing any shade in the afternoon. The poor girls were huddled into the small bit of shade cast by the standard run cover. So, I went out and put the full run cover into place. Today the same cover was much needed to keep the girls dry in this rain. Yes, that was a good idea I had to order that extra cover!

The treat today for the girls was some of the carrot greens, hung from the ceiling of the Eglu run. They didn't seem to like the carrot greens as much as they liked the nasturtium greens I hung up yesterday. So, a few hours later I gave them the chopped up stems of the swiss chard. They like those much better.

I snipped up the rest of the carrot greens and put them in the worm bin instead. The worms are doing very well and I'm noticing lots of little baby worms. I had started out with just a handful that Jamie shared with me about 3 months ago, and now I'm sure the population is three times that.

Since it has been so cool today, I decided to roast the beets I bought a few weeks ago. It got really hot after I bought them and there was no way I wanted to turn on the oven. I cut off the greens and stored them in the refrigerator where they've sat and sat for the past month. These are golden beets and I'm not sure if it's the fact that the variety is less flavorful than the red ones, if they've just sat too long, or if I didn't roast them right, but they taste sort of bland. I saved the skins and ends for the chooks, and I may just end up sharing all the beets with them.

Tonight we dine on poached wild salmon and fresh sweet corn. Yum!