Winter storm 1/18/2019 thru 1/20/2019

It started the 18th, Hubby said I really didn't need to give him a present of plowing snow for the weekend of my birthday. I thought it was good as I was born between a snow storm and a flood. I spent Friday baking and figuring out what I wanted to fix that could be cooked and reheated.

Saturday morning we did a test run for a hour of the generator running the house. Hubby made sure it was full when we turned it off.Four deep freezers, 2 refrigerators, sump pump, water pump and furnace... the small generator did fine, you almost couldn't tell when the furnace fan or the deep freezer kicked on, the pull wasn't enough to make that much of a difference. I am glad Hubby got one that he knew would handle the whole house. Can't run the dryer on it as it's 220 and that would pull hard. But I am not running the dryer much any ways. I did pull drinking water so if we ran out of fuel while Hubby was working and couldn't get home that I would have water. I can drain the water lines and have small "buddy" propane heaters (with a window open some for ventilation). My gas stove burner work without electric but the oven won't if we don't have electric. As long as the generator works everything is about normal as we don't run a lot of things at one time anyways. Hubby had to go to work at midnight so supper of leftover lasagna was early. I pretty much worked in the pantry in the basement so not to disturb him while he was sleeping.

Sunday. this morning I woke and was surprised the dogs hadn't woke me up during the night or early this morning like was normal for them. Guess they didn't want to deal with the nasty weather either.Temp was 5 with wind chill of 8 below. I let them out through the basement to go up the ramp and through the garage that is just a tarp covered garage in a box, so Wilbur could actually go potty away from the house, he slid off the kitchen porch last night trying to jump through the drift and only caught part of the porch , not hurt but worried us enough to change how he goes out until we clear a  path for him and the porch isn't slick. Charlotte and Rascal seemed to wait for him and he followed their footsteps this morning. We call Charlotte snow bunny as she loves running around in the snow.

Hubby cleared the back door when he got home this morning. Could not get the F350 (large dual wheel truck) up the driveway so he has spent all morning plowing his own driveway.I'm not sure he will get to snow blowing the sidewalk to the barn , drift is up to my waist or the couple pathways he was talking about making for Wilbur and Rascal (as Rascal has had a leg injury and that flares up when it's this cold) to go potty away from the house. They still haven't let him know if he is working tonight or not. They might have him come in on Monday instead since it's a holiday and they weren't suppose to work the holiday.

I have a chuck steak in the oven on low as if it was a roast for supper.  I will start a brisket for tomorrow in a bit.

 I did put a load of laundry in to wash this morning, with the wind chill I won't be using the line but want to keep the electric down. I can get one good load on my drying rack. So it's a load or two every day this week.

I need to get started on the brisket, it can share the oven with tonight's supper.