Our temps have been in single digits mostly BUT wind chill is -30.  And one of my idiots (squirt) tried to go swimming yesterday in the ditch. Its froze and i dont like her in the water when its colder then 20.  Spider seems to be allergic to the sun the heat the extreme cold the wind, i dont get her sometimes 

Step son said it was 17 this am in houston.

@Polarpup21 I've been in MN but never found any reason to stay; I been to DC and really never found any reason to stick around there (put some time in at Ft Devens and then Ft Meade) in between military, politics and political traffic! I got out of there as quickly as I could.

Now LA on the other hand I fell in love with. Spent a couple of years as the Director of Information Systems for a smallish company and lived in Lake Charles for 3-4 years. The people in the state I generally liked, the attitude of some of those people left a lot to be desired --nuff said there.

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@Amymeme I don't even want to think about 17° much less 7° much less 0 those aren't funny! What's even worse in my case is that I no longer even have any clothes for anything approaching that kinda temps. When I moved down from up north I had a parka and thermals and wool socks. The parka got left in the closet for so long that when I pulled it out for a cold spell (well, it was in the 20's) it literally fell apart ... the material was goo but the cotton thread that held it together had rotted!
That's not quite true, I do have a military jacket with a liner that's good for most cold weather but wha I wear most down here is what would pass as a spring/fall jacket up north.

I can't picture calling my vet and asking what I need to do about frostbite on my dog ... after she picked her jaw up (and I could have heard it fall) she'd be asking how either of mine got frostbit!

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@Lostmaniac I can picture 17 in Houston. The first winter after I came south - Houston froze! Even the contractors couldn't get pipe for repairs, there was a lot of "I'll fix it so it won't leak but ..." they were actually running spots on TV news abut what companies were able to get out and make repairs.

Was the water solid when Squirt tried to go swimming ... I'm not sure which I'd have found more amusing "Dog on Ice" or "Wet dog on Ice" (no that second one doesn't even sound funny for all sorts of reasons.)

Well, made the long road trip home back to DE.. many cars on the side of the road. House was freezing and everywhere covered in snow, much to the pups' delight. It's Nami's first winter

Hope everyone is still hanging in there!

Our area should look like that. I so dont miss maryland and the traffic and the depressing weather.  Im not exactly sure what went wrong the other day but i think we may have had a chimney fire. Cap looks way gunked for only being 4 months old. Doesnt help mostly i have pine and im down to the not quite cured and not quite dry (little snow and ice on some logs).  What makes me think we had one was the black snow that fell and somehow slightly melted whatever snow or ice it landed on. Yeah i know its creosote but that should not have happened on a 4 month old install.  Also having smoke back in the room when i open the box issue the last week.  Today the smoke seemed darker then normal and lasted longer then normal. Usually almost no smoke and its white. Thats bad wood though.

As for squirt, the ditch is about a foot of solid ice right now so no swimming. Rio grande is also froze enough for pond hockey. But in pagosa the san juan doesnt freeze where the hotsprings hit the river and right around the down river of it because its a bunch of them in about an 8th of a mile. And id she can access the water she will go in.

Took her to zapata falls where people get hypothermia in the summer because the water is that cold. But there is a waterfall in a cave so worth the frozen feet. She had a blast. She even caught a trout. 

Still no snow. Funny how its killing the town i live in. Just crazy sub zero wind temps.  Should have feet of snow on the west side of the house and just some ice. Keeps missing south east san juans.  

Wolf creek got some 55inches with the last storm. Im waiting for the road to look a little better before i go over the pass. It sounds like alot but normal is about 200 inches up there and its about 70 at the ski area. It means we are in for a bad fire season and drought. Snowpack is at 61%

Emily - just a note about creosote: with west wood or soft woods or poor draft, a LOT of creosote can build up really fast. As in a few days. You might want to brush your chimney and once it's clear, use a product called ACS anti creo soot. It's a spray you put on the fire, keeps any creosote light and fluffy and easily removed rather than the 3rd degree stuff that's like lava, needs to be chipped off with a drill and is dangerously highly, easily flammable. But just a note - of you do have 3rd⁰ creosote already, remove it first, otherwise the ACS turns out into a larger fluffy mass that can plug your chimney.

Im calling someone to come clean it. The installer said it can happen really fast with a combo of pine that had been snowed on recently and the way a double wall pipe cools at the top when its below 0. My plan is to watch what they do so i can then repeat it myself. Im not even sure how to get to the cap short of calling the fire dept and climbing up the ladder truck.  Ill post a pic but once im on the roof it is like 13ish feet up from where it exits the roof. Has the rocket ship fin going on. 

Nope. I would not go up there. And neither should you! With your recent surgery you don't want to mess anything up.

For whatever reason i have a few screws that like to come loose in the roof so every spring and usually fall i go up there and check the roof. The dovetails make a very nice ladder up to the roof. As for the top of that i am just perplexed short of a lift or disassembly of it.  Its hard to tell from the pick but the roof is rather steep also. 

And we had a spider vs 8yr old incident at bedtime (for 8 yr old) he was hiding under the blanket for spider to find him and he got scratched kind of hard 10 mins in.  I think the mattress being directly on the floor in the loft she can really get wound up up there.

But my step grandpa died today. My stepdad didn't know how other then he fell in his driveway. Not sure if something caused it or it caused something or if it was a cant get up weather related thing. Hes up in the NH mountains.

My mechanic got my engine apart and its just a bad cylinder head. Ill have my truck back soon.

I'm sorry about your step grandpa. And I hope the kiddo is doing ok.

Kiddo will be fine. He asked if she could wake him up for school. The dogs are good for the boys. Thier mom has Gillian Barre and has to get infusions every 3 weeks and its 4 hours away. So they stay over when she goes.

Glad the kid is okay. Kasper has his morning routine where he leaps onto the bed then does a tornado spin multiple times. Definitely not something I want to be in the bed when he performs it but I figure it's only a matter of time before pile drives me in the face with a paw if we don't start training it out of him.

Sorry for the loss of your step-grandpa.

Y'all have these active dogs who do things ... and I have these two who resemble rugs most of the time. But at my age, I think I'd rather have the rugs!

Since the weather's been 'odd' - fantastically warm one day followed by ridiculously frigid the next - I've been feeding them inside. Sky doesn't care but Avalanche wants inside when the weather is cold or wet or windy or ... who knows! They don't eat from their bowl, they eat from whichever one is handy so I have no real idea about who's scarfing down the good stuff. 'Course every once in a while one of them will be eating when the others walks up and gets growled at ... why? just because mostly, I guess.

Time to get out and do some work on the water system again ... but I know if I do that it's gonna last till the next 'freeze' and then give me busted pipes again. Wish I could get someone to work on them who knows what they're doing. Cheap local help gets me cheap work - true 'nuff; but I can't afford someone to make the 80 mile trip down from Alpine ... so I suffer.

That's rough, good luck! We had to come up with some janky solutions to keep the pipes from freezing in Louisiana. Ours were above ground.

Sounds very fluid over there - "we exist as we please!". Mine don't care what the weather is !

Yeah mine do things in like 5 min increments then sleep for like 3 hours. But i would swear mine are allergic to the sun. Spider only does that when the kids are here. We did have an incident where spider almost broke the fence last week. New neighbor with no fence or leash and his cattle dog charged up the hill and growled at splinter. Its the only thing that makes her dog agressive besides squirt.

And its just as much an up and down with the temp. And i got the stupid explorer stuck.... in mud. Not that it isnt a likely scenario, but not for feb1. But we are fluxing between single digits and 50. Should more be neg digits and about 30. We are months from mud season. Its like mid 50s all week including today and tomorrow's high is 20 with up to 40mph wind gusts and snow.

And i feel your pain about the pipes. Ok my pain has nothing to do with pipes,i need to reset the sliding glass door. Yank it, square up the opening then put door in. I watched it installed wrong.  And im going to youtube university putting it back in. I know the carpentry at least in theory. Ive done barns and framing with someone that knew what they were doing, and im over the top detail oriented. But i cant get anyone to do the door or windows that is an actual door and window person even from monte vista or center (both 30 miles) unless its multiple doors or windows and thats out of the budget. And actually right now my budget for non emergency home repairs is you come help me for free and you pay for the supplies.  

Well it will make my dogs very happy if i did actually quit my job tonight. My resignation was not accepted tonight, she wants to see if we can resolve whats going on. Actually its what i wanted. I didnt actually want to quit and financially i just handed 5k to my mechanic to buy the heads and gasket kit and start my rebuild so not a good time, but i sent her a text stating that i was leaving because i felt like she didnt want me working for her and it was making me feel terrible. And she asked if i would come talk to her when she gets back before i make a decision and i agreed.  My grandpa would have beat my ass for even taking the job personally, and mostly he raised me. He was a korean war submariner who thought communication, even if it was yelling and cussing, was the key to being a successful boss.  Im starting to think he was right while simultaneously kicking myself in the ass for not being more direct the last 3 months of trying to talk to her. And this new weird millennial lets talk about our feeling is well weird but i took the advice of a 20something and went for it.

Welp. I've joined the ranks of unexpected repairs. Found all sorts of staining in the upstairs bathroom along the baseboard around where the toilet and tub are. Didn't make sense say first because not next to the toilet base. But rolled out broken pipes or roof leak, started puking up the carpet and now makers sense for either wax ring or flange - there's a thick foam pad under the carpet, probably waterproof so the only party to get the carpet wet is the inch next to the basement where the pad terminates. Can't say when this occurred as that toilet is hardly ever used and I don't go in there unless unless fun exciting faucets forecast extreme cold. Which we haven't had except recently. Hence the discovery. So currently, a work in progress. Last step now, get those bolts off the bottom of toilet. Then assess subfloor damage, decide on new toilet (this one is almost 50 years old and GREEN! Nope i have excuse to replace

Well, I've got my problem taken care of, at least for the time being. I have water back in the house - through a pipe - which is a good thing.

I need to figure out what's going on with these pups of mine. I already know that Avalanche isn't going to go out of the weather is acting up at all - rain / snow / wind, nope, he's going to stay inside and it's not a problem. Since I've been feeding them both inside - which is a switch, most of the time I feed them on the porch - they've been acting like they're not hungry. 'Course when Sky eats out of Avalanche's and vice versa, like I said once before, I'm never sure who's eating how much. If the weather stays like this (er, almost 70 and sunny) they're going to get their meals on the porch!

What's really bugging me is that Sky has started objecting to the crate and I object to her pissing in the kitchen when I leave her out. I haven't had a good nights sleep in a week because she keeps 'tossing and turning.' Much more of this and I'll be taking her for a vet visit.

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@Amymeme, the last time I tried to take the bolts off the base of a toilet I ended up breaking them off from the rust. I am not a plumber ... and good luck!!

Poor Sky! That's odd. I wonder if she has a UTI?
Is anything going on with Avalanche?

Sky has had this problem with leaking since I first got her, say, 12 years ago.  I can deal with a spot on things but it's the dumping a river that gets to me.  She's never had a problem with being in the crate overnight but for the last month (or so) she just can't get comfortable (for lack of a better term.)

Avalanche - nothing there, I worry about him because he's getting on in years - like 13+ of them! - but you'd never guess that he's that old (or that Sky is either, really.)

I got a dog bed that she lays on in the living room, sometimes. I think I'll put it in her crate and see if that causes more or less problems. (( Well, no I won't, it seems as if it's about two inches too big all the way round. ))

Ami does all sorts of weather. Except heat and thunder. Wants no part of that. But wind, rain, snow, deep cold? It's the call of the wild and he hear's his ancestors - the more wild and woolly the better. But, weird enough, he's this winter here's decided he wants to spend evenings in his dog house. And often, even in the daytime. I've no objections as long as the winds isn't too much - his dog house is under a pine tree for shade. The only down side is the straw sticks to his fur and he sheds it in the house. Just swept up a bunch. But. It sure is better than mud!

Al - a little ACF50 drizzled on the bolts overnight and the came off easy as pie!

We got a foot of snow and still coming. Couldnt get them in this am, now its windy and they are in indoor rug mode.

Plumbing is not my thing. When it stops snowing ill go outside amd take some pics of my wood shed. Never under estimate the power if creativity and duct tape.

@amymeme my bathtub is green. And worse someone painted purple grapes and leaves on it and the walls.

Miserable weather today, and I had to go drop off some 'stuff'. 79 but little sun!

My two have spent the better part of the last two nights outside. I'm okay with that until I hear the coyotes coming too close. Sky was out till after 10:PM, came in and by midnight she was complaining about the crate, at 04:00 I let her back out ... heard the coyotes at 06:00 and she wasn't going to come in unless I dragged her and by then I was just to blamed tired.

And I'm still tired!

How's the hip doing, Al?

Emily- I can just imagine green with hand painted grapes!

Beginning of a warmup - 39⁰ today, 49⁰ tomorrow. Nights still below freezing. Maple syrup weather!

'the hip' ... oh, you mean that persistent sore that's not quite on my derrière but close?  I've been getting Sky out for a walk, not every day but more often than not and the pain is diminishing, still there but not as bad as it was by a long shot.

Green tub with hand painted red globe grapes ... that would be enough to make me take a walk in the woods when the need arose.  

It was real close to 80° today, dropping to 40° overnight with a high tomorrow (today) of 60 something.  I know those sound nice but it's been roller coaster enough that half the town is sick (... or is just pollen??)

Trying to decide whether I'm gonna let Sky in or not.  She and Avalanche went out before bed time - about 10 - and stayed out for almost an hour and then she didn't want to come in.  I had to get up for a night call, so checked mail and ??? while she's setting over there saying "Let me in!"  I would but by 4:00 she's gonna want out of her crate again ... gotta do something here!!

ETA: It didn't get to 60° today after being 80° yesterday ... mother nature has lost her ever loving brain!

Avalanche is blowing his winter coat, Sky still has a firm grip on hers; Bluebonnets are coming up ( dead certain harbinger of spring ... they say ) but the mesquite, which normally green up early, haven't even. Spring is on its way ... I Just wish someone would tell me when!

That is an outside schedule I do not envy!!
I'm glad your hip is feeling better ish.

My 8 m/o husky wakes me up at 2-3, 5, and 6 am and then is relentless. Her victims are the couch if I'm not up.

My Sky is content to stay out for ages and I have to incentivize her to come in. Sometimes I think she's just waiting for me to acknowledge her and then she rushes in. She's beginning to shed again

Ok, guys, don't hate me - Ami let's us sleep until 10-10:30 AM if I'm not up earlier. I usually wake up anywhere from 8 to 10 depending on what time we went to bed, whether i had a nap the previous day and how my asthma is going. But once I'm up, he's a woo woo wooing fool for his breakfast. Actually - his joy is contagious and makes getting out of bed worth the effort.

We saw 60⁰ today!!! Most of the snow is now gone except what is on the northern edge of woods or buildings. Down the hill, they haven't had snow in days, some places, weeks. That may change next week - temps for sure, snow maybe but not much is the forecast at the moment.

Al, i just read am unwelcome statistic - 10% of hip replacements and 20% of knee replacements result on chronic pain. My thoughts now are something like hell freezing over before my knee gets replaced. Especially since I've concluded that B my pain and Baker's cyst were likely the result of acute injury rather than chronic arthritis. Right now i have very little ongoing pain despite bone on bone arthritis. We'll see what happens this spring when i try to make a garden