Great Cat updates. I’ve been following it, @aurora_maire.
Mr.Wrekkers barn cat “Cat” has stayed in his heated barn office for days. I suggested he put a litter box down for her. Or be sorry in a few days. He harrumphed me.
We have a foot of snow on the ground and it’s still coming down. Big wet flakes.
I do believe we’ll survive, though.
Thanks. The power came on about two hours ago while I was out driving around charging my cell phone. Who knows how long it will stay on? It’s so disheartening to wake up in the middle of the night to total darkness and know it’s off, but with no idea when it will come back on.
One kitty always sleeps with on me, but last night both cats did. Their protocols dictate that they must remain a certain distance apart (thankfully, less than six feet). If the proper distance is maintained then it is permissible for each one to pretend the other one doesn’t exist. However, if they somehow violate that distance (like if one of them is sleeping on my shoulder and the other one jumps up on the bed near my head) then protocol demands satisfaction of honor! Immediately!
I reported in another thread, my Siamese are staying on the window seat watching my bird feeders. They are obsessed.
The deck has a group of little fat birds under a deck chair. Shivering. Poor things.
The cats have not noticed them.
I let my hobo chickens out. They do better free. And the regular hens despise them.
Maybe they’ll freeze to death.
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I didn’t do a cat update earlier since they have been doing so well. Right now one is whining but that won’t last long. It’s great because I was really expecting constant howling and knocking down of things. I opened the curtain at one window and I think they have been looking outside. Maybe they do understand they are better off inside. They are at the half-way point now so I’m hoping they can take it just a little longer./
I would think it would be very hard for a cat to do its business in a foot of snow. But litter boxes haven’t always existed so it must be possible.
She has a kitty door that let’s her out into the barn. She’s probably pooping in there. But only the nose knows. I’m thinking Big Wrek may be smelling it next week.
Because this being Arkansas it will probably be 75degrees next week.
Dude smokes cigars. He don’t smell nothin’!
My power went out about nine pm last night so I went to bed. I’m emotionally exhausted anyway. I woke up at 1 am and it was on! And it’s been on ever since. But I don’t trust it.
Water pressure is down all over the county and we’re being told to boil water for drinking or dose with a tiny amount of bleach. I gather the water supply all over the state is threatened, partly because of people dripping their faucets to prevent freezing, partly because frozen pipes are thawing and the water is running (it was 47 here in South Texas yesterday-- all of my snow has melted, but MOSTLY because: [CPS = City Public Service, our electric utility]
It has started to snow. Supposed to snow all day. But my power is still on. And my water pressure is back up. 
Some pics from Texas
Aannd? Are we missing some links?
No, here is the pic from texas:
It’s all white, that’s how snowy it is.
Eta: bah, Discourse is ruining my joke. If you want to see a picture from Texas, look at @kaylasdad99’s avatar. Or @Gatopescado
Yes 
Woke to ice hitting the windows here in Northern Virginia and we’re supposed to get more wintery mix in the morning. We had doctor appointments for tomorrow morning but postponed them.
Our trees iced up this morning, but now it’s gotten just warm enough it’s starting to melt. And small chunks of ice are falling out of the larger trees - it looks like it’s hailing under them.
ERCOT has managed to get statewide power output from the low 40K Megawatt range Tuesday to 65K this afternoon, so unless some power lines get downed, you should be OK.
Indeed, the length and spottiness of the power cuts, coupled with impassable sheet-ice roads, was nerve-wracking, with no way of even guessing when it would come back. I grew up in western PA and have worked in arctic conditions, so you’d think I’d be used to a bit of winter weather, and yet somehow this past week in Texas has been unpleasant and stressful beyond belief.
I live in Hampton Roads, Virginia, which has been hit with some low-level flooding, but no snow and we only experience freezing temperatures at night.
Nevertheless, a few days ago I spent a couple hours trying to find a place for my friend’s family in Texas to stay for the night with their dogs and cats. No success, but they found a place the following night.
Well, this weather event did turn out to be historic. But not for the reasons I expected. Just when I thought we had gotten through relatively unscathed, the city was put on a boil water advisory until Monday. For the first time in modern history. Too many water mains burst and the pressure got too low, which could cause contaminates to get in the system. But I have water and power to boil it so it’s not a major problem.
The sun was out today and even though it didn’t get above freezing, the melt began. I went out and pushed some of the snow to the sides of my driveway to facilitate this. The temp will be 10 tonight but it will be above freezing during the day for a while. Hopefully, most of this will be gone by Monday because I really need to resupply then.
Here we are on night 6. I was going to let the cats out tomorrow but there is still several inches of snow and the low tomorrow night will be 27. They have been in their shelters at that temp but since they have been inside and warm, I don’t want to shock them. And they have been such good little prisoners. Plus, I’ve seen cat pawprints on the porch so a cat has been using the shelters at night. I hope that is not going to cause a problem. I think I may keep them in until Sunday, when the low will be 35. I’ll decide tomorrow. /
Did your power come back for good? How’s the water situation?
My power came back for good on Thursday morning at 1 am. It took me a long time to trust that it would stay on. It’s interesting-- 99% of your (modern American/Western) life you count on the electricity being there. A couple of days where it simply shuts off suddenly in the middle of nothing-- lifelong trust in your utilities goes right out the window.
And as you said, the sun was out all day Saturday. Friday it had snowed all day, from 8 am until past nightfall-- probably 3-4 inches. But by 1 pm Saturday it was all melted. My plants are all toast (actually, they’re the opposite of toast).
The boil water thing… my water pressure was a little down on Friday but it came right back up. I have stronger water pressure in this house than anywhere I’ve ever lived. However, the boil water decree was issued for the whole city out of an “abundance of caution.” I found an 8-pack of bottled water that I had bought years ago and forgot about in my fridge in the garage, so I’ll get by with that until Monday.
I’m not going to try to go to the grocery store today or maybe even tomorrow. I’ll drive over and take a look. I’m not in dire straits, so I can let others go ahead of me. No, that’s not being a martyr.
My wonderful old dog Sweetie hasn’t hesitated to go out in the backyard to pee, etc., even while the snow was falling, God bless her. One cat has gone out into the snow, but the other one didn’t venture out until yesterday afternoon when most of the snow was gone.
I got away totally unscathed except for some emotionally wrenching moments when I went to bed with power on and woke up alone, as always, in the night to a dark, cold house, knowing it would likely be dark, cold, and lonely all day. That was a very bad feeling-- I haven’t been able to put my finger on what it reminded me of-- that waking into a feeling of being utterly abandoned and bereft with no one to reach out for.
Others had and are still having it much, much worse. All of this because Texas has to be stupidly independent and go it alone.
We had a power malfunction in my building yesterday. One phase of the 3-phase building feed transforrmer failed at about 2pm. Fortunately no explosions. Which meant some apartments were unaffected but most apartments had wonky power where about half the lights worked, but all the 220V stuff like HVAC, stove, oven, and clothes dryer did not.
The local power company was decently responsive, with diagnosis complete within an hour-ish. A couple hours later a large repair crew was on scene. Power was cut completely at about 5pm to start repairs and came back completely about 10 pm. Getting the two-ton transformer out of the building’s power vault and the new one back in was a job.
As many of our residents commented: I’m sure glad it’s 70F, not -5F tonight.
Being in the burbs, we also had decent ambient light from nearby buildings, roads, etc. Apartments were dark, but not dead dark. There was plenty of city light to walk the grounds or use the stairs safely.
We got off easy; Good luck to everyone else. It was a sobering reminder just how electricity-dependent our entire way of life is.