It was 57°F in the bedroom when I woke up Saturday morning. Of course, that was 50 degrees warmer than it was outside, and the wind chill was in the -30s. I was comfortably warm under the covers, but I wasn’t looking forward to my bare feet hitting the chilly floor. Eventually, I got up. It was definitely a day to dress in front of the wood stove.
The wind wasn’t so bad when I was walking the dog, but I had worn my farm boots because of the four inches of snow we had received. My feet got cold. In hindsight, my insulated hunting boots would have been a better choice.
The dog had a ball. She loves the snow. It was a light powder instead of the damp, clumpy stuff we often get.
The chickens hate the snow. I cleaned it off their gangway—the little chicken stairs that let them go in and out of their coop—but they were in no hurry to go outside. I stomped down the snow and kicked it out of the way so they could reach their water. We had three eggs. All things considered, I thought that was pretty good.
It snowed all day, but the accumulation was slow. We had about 8 inches by the time I walked the dog late at night.
I recently asked, how long can you stay home without needing anything from the outside world? The week of snow has been a test for that as we have been up here more than a week.
Frozen Pipes Strike Again
When I woke up Sunday morning, my wife informed me that our water had frozen. This was a surprise because I had checked our cistern on Friday and it was full. That meant the water must have frozen at the point it entered our house rather than somewhere between the spring and the cistern.
It turns out that one of the multiple power outages had tripped the GFI outlet that powered the heat tape wrapped around that piece of pipe. It must have been a doozy of a power outage because it had tripped the GFI outlets in one of our bathrooms and in the basement as well. We had noticed and fixed those, but didn’t think to look at the exterior outlets. (Sigh.) Since the temps dropped to 2°F overnight, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised it froze.
Twelve hours later, it is still frozen. Those heat tapes are better at keeping it from freezing than melting it when solid ice. We expect single digits again on Sunday night, but Tuesday should be warm enough to thaw things out. In the meantime, we are drinking bottled water and using our five-gallon aquatainers for our other needs.
Our solar panels produced a total of 915 watthours on Sunday, which was a sunny day. Without the snow, they would have made 30 times that. Very little sunlight is getting through the six or eight inches of snow we received. We’re hoping they will also melt clear on Monday or Tuesday.
It just goes to show you, even when you have off-grid systems in place, things can still go wrong.
A Beautiful Day in the Teens
Despite the lack of water and solar power, it was a beautiful day. The sun was bright; the air clear. My boots crunched and squeaked on the snow. The only other sound was a lone bird looking for a friend.
Two nights before, under a not-quite-full moon, the dog had barked while we were outside. Then she paused, and at least three coyotes yipped and yapped back at her from a couple hundred yards away. She barked again. This time, only a lone coyote answered. She barked once more, her deep woof echoing off the hills, and they fell silent. As a flock protection dog, her job is to scare away coyotes and other predators before they get close enough to endanger the goats or sheep she should be guarding. Because we only raise chickens, she has very little chance to practice her craft, so I think she enjoys these vocal duels with the coyotes.
Inside, the house grows colder with every passing day. The cold seeps through the thick log walls, no matter how much wood we pile into the wood stove. The temperature in the basement has slowly fallen from 71 to 67 degrees with only brief forays closer to 70 when we load up the stove. The garage is 43 degrees. Long underwear has become a way of life.
It’s like this for a week or two most winters, but we tend to forget.
Snow Falls, Silver Tumbles
Alas, snow wasn’t the only thing that fell last week. Gold dropped back below $4,900, down about $90 from the week before, but down more than $500 from its mid-week high. Silver fared worse, closing at $85.15 on the week, down from $103.08 the Friday before. That doesn’t sound too bad, but it was down about $30 for the day as it had zoomed up during the week.
Many are blaming Trump’s nomination of former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh to succeed Jerome Powell as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The folks in this camp say markets don’t think he will cut rates as fast as another chair might. Still, he won’t take over until May, if his nomination is approved, so this action strikes me as premature.
Others point the finger at big banks, which they say are manipulating the markets to bring down the price so they can exit their short positions with minimal losses. I think this is more likely the case, and they used the Warsh nomination as cover. We’re unlikely to ever know.
It will be interesting to see what the market does on Monday. I am thinking rebound after this correction shakes out the weak hands. Either way, my paltry pile of junk silver is still worth more than it was two weeks ago. Even if silver falls to $40 an ounce, that’s still more than I paid.
More Internet Troubles
Our fiber optic provider went down on Friday, so we limped along on Starlink Standby, which is about 500 Kbps, or less than 1/200th of our normal bandwidth. That’s fine for texting and I conducted one phone call on it, although another went straight to voicemail while using it. Many of our apps still work on standby, but photos load like they used to on dial-up, one third at a time or not at all. Streamign is not practical. I have to give Google kudos. Their pages loaded the fastest. They obviously take site loading efficiency to heart.
Our local provider had no uptime estimate, so we reactivated our Starlink package for the high-speed service.
Knowing we could do this while on standby and using only the app on my phone was a good test. While I am paying about a third for fiber compared to what the full-strength Starlink costs, the fiber’s lack of reliability is making me reconsider the value of that savings.
Some locals posted on Facebook that they got their fiber service back, only to have it go out again in 30 minutes. We reconnected after about 36 hours, but the service was still spotty, so we have returned to Starlink.
Not sure what our ground-based provider’s problem is or if it was weather-related.
Disclaimer:I am a prepper, not a financial advisor or precious metal specialist. The information on this site is for educational and preparedness purposes only. Precious metals markets are volatile; always do your own research and consult with a professional before making significant financial decisions.
