OK guys, enough is enough. Woke up this morning to 27*. Radio says tomorrow morning will be 22*, with hard freeze from 10 tonight till 11 tomorrow morning. This is South Georgia for goodness sake.
I know you guys up north got it worse, sorry to complain, but we don't have the clothes for this kind of weather. And it is supposed to continue for the whole week.
Have you seen the jet stream ?!? It is dipping down below the whole entire USA!! Amazing! It is definitely freezing.
You in the south.....Keep your fingers, toes and ears warm. Light, how are your gardens and plants? It's a good thing you've pulled your orchids inside already.
Like KK said, it's as if we were in a perpetually shaken snow globe. We've had snow daily, amounting to 2 inches or so of fluff. My Eddie Bauer full length down coat is just tremendous about protecting my warmth.
The little critters must be having a harder go of it. This weekend there was a whole flock of robins in my neighbor's yard across the street. Some robins do winter here but they stay in the woods and are never seen. If they are coming out of the woods it is because they are searching for food which is critical for them now but much harder to find with all the snow. Also, this morning, another gift, due to the extreme cold. Something I've only seen once before, blue birds came to my suet feeder this morning, again, driven by their need to maintain their body temperature in order to survive. They are so lovely.
Mom Nature sure is mixed up. KarenGA, that's cold no matter where you are, and being unprepared for those temperatures is very difficult. If you live in cold areas, your house, car, garden and wardrobe are appropriate, but the extremes you are getting are hard to deal with.
Ruff, your bird photos are wonderful. There are always joys in the worst days. I hope someone puts down the snow globe soon! (Love the image!)
We got a foot of snow from the weekend storm, probably because I'm closer to the coast than Ruff.
Karen GA, that IS cold! Especially for you guys! At least here it's always cold in the winter, so we have all the gear for it -- down coats, goretex boots, glacier gloves, etc. -- what do you have? A warm sweater? LOL! We're also acclimated to the cold where you've had no time to build up your "immunity". Stay warm. Too bad I can't send you some "Kayla logs" to help heat your house (do you even HAVE a fireplace?).
I do not have a fireplace, my warmest jacket is my Starter Bulldog, over the head type sport coat. Otherwise I have a fleece jacket, no good warm coats. News said tonight we may not have record setting lows, but will have a record setting string of freezing nights lasting through next Sunday. And the POSSIBILITY of snow on Thur-Fri.
Holy Moley!! Didn't I tell you all to watch where you aimed those snow blowers? For goodness sakes, point them AWAY from us down here! ;)
We reached the lovely high of 53 degrees today and will be lucky if we get to 50 tomorrow. We are running 20-30's at night and below 60/day all week. It's awfully cold and I don't know what my plants are going to think about this. I can't cover my hibiscus or my bouganvilla because they are too tall... My poor Chinese hibiscus is going to take a terrible hit and I'll lose a good half of it if not more. We'll see. My biggest concern is the cat who refuses to be an indoor cat. I've stayed up a bit late the last few days to make sure she came in for the night but one night she stayed out in the freezing temps because she hadn't come in by the time I really needed to go to bed. Hope she comes in tonight...but I'll put a box with some towels on the back porch just in case she doesn't.
Luckily I have a coat but it's a reversable cotton quilted cloth one that only goes down to my hips and anything below that freezes. Living right here on the coast, the wind blows right thru you and there's been ice on my windshield every morning for days now. I've cold to the bone all day in spite of layering a turtleneck under my scrub top at work. Everytime the door opened, I felt it. I'm putting long underwear on tomorrow, LOL.
I am happily sitting with a warm cat on my lap right now but the idea of a fireplace makes me envious. I'll be sleeping under a pile of quilts all week while I wait for it to become Florida again. I DON'T know how you gals do it up north, and I don't WANT to do it down here... I don't want to live in a snow globe... I don't want to dress like an Eskimo... I don't want to have to sleep in sweat suits...
Somebody turn the heat back on!~
And Ruff, I love your bird pictures, too. I need to put more seed out in the morning. I've got more birds than usual out since the cold temps hit... poor things. They thought they were escaping the cold...
You ladies be careful up there with the cold/snow/ice...
I'm REALLY glad I didn't book a sunny Miami vacation this week!!! Do you guys have central heat? I think it was Light that mentioned a heat pump -- those things don't pump heat past a certain mark. I work in a "green building" with a geothermic heat pump and it was pretty darn cold today. It feels like it blows cold air, even in the winter. At home I have forced hot water in baseboard heaters, so nothing is blowing. But when it dips into the teens or below, my boiler can't keep up with it and the house stays in the low - mid 60's which is kind of chilly!
No, no central heat, but I am lucky enough to have a heat pump. Some of the older houses weren't built with any heat at all since, after all, this is Florida :P I think the hardest part of the heat pump is that even though it's blowing "warm" air, it's still blowing air at you and that feels cold. I've been wearing sweats over my pull overs all weekend- and luckily working at a pediatricians office, we have a central heater that keeps the office warm for the little babies. Still, though, I sit in a drafty area near the back door... seriously, I'm wearing long johns tomorrow ;)
Sorry to hear about your cold building conditions. Brrr!! I couldn't do this on a regular basis...a day here or there is bad enough, but 10 straight days of this is waaay too much for me!
Light...Layering with a turtleneck under your scrub isn't going to do the trick. You need a thermal undershirt under that first. If the t'neck is a light sweater, it works even better. Then your scrub , which should really be a nice heavier sweater, goes on top. Actually, a nice fisherman's knit cardigan sweater would be wonderful for you. You could wear that prn over your scrub. Beautiful sweaters are nice to have. .... Vests are great as well.
Seems like you could use an electric heater for the room you are using. They come in various sizes. ......... My heat is radiant electric ceiling. My office is a small room and this room is kept toasty warm. I love hibernating here with my puter in the cold weather. The kitchen is at 60 right now and I might turn on the bedroom at night just a smidge. A room can be turned on when in use or off when it's not. If you combine and add your annual electric bill with your fuel oil bill, (equal space for equal space) it comes out to about the same as my total electric bill . I don't have to worry about boiler maintenance or chimney cleaning or CO1 issues which is a huge plus in my book.
Would it be worth having a few extra warm things on hand for these times? When you can dress for it, you don't mind the cold nearly as much. You southerners have thinner blood. The cold is going to bother you more. There's something to be said about having your blood thicken up. It really does improve one's tolerance for the cooler temps.
The birds have got to eat in order to maintain their body temp. The suet is a great fuel/food source for that. I had some stale cashews which I've mixed in with the seed. The titmice LOVE them and storm the feeder until they are gone.
The plants do take a hit in serious weather extremes. It is most unfortunate. A few winters ago, we had one extremely frigid, albeit brief, spell where the night time temp hit -45. There might have been a wind chill factor included in that. Come spring, everyone was complaining and crying over their losses to winter kill. Normally hardy bushes were just gone!
-- Edited by ruffles on Tuesday 5th of January 2010 02:02:11 AM
It would be such a treat to have the beautiful blue birds at my feeder regularly but they have expensive taste. Mealy worms must be sold by the ounce plus all the other birds would 'share.'
It certainly is cold! You know it's bad when you're looking at the forecast and getting excited for a day that's going to get into the 30s!
I am certainly ready for some warmer weather. I am going down to Wilmington, NC (on the coast) in just over a week and I really don't want to freeze my tail off while I'm there.
After having a week of temperatures barely in the teens, I am not looking forward to seeing my electric bill!
