I was going to make a walmart order, just to be on the safe side; but then I noticed that it said all pickup and delivery is in 3+ days ! So, no online shopping from there, we have to either go to the store somewhere ourselves, or get by with what we have. We have a turkey in the freezer from when Kroger had them on sale for 49 cents a lb, and now have that thawing and will cook it as soon as it is thawed enough. We could be having not only the snow (which is supposed to arrive maybe tonight, but also freezing rain and ice storm, which would give us power outages, maybe long ones of lines are down, too, from an ice storm. If we have that, we might have to live on turkey for a few days, which we can do if necessary. Meanwhile, we are getting all of the battery stuff charged up and ready for that. It is looking like it might be Thursday before we are back to normal (or sort of close to it, anyway) here in Huntsville.
I've been out in the cold with the wind chill taking about 10° off of the air temps. Once I get used to it, I kind of like it. My problem is that when I take a break to eat, I don't want to go back outside.
Get the turkey cooked while you still have power so you can live on cold turkey if you don't get out. Eating raw turkey wouldn't be the best idea. Turkey sandwiches and turkey salad can be good things, but hot meals help the psyche when the weather is cold. Hopefully you have a way to heat water for tea and such if the power goes out.
That is the plan, @Don Alaska . As soon as it thaws enough , we will put it in the turkey cooker, either tonight, or early tomorrow before the storm gets here, and just let it finish thawing as it is cooking. Then, it will be ready to eat cold, should that become necessary. We can heat water out on the bbq if needed, but do not want to try and make a whole meal that way beyond just heating something up. Edit to add: The snow is arriving later today, and the ice storm is on the edge of that, so no way of knowing which we will get, and could lose power as early as tonight if we get the ice storm and tree branches start breaking power lines. We decided to just go ahead and start the turkey cooking, frozen or not, and it should be pretty well done by the time we go to bed since it is a small turkey.
42°F and partly cloudy. We will be having several nights in the 20's and "wintry mix" is forecast for tomorrow. I doubt we'll see snow but sleet/freezing rain will happen. I'm still wearing shorts but I do have on a long-sleeve sweatshirt and fuzzy slippers.
Standing in the cold cooking a meal on the BBQ is not always pleasant, but we do it every year as a tradition. Last year we even went so far to cook a New Years meal on an open fire, and that was kinda fun even though it was -10 F if I recall correctly. I certainly hope that all of you in climes not accustomed to the cold weather the recent global warming successfully with no injuries or frozen pipes.
Ok. Now I get it. @Don Alaska just pitches his old used weather over the fence and then it dribbles down to me. It snowed so much, my neighbor who does my plowing for me (and gets paid for it) complained that my driveway was icy so he had to get a pallet of bagged sand for weight in the back of his truck. My driveway wasn't icy; it was waist deep in snow which was hard on his little truck! Then it was blizzardy and now it is negative digits+--for a week. It is supposed to be something stupid like 28 above next Sunday, when Don is finished with it.
Our favorite 'leftover' meal is turkey. I cook two for Thanksgiving. One to eat and share with guests and the other for Dave and I to eat as 'leftovers'...Dressing mashed potatoes, rutabagas, cranberry sauce... Hope you still have a can of cranberry sauce in your preps. I am amazed that we only had a 20 minute power outage. Dave slept through it and I was just late most of the day because of our digital clock.
Sorry for all you folks who will be getting this cold weather but I will be glad to be rid of it for sure. One more day and by Tuesday we should be getting back to normal.
Well, our "forecast" now says 2"-3" of snow before midnight, whereas yesterday we were told to anticipate a fraction of an inch.
About 32 degrees and I can hear sleet hitting the windows. Brrrrrrrrr. Oh, and stupid ERCOT, who boasted yesterday that the grid is in great shape and there would be no problem providing plenty of electricity for this "arctic blast" has now asked people to reduce the load on the system to avoid rolling brownouts. The Electrical Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is asking Texans to safely conserve electricity on Monday morning from 6 - 10 a.m. as the electric grid conditions tighten due to freezing temperatures. ERCOT, which operates the electricity grid in Texas, issued the call on Sunday at 5 p.m. but said the conservation appeal does not indicate emergency conditions “at this time.”
It seems that the last day (so they say) of this cold snap is to be the worst before it gets on out of here. It's currently -5 F with 24-35 mph winds, cloudy with possibility of snow. We need snow but if it falls it will probably land in the next state. The wind chill is -31. Remember the days before we had wind chill factor reports? I hope those that are just getting the cold temps now can stay in, stay warm and keep their electricity on. There's a good side to this though and the weatherman reminded me. No mosquitos! I feel bad about liking some of your reports of cold and worrisome power grids, etc. I have to remind myself clicking like just means I read it and I feel your pain.
Down to -5 F. again, but that isn't bad for us. I should have gotten out to the little greenhouse and turned on the heat yesterday to see if it would melt the snow on top to get it to slide off. Too late now, so I'll have to wait for the nest war spell.
I got a load of wood last year that has powder post beetles. The cold snaps kill the beetles and the larvae (but not the eggs), so when it's cold I can bring the wood to my front porch in big totes without fear of infestation.