South Central Oklahoma Storm Story

Well, we have just experienced winter storm #2. #1 was an official blizzard as per the National Weather Service (NWS) #2 started off with freezing rain (ice storm) which knocked out power across a wide swath of the state. Our electric power faltered and died about 2PM Friday and we are still on our backup generator. It doesn't run the whole house but enough to be comfortable: geothermal heat pump and hydronic heat, essential lights, entertainment center with 65 inch TV and dual satellite receiver, and (now that phone service including DSL internet connection is restored after days of no service) the computer I'm writing this on.

I put out over a ton of hay every two days and a few hundred lbs of cattle feed (several 5 gal buckets) for the two dozen plus adults and 11 (and counting) calves. Weather has interfered with getting 5 weaned steers to market but hopefully a week from tomorrow will be OK weather wise.

Storms #3 and #4 are on their way but are forecast to be milder. Forecasts tend to change in these parts as our weather is highly variable and danged hard to predict accurately very far in advance (see also Chaos theory and butterfly effect.)

Our large and most beautiful tree (next to drive in front of house) split in half vertically and blocked the driveway so only the tractor cold get away from the house (I have 3 4x4 pickups but they could not get out due to soft ground conditions.) It took me an hour with the help of two others equipped with chain saws to clear a path down the driveway. I hate to see such a beautiful tree turned into firewood (except for a little bit of trunk and some burls and some potential wooden bowl lathe stock.)

Mother nature did a really poor job pruning our numerous pecan trees (and others.)

Funny how Mother Nature in Winter makes pictures look like they were shot in black/white. (Except for the Kubota. LOL) Up here in Michigan, we're way down in snow cover. Only getting a dusting here and there. However, I have had a few trees down that I was surprised to see fall. Usually don't notice them down if they're in the woods but a couple of 8" oaks were blocking paths. They weren't rotten, one of them just snapped about 10 ft off the ground. Weird. Oh well, they'll make good firewood next winter.