Sat a couple of weeks ago. Three came in. Small, little and tiny. They would not line up so I took small. 81.1 pounds 375 Ruger. My place is empty, wind is wrong for the friend's. Been way to cold lately. I am having trouble getting of the house to take care of the cows!

Was talking to one of my landowners and he said he has some concerns for his older cows and young calves. 60+ straight hours of below freezing temps is hard on them he said.

Me--staying inside in front of the fire--

Yep, this bitter cold isn't for me. Thirty or 40 years ago, I'd have been out in it -- but not anymore.

The sleet continues to come down here in Lavaca County, and the temps are dipping. I heard even the Wal-Mart in Hallettsville shut down early today and that there's not a single business open in the entire town.

Nice piggie by the way, Live Oak!

You guys make me laugh about "below freezing?"

Hell, it hasn't been that WARM here in over ten
days. Three days and nights it set at 12F,
thought the thermometer crapped out.
Then it showed -5, warmed up to 6F later that day.

Today it Warmed UP to: -2, since then it's been
dropping fairly steady.

I just took a picture of it and sent it to Bobby
asking him to post the proof. Right now: -15F

That's warm compared to up North.
And it's gonna drop more yet tonight.
Forecast: -19.
By next week we'll be wishing for this warm a temp.

Cheers,

George

.

Nice pig. Well done.

Cold here to in Germany at the moment but weather app says its turning this week!


.

Good to see the chin can in use once again. That sure looks like a good size for the 'que.
Cold here too -- 10 degrees and the light snow just quit -- but not by George's standards up in Pueblo.

George-

Will post it when I can. Have had only about an hour or electricity since 1 a.m. No water thanks to power outages so problems abound. Was 9 this morning.

No problem Bobby.
Time to fire up the generator pard.

My dial showed -20 much of the night til 7 am.
Sent a note to Lynn 5 mi W. "it's -12 here at 6 and the truck agrees"
Hour later he'd driven to the job site and said: "it's -13 out here".

Then I've compared with a couple others. Believe my 35 year old dial has a weak spring giving false readings. It's never very well agreed with "official" temps, usually 5-10 cooler on hot days.

Just might have been an indication I've not realized. I ordered two new one's today.

Hell of a deal down your way and out in West Texas to have all those windmills frozen up.

Can't rely on them, nor the solar at times. What's it gonna be like when Texas shuts down all the coal fired plants then you get a real bad ice storm for a couple weeks like happens down there sometimes?? I've been in them.

I've had to use a generator ONE time, but, I keep it handy. High wind back in '06 topped my two big back elms on the wires for ten days. Sure made the neighbors mad: "His tree's, why's he the only one that has lights?" "he has a generator, you can go buy one too". Funny then!

Best wishes guys, hope it melts soon. Sun was out all day here today.

George

After a 26-year hiatus, I'm back in Tejas (and Accurate Reloading) and wanted to look up some hug hunting adventures. Found this thread and thought I'd see how you guys were doing out West.

I just moved from Northwest NM about two and a half months ago and we relocated to Williamson County (maybe 30 minutes out of Austin).

You guys getting power down there? We're using the hell out of our generator over here and I'm especially thankful for this bullet-shaped heater that uses diesel fuel - I don't even remember what it's called - we put it in the garage and it pretty well heats about a third of the house.

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:
What's it gonna be like when Texas shuts down all the coal fired plants then you get a real bad ice storm for a couple weeks like happens down there sometimes??
George

Texas isn't shutting them down. And the problems with this storm come from gas, coal and nuclear powered systems for the massive thermal generators. They couldn't handle the cold and went offline -- and this is directly from ERCOT. Obviously some major changes need to be undertaken so this doesn't happen again. There are elderly and critical care patients who have not had electricity for days.

Nice hog. Stay warm.
CB

Some of the problems came from the greenies idols—the wind turbines—that iced up and shut down.

Get the facts and don't fall for the false narratives pushed by the far right -- especially from the likes of the idiot Sid Miller. Even ERCOT's top dog admits gas, coal and nuclear-powered thermal generators are largely to blame. Just the facts. Bottom line: ERCOT was not prepared for this at all. It was a massive failure on all counts.

KSAT article

MORE:

Reliance on natural gas helped fuel the energy shortage

Natural gas is the largest energy source in Texas, accounting for 40 percent of the state’s energy.

But in a region ill-prepared for single-digit temperatures, that power supply got stuck in an unfortunate cycle.

Natural gas producers need electricity to run their compressors, but electric systems were strained by cold weather and a lack of natural gas.

“Another thing this event has driven home is how interdependent our electric and natural gas systems are. We get the majority of our electricity from natural gas, and we need electricity to operate the natural gas systems, and both of them get very strained by cold weather,” Daniel Cohan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University in Houston, previously told The Hill.


“You have the two systems that need each other to operate and both of them are experiencing a surge in demand and a loss in supply at same time,” he said. “This is really a story of how fragile systems can be when they are so dependent on natural gas in an extreme weather event.”

Other fuel sources have also struggled in the cold weather, with some wind turbines coated in ice due to a lack of protections common in other parts of the country.

Still, the renewable source struggled far less than natural gas.
Wind production fell 1 gigawatt below the 6 gigawatts officials predicted would be needed to cover winter demand, whereas electricity from coal, natural gas and nuclear fell 30 gigawatts below the more than 60 gigawatts they were expected to deliver.


Some critics, particularly Republicans, have sought to blame renewable energy for the power outages.

“Our wind and our solar got shut down,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said on Fox News. “That thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis. ... It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary.”

His remarks sparked backlash given the significance of the contribution of other fuel sources to Texas’s predicament.


“I go offline a few days and return to a GOP Gov blaming policies he hasn’t even implemented for his own failures,” tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), referencing Abbott’s invocation of the Green New Deal in his criticism of renewables.


The state had winter blackouts in 1989 and 2011

This is not the first time Texas has dealt with rolling blackouts.

The 1989 blackouts came amid a cold snap in December, while the 2011 blackouts took place during the first week of February when wind and unseasonably cold temperatures hit Texas and neighboring New Mexico.

In total, approximately 1.3 million electric customers were out of service at the peak of the 2011 event on Feb. 2, and a total of 4.4 million were affected from Feb. 2 to Feb. 4.

In a report following the 2011 blackouts, FERC and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation recommended steps including increasing winterization measures.

The report said electricity generating companies operating within the ERCOT system “failed to adequately prepare for winter,” citing inadequate insulation and a failure to train operators and maintenance personnel on winter preparations.

Everybody wants to blame someone else! 1.There are too many people in Texas! 2. Everybody wants perfect but nobody wants to pay for it! I spent 16 years in the natural gas industry. All we used grid electricity for was cathodic protection. You just don't spent big dollars for a 20 year event! No such thing as "renewables. There is no green, it all cost something! AOC could not get a job as a teacher with a teaching degree!

I have friends and family in the industry, and yes, there's lots of finger-pointing going on. The bottom line is that ERCOT was caught with its pants down, so to speak. Better preparation for such an event was needed -- and financial records tell me there is money for just such an event. Check out their financial statements...and remember, the numbers are in "thousands" for simplification purposes, so don't take them at face value.

ERCOT pretty much does what it wants and -- in reality -- doesn't answer to anyone other than its own board members. And about a third of them don't even live in Texas! To boot, it doesn't help that we have idiots in charge of much of the state. Abbott, Miller, Patrick, Paxton and former gov Perry don't have the intellectual depth to debate a box of rocks, much less make critical decisions. Factor in the likes of Cruz and Cornyn, and...well...it's just pathetic.

http://www.ercot.com/content/w...ncial_Statements.pdf

Let's see: THIS typifies what our Texas GOP politicians are like. Cruz leaves during a state of emergency and vacations in Cancun. How can anyone support or vote for him is beyond me.

Cruz goes to Cancun while Texans are freezing and without power

No matter what, who or why, I hope you folks down there (not just Texas) get your power back ASAP.
Wow! A gas company without a gas generator back up for any reason sounds really crazy.

Thanks. We got our power back around 9 last night after days of just minutes of infrequent power and then hours of nothing. Pipes froze as a result, but so far, all is well for us. Others did not fare as well -- and many are still without water and power tonight.

No need to ever be without power
when home generators are so cheap
and easy to run.

Hell just a $80 H/F 900 watt will run most
of a house IF the excess toys are shut off.
one of these will run 4-8 hours on half gal of gas.

Figure the draw of each item and add it up.
Furnace, pump, fridge, freezer, couple lights.
Don't add up to much.

Sure worth having one. No need to get a 5000watt unit either.

Here some basics: Make up a 12ga short extension cord with both male ends. Shut the main breaker off plug it in and fire it up. Once you KNOW the powers back on. Unplug it and turn the main breaker back on. Make sure you don't have it plugged in when you turn the breaker on or it will burn up the generator in a flash.

Yeah I know it's never happened before. You've gone thru it this time so now you know it CAN
happen. Once it has one time, it won't be long til it hits again.

Glad the powers back on for most.

George

I for one, would like to have a face to face and ask AOC if she thinks the cold snap was caused by GLOBAL WARMING and how that happened? Be Well, Packy.