Weather Change

Last night while fixing supper, I heard on the tv that there was a tornado (or at least winds acting like a potential tornado) was forming just west of the Sanctuary. I'm still spooked from the tornado that BARELY missed the Sanctuary three months ago (and we are still trying to repair buildings from all the damage). So when I heard the storm and potential tornado was headed straight east, I panicked. Luckily the winds died down and the suspected tornado never did get to the Sanctuary.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to get outside to do chores before the big green blog that was the rain storm finally made it our way. It had been hanging out over the middle of the state ALL DAY. So I knew I was in for a soaker of a storm while doing chores. I opted for an umbrella but that only  made chores more difficult (and I was still wet at the end of chores).

But when I went to pull in the hard keepers for their nightly grain, I noticed that Bo was standing out in the middle of it all while everyone else was in the leanto. Zeke and made it in before it even started raining.

With the major cold front coming in and a drop in 20+ degrees, I was worried that the horses would get chilled. I shouldn't have worried. Tonight and tomorrow night we are supposed to be down in themed 30s for lows. But I was worried that the horses would be wet and then get chilled. So I opted to keep the hard keepers in the barn. That also meant rounding up the two kittens that have survived and putting them in the cat/dog kennel overnight so they wouldn't get stepped on. The Sanctuary horses have no respect for kittens.

I'm not ready yet for winter if I'm already putting horses in the barn overnight. It's going to be a LONG winter if that's the case. But I was able to crawl into bed and snuggle under the covers last night and not worry about the horses getting chilled. There's no point in having a barn and stalls if you can't use them.

But the old wives tale that says when the katydids start singing, you'll have six weeks until the first hard frost. Well, they started singing the first of August. And it'll be the middle of September when we get this cold front with 30 degree lows. So maybe it is true. I'm also wondering now if El Nino will be here. I've been keeping tabs on fog as well. The old wives tale is that 90 days from fog will be snow (or rain if you prefer). There's already talk of snow out in the Black Hills for later this week. My calendar shows October 29 will be some type of storm. 90 days prior to October 29th we had fog. Now if that was serious fog or not, I don't remember. But I kept track of it no matter what. Better to be prepared and not have a storm than have a major storm and be caught with your pants down.

Lets just hope that I'm wrong and that it'll be an open winter. At least I'm getting blankets taken care of now instead of right before a polar vortex. I definitely want to be ready in case we experience another polar vortex. Until then, I'll keep my eye to the weather. I had hoped to ignore the weather for a few more months but that doesn't seem to be the case. So now all these blog posts will talk about the weather. I guess I should add that I come from a farming family and the first question out of anyone's mouth is...how much rain did you get? or what's the weather like.

Fingers crossed for an easy winter.