COLORADO UNDER SNOW

We're in the plains of Colorado, southeast of Denver. Technical the terrain is desert but people tend to forget it.

The weather people told us the snow was coming. Rain turning to lots of snow. A little wind. Very low temps. Monday we had 80 degrees. This morning we woke up to 32 degrees (our day's high), 3 inches of heavy wet snow, and it's still coming down. Total of 4 inches now, with another 3-4 expected before it stops late tonight. Low of 17 degrees expected for tonight, which means the slush on the ground will be a THICK SHEET of ice by morning's commute.

Wonderful.

Luckily, we finished the livestocks' homes just in time.  Meant to take pictures but now I'll have to wait until the snow melts. Why? Because right now, it would all look white white white! 

The bantam (miniature) chickens are cuddled up in one 6'wide x 6'deep x 4'tall kennel, covered with wood, plastic and tarps. The chain-link door, uncovered during decent weather, now has a big ole tarp covering it, weighted down, and is doing an excellent job of keeping snow out of the kennel.  Only just finished this yesterday. Whew! Still need to fence in an exercise yard ... since we're expecting 60's by Friday, we'll try to do that on Sunday once the snow melts. Won't be big but a covered area of 6x12-15 so would be great for them.

The boy goats have their own fairly-small pen with 2 separate little houses for each goat. (They don't like to share). Just enough space for a little running around, and canNOT see the girls. Even has a little chicken house in there for when we move a couple of boy chickens in. Thinking it will have room for a couple more mini goats because we plan to keep future boy babies (to wether to raise to eat).

The girl goats, both due to kid (have babies) around Thanksgiving, have plenty of covered area. Room to kid (have their babies) and room to play around. Their hay area is covered, plus I have feed buckets in the kidding kennel. That's where I found the girls this morning when I went to feed them. Good that they are comfy. Even with the door to the kidding kennel open, barely any snow blew in.

As for chickens .. the HUGE coop we just had built is doing a 98% job of keeping the snow out. Whew! Sure it's cold in there but it's dry and without wind. They can survive below-zero temps as long as there is plenty of air circulation, and is dry. We threw some old hay in there last night so by this morning, it was already scratched out. Good. Something to keep them occupied. Sprinkled some of their feed on it too so more scratching to keep them busy and warm.

Also yesterday managed to bring in some pots for indoor veggie gardening this winter. My leg is really hurting but should be able to start seeds for cucumbers, beans, squash, etc tomorrow or so. Yum.

Oh, before I close this posting ... was watching the news around lunchtime, and was astounded by someone interviewed in Denver. Lots of trees down due to heavy wet snow, so lots of people with no electricity. This person said on camera that since there's no electricity, there's no food. Oh well, guess they'll have PB and J.

What?

Boy, I'm glad we prep. Not because of end-of-the-world scenarios and so forth, but for times such as these. Even if our electricity goes off, we'll be just fine! Stocked up with food, fuel, water, candles, etc.