Plants prepped for a cold snap...

My big oldest living tomato plant sprung back to life after I thought it had been killed in the last freeze. Fired up my spare "MrHeater" to hopefully keep the plants cozy.  30,35,32, .05,B

Freezin'...

 

Very cold low temperature this morning and never made it back above freezing today.  Just in case my tomato plants don't make it till it warms up again by Sunday or Monday (even with my makeshift heater), I took a couple of very healthy cuttings and brought them inside to root.  24,31,15,0,B

a winter day

35,38,31, .07",B

one more cold night...

When you get used to over 300 sunny days per year, a few cold cloudy ones in a row is a real drag (but still nothing like months of freezing in upstate NY).  Looks like things are about to change...Chupa saw his shadow this afternoon.  38,42,28,0,B

cold snap

Another little bit of winter is here... 28,34,29,0,W

frosty night...

Was a bit worried about Chupa when I woke up this morning to a low of 15 degrees.  But he made it through the night and got to come in and warm up 2 hours before sunrise.  45,52,15,0,C

a little bit of winter...

This is how I like my winters...a little bit at a time.  34,39,34,0,W

Grey Saturday

41,46,38,T,B

alittlebitowinter

I must say that I no longer mind winter as much as I did in upstate NY since it only happens a couple of days at a time out here.  22,37,22,0,W

10 day

Got just a little too cold overnight - more than I expected.  Popped a hose and sprang a small leak in my copper thermosyphon coil.  Took 2 hours to patch the breaches.  Only got down to 34° in the greenhouse tent.  Good news is we got a warm spell on the horizon.  Not going to get lulled into a false sense of security though.  In early February 2011, we had our deep cold - 68 hours of below freezing temperature.  The good news is, the girls are laying once a day now...magic!  39,50,19.8,0,B,0 

cold day one

hmmm....blogger wont let me upload any photos tonight.    It was cold today...sleet off an on...bacon egg and cheese for breakfast...Carl came in for 3 hours this morning...the boys stayed in the barn all day...baked chicken for dinner.  34,38,36,T,W,0

Coldpocalypse!

The SW Texas desert is in the deep freeze...but no rolling blackouts at TFL today.  This is the first time I have experienced sub freezing temperatures for a 24 hour period since moving to the desert.  Beats the hell out of below zero temps for months at a time back in upstate NY.  I think I can live with the cold for a couple of days.  No need to wait till late April here - we should be back in the 70's by next week.  15,26,14,0,W

v e r y c o l d m o r n i n g

That certainly was a nice low temp this morning....officially 18.86 degrees at 6:41AM. Good thing is the sun came out and turned things around. Spend 2 cool morning hours at the GrubShack sitting by the fire. Came back to the Field Lab at 11 and cleared a path and a spot for my steel delivery. Put off coming back inside for as long as I could because the sun felt so good. Finally faced up the the reality of going back to the computer to figure out the camera/telescope/computer fiasco. Something was going on that was not very plug and play (not that I'm surprised). Reloaded the software after thoroughly reading the manual but still couldn't get the computer to recognize the camera. Thought I had done my best to formally introduce them too. Was one step away from calling in the IT guy from the UK to save the day. Just about ready to cry uncle when a bird decided to come in the house. Got him to back out the door by going outside and scaring him away from window he kept banging his head on.

The bird incident was quickly followed by yet another opportunity to take a break from the snafu - when my once'a'year neighbor came by on his way out to visit his 460 acres of mountain. Nice to see him again and I set up an appointment to come out to his camp so he can show me the easy way to the top of Panther Mountain. He was pleased to see all the progress here since his last trip but it made me very aware of how little has happened in the past month.

Right after they went on their way, I shot back inside determined to accomplish something today. Did some searching online and soon found that the problem was with windows Vista. Seems the computer was not finding the correct driver for the camera. Tried a very simple suggestion for a backwards fix. One try and VOILA! ....camera on - problem solved. Now on to the next step..... to actually photograph something. Wonder what will not work next? 39,66,18,0