Hard freeze coming-how's your weather?

So yes I'm sounding off, this being the sound off forum. This last summer was horrendous due to recordbreaking heat. And when heat breaks records in Texas you KNOW it's gotta be hot!!
Here it is winter and I was expecting some cool crisp days so I could take walks with the new pup. But noooo. It is going to go down to 17 on Thursday. Dogs and I will stay inside most of the time. I am hoping and praying that the grid will not go down like it did previously in the Texas winter leading to misery and deaths.
I hope y'all have a wonderful gift and food filled Christmas with family and friends and I hope none of us freezes to death.

Ten degrees with high winds this Friday night.

I'll be slow roasting a turkey from midnight to 0800 then baking bread Saturday morning after I pull the turkey from the oven, just to help keep the house warm.

Supposed to get down around 21 degrees here in north Florida for maybe Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. If we feel up to it, we will cover up Connie's pineapple plants. If not, then oh well... Probably will lose any citrus fruits still remaining on the trees.

Three nights this week are forecast to have overnight lows of five below zero F, along with five inches of snow over a couple days and winds gusting to 45mph. Fueled up the generator and have a lot of firewood on hand (two years worth; should be enough).

That's a bummer about the fruit on the trees. Hope you've been able to enjoy at least some of it.

Revised forecast from the National Weather Service is showing the overnight temps from Friday thru Monday, 19, 19, 23, 28 degrees F., respectively.

Had a friend (Rickey) call this morning asking if I had an automotive anti-freeze tester. Nope. Never figured I would need one here in Florida. He said that every place locally that WOULD have one was sold out. All of our vehicles are in the garage, so no problem there. But there is the Onan generator outside that has a liquid cooling system. If I remember correctly, I replaced the coolant with new back when I had to replace the speed regulator module and some other parts within the past year or two. So that should be OK.

I'm planning on not just dripping the water pipes, but have them flowing enough to keep warm underground water coming up from our well into the tank to keep that from freezing up. The tank is pretty exposed since Rickey helped us clear out around it back in August (I think) it for the repair guys to pull up the pump to replace a broken wire. It was pretty sheltered before then by branches and surrounding foliage.

It is supposed to get pretty windy on Friday, so that might make covering Connie's pineapple plants, much less KEEPING them covered, pretty tough.

We pulled a lot of the citrus off yesterday, and ran some to a few of our neighbors. Rickey came over and helped us, so we piled a bunch of tangerines and lemons on him to take home. Planning on picking more fruit today and whatever is left that we want to salvage tomorrow. But with the temps being real low during the day, and windy, maybe it would be best if Connie doesn't go outside at all. She has been having nose bleeds lately, and that cold air might not be good for her. Might have to just write off those pineapple plants.

This gawd awful year (2022) is just not going to go quietly, is it? Kicking and screaming the entire time just biting and clawing at us to the very end. I may just take that 2022 calendar and use it for target practice as a symbolic gesture. Load up the shotgun with bird shot so there won't be anything left of it but confetti.

Connie and I spent a few hours today harvesting more citrus before the big freeze coming. You wouldn't think something like that would wear someone out. I was handling a long specialty took called a "fruit picker" that has a loper style cutter on the end with a catch basket for the fruit to fall into after being cut. It has adjustable length and I was trying to get most of the fruits off of the big Poncan tangerine tree. Got most of them, but there are still a few that would need a ladder to reach along with that pole. That was quite tiresome on the arms, especially when a few fruits are in the basket.

Connie worked mostly on the lemon trees and she had to be careful of the thorns. The thorns on those Meyer lemon trees aren't long, but they seem to catch you no matter what you do to try to avoid them. She was wearing gloves, which helped ward off the thorns, but she couldn't hold onto more than a single lemon at a time. So that really slowed her down.

If the weather isn't too raw tomorrow, we may take a look to see if there is anything else we want to harvest before that cold wave comes in Friday night.

Below is a pic of the citrus we picked yesterday and today. Left to right are

• Navel oranges
• Cara cara navel oranges
• The large fruits are Pumelos
• Satsuma tangerines
• Page oranges
• Meyer lemons
• Poncan tangerines

We didn't pick any fruits off of the Dancy tangerine tree yet. But they sure are looking good, so I may have to grab some of them.

There are still quite a few fruits on the trees, so of course we won't be able to get them all. Especially the lemons. Those trees still look loaded with them.

Sure wish we could ship them to friends and family, but Florida is very strict about private parties shipping citrus.

The freeze hit yesterday evening, went down to around 17. Starting at 2 AM, every five minutes the electricity went off for a few seconds and then returned. Internet opinion was that it might be the wind or either damaged cables, but it was fixed around 11AM today. We have 2 more days of freezing weather ahead. I am praying that there won't be a grid failure.
I'm spending most of my time indoors, and the dogs are snoozing. Duchess the chihuahua hates the cold even with her fashionable sweater. It doesn't bother Clementine the Lab but it is just too cold for me to spend much time outside.

Your dogs look like sweethearts.

Looks like our high today was three below zero; last night's low was -13. Strong wind all day -- 22 gusting to 30 right now -- is pushing cold air through the house. A few winters ago we had record cold down to 30 below zero real air temperature, and that was easier to deal with than this windy cold.

29.7 degrees here right now. Calling for a low of around 20.

Connie and I picked some more fruit. Connie called a neighbor and told her she could have all the Satsuma tangerines she can carry, so she came on down and we all picked the trees pretty much clean. She would also take some Meyer Lemons, but she gave up before the two trees were even close to being emptied. So I guess the rest of the fruits are on their own.

We did cover a few things. Covered Connie's pineapple plants. Also threw a couple of tarps around the water pump tank and over the pool pump. Got the pool pump motors running, and running water from outside faucets to keep the water pump tank refilling from that underground lake we have underneath us.

I don't expect we will be uncovering anything until Wednesday. High tomorrow is only supposed to reach 38 degrees. Christmas will be warming up slightly with a high of 45 degrees. Lows still down to 20 degrees on Christmas eve night and 24 degrees Christmas night. Connie is worried that some of the lizards might get killed by the cold. They aren't used to that. There was a small anole laying on the concrete in front of the garage door today, trying to catch some feeble sunlight to warm up. I picked him up and put him underneath the shed, thinking it might be warmer there over night. But I am guessing quite a few of them will choose poorly for places to overnight for the next couple of nights.

I didn't want Connie to be out in the cold, but she was out there harvesting fruit anyway. She is having trouble now getting warm again.

We drove around last night to look at some of the Christmas decorations people had put up. I doubt we will be going out again with it being as cold as it is. I intended to put up the laser lights we bought last year, but my few feeble attempts to find them all failed. No sense doing that now. Maybe next year.

With any luck, the Florida legislature will pass a law banning these cold temps in Florida.

I sure as heck wouldn't want to be living up north through this crap. My blood is so thin (Florida blood combined with blood thinners because of my heart attack) that even temps in the low 50s make me feel that frostbite is setting in.

Ah, down to 29.5 degrees just in the time to write this much in this post. Going to be some unhappy plants around here after this chilly weekend.

Originally Posted by Lucille

The freeze hit yesterday evening, went down to around 17. Starting at 2 AM, every five minutes the electricity went off for a few seconds and then returned. Internet opinion was that it might be the wind or either damaged cables, but it was fixed around 11AM today. We have 2 more days of freezing weather ahead. I am praying that there won't be a grid failure.
I'm spending most of my time indoors, and the dogs are snoozing. Duchess the chihuahua hates the cold even with her fashionable sweater. It doesn't bother Clementine the Lab but it is just too cold for me to spend much time outside.

Why the strap around Clementine's snout? She been a bad doggie?