Weather Preparedness

It rarely gets to freezing or below in this part of Texas. So, it's a good thing I was actually home and watching the 5:00 news here yesterday. That's where I was reminded of the need to cover and insulate your water spigots outside your house in cases of extreme cold.

And let me tell you, we are experiencing some arctic cold around here today. I can hear the wind howling, and it looks like the wind chill is 12 degrees (that would be -11 Celsius)! I bet even our experiences in Berlin and Paris at Christmas did not approach this kind of cold.

So, thanks to the evening news (and my dad who gave me some pointers), I took the necessary precautions just before it got dark.

The two water spigots attached to the house got wrapped in newspaper and plastic bags.

This water spigot is a pipe sticking up out of a flower bed. I'm not sure if the bucket adds anything to this winter weather protection, but I figured it couldn't hurt.

These are my broccoli plants. For some reason, my garden plants seem to take three times longer than normal to start producing fruit so I just started getting tiny broccoli a few weeks ago. I'm pretty sure a sheet will have no effect against the arctic, biting cold we are experiencing, but why not try?

It turns out we have special store-bought protective covers for the water spigots. My husband tells me this later. But really, it's probably best that I didn't know that. I'm sure finding them and then figuring out how to attach them to the spigots would have taken twice as long as my newspaper-plastic bag solution.

Now, as I face going out in the below-freezing temperatures, I need to find some appropriate winter protection for myself. I'm just not sure I have anything warm enough. Because I am not accustomed to living in Canada. Or Antarctica.