Baby, It's Cold Outside

Here is my obligatory "Boy is it cold outside" post.
At 2:30 PM today the temp sat at a balmy 18 degrees fahrenheit.

The lows have been in the single digits overnight and we are about as prepared as we could be.  I bought a heated bucket to keep at least one of the sheeps' water buckets unfrozen. I have another on back order. These are the greatest and I wonder why I never had one before now. Oh yeah, something about the directions saying not to use it outside. Since this is my first winter with a barn this is really the first time I could use one.  Now I can't wait for the second heated bucket to come.

The sheep are snug in their barn. Of course they are eating a ton of hay to keep their rumens working to make heat. And, thankfully, no one has lambed yet. Those lambs are a lot warmer inside their moms than they would be outside.  But we are ready for lambing as well. We have two heat lamps, extra bulbs and our lambing kit ready to go. It would be nice if they would wait until it's not so frigid outside.

Inside, our wood stove has been burning nonstop for a few days. Alan has been getting up in the middle of the night to add more wood. It's nice to wake up to a warm house. Of course our bedroom is about 50 degrees at night since we have to keep the door shut to keep the cats out and there is no insulation in the outside wall.  But that's nothing an extra quilt and burrowing under the covers won't fix.