Record Setting Cold, Subzero Grain Run, The Run That Wasn't, Movie, Fire, Grilling, Kraken - Saturday

I mobbed down the city streets on my normal path to the breweries and backed into the alleyway below the Steam Plant stacks. The wall to the right is the raised railroad tracks and behind me is the overpass for the street. That overpass is a consistent collection point for homeless. I was rather surprised to see 5 lumps in sleeping bags there when there is EVERY warming center open in the city. This is a perfect example of how we will NEVER be able to "stamp out homelessness" when there are plenty who refuse the help.

I had 4 barrels to load that had been set out only 12 hours prior. All the barrels had a thick frozen crust on top though the core was still warm. The sides were hard and if I were to let them sit till noon they would have been solid blocks of grain.

The one barrel has a hole in it and drained out a bunch of liquid which froze solid.

The alleyway is lit really well so I rarely have any concerns about my surroundings. I am always hyper aware but am pretty sure that no one in their right mind would mess with a farmer out at 5am.

I had an empty barrel from the prior morning that I had to drop off before heading for home.

The city was completely dead with only a handful of vehicles out. It was REALLY nice.

5:30am I was back home and the temperature was sitting at -14F.

An hour and a half later the sun started to come up and the coldest temp hit of -15F by the house.

It took me a bit to get myself outside to empty the barrels and it was not exactly easy. These barrels are the easier to empty except when they are frozen. It took a bit of work to get the trailer where I wanted it then the barrels wanted to roll and slide all over from the ice. I managed to get them all emptied out and there was still warm grain in the mix that steamed up as soon as it was exposed to the arctic cold.

I was hoping that we would have gotten to run the race yesterday but they ended up cancelling it. Really it comes down to the course volunteers who would have to be standing in the cold, the runners are staying warm running. The boys were both crushed as they don't do well with build ups then let downs.

As a way to calm them down and cheer them up I put on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I haven't seen the movie in many years but still remembered much of it. It did cheer them up some though they were still not happy about missing the race. After the movie they set to work in the kitchen making a batch of oatmeal cookies which ended up leaving a pretty big mess that needs to get cleaned today.

With it so cold I wanted a big fire in the pit for the evening. It took a bit for it to catch but once it did it was quite nice to stand by.

Over the day the temperature had been rising and near 4pm it was up to a balmy 0F. That's swimsuit weather compared to the morning.

I pulled the ground meat out to thaw and when I tossed the packs in the bowl the ice began to vaporize and the bowl filled with fog vapor. It spilled over the side and into the sink, it looked really nifty.

The Kraken game came on at 4pm and it was a pretty competitive for the first 2 periods.

I got our burgers on to grill while the game was on but was inside more than out for the process.

The Kraken won quite easily in the end 7-3 and are now on a record win streak for the team. The new year has brought about a new Kraken and they are riding the winning wave well so far.

It wasn't until 9 when we got out to soak and I ended up having to climb out after an hour with my skin hurting. I've been eating or drinking shit that is making my skin freak out again so I have to do a bunch of cutbacks to remedy this.

Today begins our warming trend back to more normal temps by mid week. Man Utd play Tottenham today after this rather bloody Everton Villa match, I'm having to deal with my horrid skin once again, do a good walk around of the farm and check on all the animals and make sure nothing is broken from the cold, the greenhouse couldn't handle the extreme cold so got well below freezing and I will see today just how cold it got, then this evening I will be grilling again and the boys have tomorrow off of school.

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