The Queen’s Chronicles – Texas Freeze

Welcome to The Queen’s Chronicles Texas Freeze edition. It was a week in Texas and definitely much longer for some than others. We were not impacted at our home nearly as harshly as many but we will definitely never forget it. We are very grateful for sunshine and melted snow and ice. Here’s a look at how we spent the last week.

First, let’s celebrate that I took my mom for her first dose of the Covid vaccine on the Friday before all of this started. She was not so sure about it but it didn’t hurt at all according to her and afterwards we celebrated. I spent the night with her and cooked up a couple of soups from my souper faves to stock her fridge before I headed back home late Saturday to avoid being stuck out of town.

One of our local florist had several bouquets posted online and I am lucky enough to have a friend who works there so I sent her some money via venmo and stopped to grab this bouquet on my way into town! I had a hunch some fresh flowers were going to be what I needed this week!

I also knew we would need some quick and easy meals and my valentine gets way too excited about a charcuterie tray so it was a no brainer. After Keith’s heart attack cheese and processed meats are not really suppose to be a regular thing so it’s like having a special treat. We snacked on this for days!

Valentines day and we were just sitting around in the cold waiting to see what was going to happen. We watched Palmer on HBO and did alot of sitting around!

I’m too lazy to make an entire batch of mini heart waffles so we each had a regular waffle with a little heart accent for breakfast. You people with lots of patience amaze me!

Carly had two friends come over for a sleepover and they brought some flowers and had a little photo shoot. Can’t….she’s darling 🙂

They slept in and were served up waffles for breakfast and then I made chili for frito pies at lunch. I loved hearing them playing their fave playlist and giggling in our front room all afternoon.

We had about 3 inches of snow fall overnight and while it wasn’t quite as much as we had in January (so crazy to even say in Texas!), it was still beautiful. This time it was a really powdery snow and not really good for snowball fights or buiding a snowman.

There was a lot of sitting by the fire and drinking hot chocolate. Our rolling blackouts began about 8pm on Monday night. We were definitely more fortunate than so many with ours only lasting until about 10am each morning. The worst thing that happened to us was a frozen washing machine line and thankfully it didn’t burst.

Tuesday morning it was time to get dressed and go check on the cows. We do not own cows but Keith’s dad does and he has been battling illness for a little over a year so Keith has been helping. I was so worried about how they had handled the cold.

Definitely a beautiful view. Crazy how something that feels so beautiful and peaceful could cause so much disruption and destruction when your state is not prepared.

Carly did all the driving to pull the hay buggy back and forth as we put out 8 hay bales. The mommas and babies all looked really great which made me happy.

Coyote tracks on the hay bales. Pretty sure they were looking for anything possible down in between the bales for food.

I couldn’t help myself and made a snow angel! The snow was just so perfect.

We hooked up a rope to the polaris and spent about an hour pulling each other on the sleds. Keith would have played all day I’m fairly confident. He can definitely turn into a big kid in a hurry! Just look at all that snow in is beard.

Meanwhile back at home, Dutch was living his best lazy life! He was totally clueless and just so happy he was being allowed to sleep with us. Typically he sleeps in his crate at night but we were keeping our thermostat on about 64 so I felt like he might get too cold.

We woke up to rain/sleet and trees covered in ice on Wednesday. Again, it’s really beautiful to see but can definitely wreak havoc on the utility systems.

So much of this! When you don’t have TV or internet you can get lazy in a hurry! Mentally it was just draining and I couldn’t focus on other things I could have been doing. We were still being asked to conserve energy so laundry and such also had to wait. I honestly can’t imagine how those with no power for hours and days at a time were able to stay positive.

On Thursday we headed back to check on the cows and put out more hay. Sadly we did not find all the cows in the greatest condition. There was a momma cow who had gone down at some point over night and the best we could figure is she was angled down the hill in such a way that she could not get back up. The worst part is she had a new baby calf. We tried for 2 hours to get her to stand up but she was just too weak. I am not cut out for this whole circle of life thing and Keith was way more patient than I know he would have been had I not been there. We tried everything but she was just not making it.

So……I found myself once again with a baby calf in the backseat! Thankfully this baby had had some colostrum from the momma evidenced by the yellow baby calf poop all over the backseat. 🙂 Unlike the last time I snagged a baby who needed a vet, this one we were able to place with our friend Josh who was already nursing another baby at his place.

I’m happy to report that by day 2 the baby calf was nursing on two different momma cows! So I guess I didn’t need to worry about him adjusting.

It was a long day. I was emotionally spent and cold so we headed to eat some good old comfort food at one of our favorite restaurants and I had two beers before hitting the sack I think before 9!

We kept our sweet Haisley for a few hours on Friday. She is just the happiest girl and “talking” up a storm. After mastering crawling she is also very interested in getting to that media cabinet so she had Honey on her toes!

Those sweet little dimpled hands are just precious aren’t they? Her daddy left on the 13th for spring training and he is missing her like crazy. Hopefully his girls will be able to fly out soon.

We spent Saturday and Sunday watching Rice Baseball for opening weekend. Sadly, due to Covid, they have the team currently in a “bubble” so Dillon is not being allowed to hang out with us even to eat after the games. My momma bear heart is trying not to get all agressive over this but it’s not easy! He is number 36, right in the middle in this pic! My boys have both always happened to be some number that is divisible by 6….12, 18, 36….those have been their choices though Riley has now had some whack numbers in the minor leagues.

Back to somewhat of the real world today. We missed the entire week of school and work last week. A&M is still in a work from home and virtual learning environment through tomorrow but Carly headed back to school today and Keith headed to work.

So many Texans are still struggling and will continue to struggle to get back on their feet. Lost wages, flooded homes, food spoiled that they can’t afford to replace or are having a hard time finding are all major concerns. There are lots of ways to help but I do think finding local organizations, especially in smaller, rural communities, is the best option. The larger, federal dollars often don’t make their way down to those most in need in these locations unfortunately and/or they do not have the resources to be able to apply for the aid quickly.

I’ve been impressed with creative ways people in our community have come up with to help others. It’s truly heartwarming to see the care that always comes out of the hard days. Unfortunately, as we all get back to our daily lives, there will be people who aren’t able to move on as quickly.

Continued prayers for this great state! If you are interested in what went wrong here in Texas with our power supply, this article is a really great read.