RECORD BREAKING FREEZE HAS ARRIVED

So...saturday was the day we had to go to the farm and get things ready.  Two weeks ago I had grand dreams of  cleaning the mower and leaving it out to be picked up...working in the garden and adding new soil to the raised beds...pulling weeds from the fruit tree beds...

Well Mother Nature had other plans in store for us!

Single digit temps, snow, sleet, ice, wind chills below zero...this is all unprecedented for our area.  Oh we've hard freezes, low 20's.  But this is a whole other level.

So "R" from 2nd Family came up and helped us prep the house.  We shut off the water at the well and at the house.  Then I opened all the taps in the house and let the water drain out.  He brought an air compressor and we blew air in through the outside faucet and that pushed water out of the taps.  There was a surprising amount of water still in the pipes even though the faucets were open but nothing coming out.  Now we see why just shutting off the water and opening the taps doesn't get all of the water out.  We used it for about 10 minutes on and off, closing and opening various faucets so that as much water as possible was forced out.

Finally there was no more water coming out and we considered it drained.  We left the taps open since the water won't be on for a while.  Lastly I poured some RV antifreeze into the drains so that the p-traps would have some protection in case we didn't get it all out.  RV antifreeze is made to be safe and non toxic in septic systems.  In fact, the label even adds "for vacation homes" which at this point fits the farmhouse.

The last thing I had to do was save the sensitive plants.  Obviously the tropicals are the most sensitive.  But this is such a harsh cold that almost never happens here, we felt it was best to take even the berry plants.  So I backed up to the house, put down the rear seats and started loading things up.  

Here is the back of the Jeep, loaded up with two banana plants, six blueberry bushes, two bay laurel trees, two pineapple plants, and three other plants.  I did forget the extra fig tree we have on the porch so who knows if that will make it.  Will just buy another if needed.

The citrus trees are covered but even fully grown they are only safe down to mid 20's.  Covering them and putting lights with some heat being generated still wouldn't save them from single digit temperatures.

Pretty sure new citrus will be coming this Spring...  

All we can do now is wait for it all to be over.