Thought I would add my latest dubious accomplishments. With the terribly cold weather that reached even here in the Deep South, and with the Ice Sherpa back at work, it fell on Jeano's pale and fragile shoulders (yark) to haul water for the critters over the past two three days. Now, our little irrigation system works extremely well, pumping water from the pond to all kinds of places, some several tenths of a mile removed from the house. We use pond water for the poultry, horses, garden and orchard. But the system has to be drained and shut off whenever temperatures drop below freezing or we'll bust all the above ground pipes where the spigots are. The draining takes a minute, and starting everything back up when the temperature rises enough takes another minute, so this isnt a hassle, just another small chore that needs done. BUT--if the temperature doesnt rise above freezing, or stay above freezing long enough for things to thaw out, then water must be hauled. For the poultry this isnt a big deal. You dip a couple of buckets in the pond and walke a hundred feet or so and they are good to go for the day. Usually you dont have to do this at all because usually their waterers dont freeze solid. This week they did. They were still frozen this morning, in fact, even though temps went up to the 40s for several hours yesterday.
So, the new knee could handle toting a couple of buckets. The new knee also handled toting and splitting firewood, since I wanted a fire in the woodstove. (I was icing and basking at the same time, at least when I wasnt working like a dog to keep the fire going.)
What the new knee faced as its biggest challenge, though, was getting water to the HORSES. Big animals drink a lot, and by Tuesday afternoon their trough had nothing in it but big chunks of ice and a little slush at the bottom (no electricity to the barn so no de-icer). This has always been our nightmare scenario, since we dont have a good way to get large quantities of water from point A to point B--you can put water in a big muck bucket lined with a big garbage bag tied shut to keep the water from sloshing out, but then you still have to get the water from as close as the truck will go to the trough (not very) into the trough. When its below freezing. And, if this needs done on a DH workday, after dark. With no lights in the barn.
We keep several big jerry cans full of water at the house since the well pump doesnt work when the power is off--we experience outages a couple of times a year, usually only an hour or two, but if there's a big ice storm it can be out for several days. I ended up toting the cans from the house to the car and then from the car to the trough--made a total of two trips to get the trough fullish and relatively ice-free.
And (drum roll, please)--essentially NO negative effects on the knee. My other knee, my hip that is working on a big fat bursitis, and my low back were not real happy, but the new knee was fine.
I thought of another small accomplishment I'm grateful for--something you dont appreciate until it becomes a challenge--I can wash the bottoms of both my feet (meaning I can once again get my left foot up to where I can rest it on my right knee) which means I can also check the bottoms of both feet for stuff I dont want to track into the house after all that messing about in the barn and the chicken yard!
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