Redhorse cafe

[Toolbox]

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We're not out of the teens yet. I've got several taps running slightly at my house. I get paranoid when I'm at work and have the water running. I keep visualizing a blocked drain and a flood.
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You mean to tell us that you're an ndn and have running water and a house rather than a tipi! WTF yo! Mind = blown!


On a serious note I was surprised thatI didn't have any frozen pipes this year given the weeks long cold spell we just got over. On the plus side the tap water is nice an cold and is a good temp for drinking - I have an in-sink filter.

[wardancer]

Well , we're at a whoppin' 7 degrees F. and feels like -3 ! Nice for the "heat" of the day ! Went out and started our vehicles , just for personal comfort ! LOL I let them run about 15-20 minutes and then shut them off.

Ol'C , you know I was going through Dallas one year , during an ice storm. I did fine but it was rather un-nerving to watch semi-trucks sliding straight sideways to the lower side shoulder , all while being on the top tier of that multi-level interchange !

My first winter in Austin it snowed about 3 inches and the whole city shut down !There's a fun story that goes with that and I'll tell it some time. The biggest difference is the ability to drive on snow/ice slick roads coming from Missouri and Kansas as opposed to those native to mid-south Texas ! LOL

[OLChemist]

Wow, I just took a peek at the mess that is Houston. Southwest, Katy, Eastex, Gulf, East Freeways all have long sections closed. Whole Foods is closed. Cue the seven horsemen of the Apocalypse.

When I was in school down there my apartment had limitless free AC, but no heat. I went through one night below freezing while there. I was 10 the last time I built a tent over my bed with a blanket and chairs, LOL. It was also the first and last time, I've slept with my area rug on the bed rather than under it.

[wardancer]

Well , it got up to 9 for maybe an hour and has since dropped back to 7. They say it feels like 2 , but once it gets this cold I don't know that 2 feels any different than 6 or -3 ! It's just cold.

[wardancer]

I understand you are from Texas.Do you live in a reservation or outside?

I have a book with all the Indian reservations and there are only three in Texas.The "Alabama-Coushatta Reservaton", the "Texas Kickapoo Reservation" and the " Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo Reservation".

The Comanches used to live in Texas but i can't find a single Comanche Reservation. Not in Texas or anywhere else.

The Comanche Tribal Headquarters is in Lawton Oklahoma. I don't think they have an actual "rez" but like my people , they have allotted land. That's land designated for their own people , but without defined borders.

[OLChemist]

My first winter in Austin it snowed about 3 inches and the whole city shut down !

Considering not 10 ft of I-35 touches the ground downtown and they have -- what -- maybe ten sand trucks and two brine sprayers for all of Travis County, that was probably the smartest thing they could do. These folks can't drive on it. Home is the safest place for them.

I just made myself a huge mug of tea and am eating the last slice of my Christmas Jamaican Black cake. Yummy.

NYT: Black Cake Recipe

[Chalako]

The Comanche Tribal Headquarters is in Lawton Oklahoma. I don't think they have an actual "rez" but like my people , they have allotted land. That's land designated for their own people , but without defined borders.

I checked it and in that book there's a mention of the Comanche tribe in Lawton.
There are many reservations in Oklahoma and so many tribes: Shawnee, Cherokee, Cheyenne,Choktaw,Apache,Seminole, Pawnee etc.....

Is it alright if i ask from which tribe your people are?

[Chalako]

My people are from South Dakota not Texas. I'm the third generation to live away from home.

Just as a point of general information: Close to 3/4 of all Native people, in the US, live off reservation. It's been over 50% since the 1960's. Texas has 3rd largest Native population in the US, after California and Oklahoma.

Aah, because you said the climata in Texas was bad for chocolate i assumed you are from there.My bad.

[Chalako]

You may take cover here. About 4 °C, rain, lightning and thunder today.

Lots of hot coffee , tea if you take what we have, you get it.

You are having real winter.

Afterthought: Keep yourself warm, especially fingers, toes and nose. I had half frozen toes about 40 years ago and when it gets as it is today, the toes send a reminder of that still today.

How about a nice bowl of hot chickensoup.That will make you warm.

[OLChemist]

Aah, because you said the climata in Texas was bad for chocolate i assumed you are from there.My bad.

I do live in TX. But my grandpa's Rez is in South Dakota (SD) and much of my family lives in SD and Nebraska.

[wardancer]

Goooood Morning ! A balmy 8 below 0 this morning. Had coffee went out and did chores and when I got back in it's up to -4 ! Yay ! LOL Actually , when we get through today , the worst is over ! Forecast says it's gonna get warmer 53 by friday will be t-shirt weather ! LOL
To Chalako , I am Cheyenne/Arapaho.I live in Kansas , but our Tribal headquarters is just west of OKC in Concho Oklahoma.

[OLChemist]

I hear ya. One more night.

I brought my *%^# outdoor cat inside last night, since it was going to be 10F. This doofus cat thinks the heated, fleece lined, two door, birch cat shelter is a trap. So, he won't go near the thing.

I feed Jet Too Long Tail inside, so he is used to my indoor kitties. But he isn't too fond of the house -- known to him as the bigger cat trap. But last night he must have been cold, because when it hit 20F at 10pm and his water dish froze solid, he let me lure him inside to sleep on the guest room bed.

Sadly after I went to sleep, he got up. Around midnight, he got the lid off the coffee can full of catnip. He threw an hour long party in dining room. Unloading two huge baskets of cat toys, before climbing atop the cradleboard hanging on dining room wall to play with the bells on the hood. Then he got the munchies and ate all the cat food in his bowl -- and for good measure Oliva's, Bucky's and Ishtato's bowls.

Bucky, realizing that there were only 2 13 lb bags of food in the pantry, started singing his death song to comfort himself in the face imminent starvation. This melodious tune, which is one part cat fight, one part yowl, and 2 parts rusty screen door, got me out of bed to refill the bowls.

At 3am it was 14F outside and inside only the room with the thermostat was actually anywhere near the set point. All the cats climbed in bed with me to keep warm. I sleep in a twin! Jet had gas from too much cat food.

My Siamese started doing her Putin imitation around 4-430am, starting squabbles with everyone. At 5 am, I threw each cat in a different closed room and tried to sleep through the crying. At 6:30am Jet went nuts and began trying to claw through the bedroom windows to get out. At 7 am, when I started contemplating ending it by taking a hike in my skivies, I let him out into the 11F weather.

I had somewhere around 3 hours of sleep. He's on his own tonight.

[Toolbox]

Sounds like your house was fun last night! Too bad you don't have cameras set up to record that kind of craziness.

I saw on CNN earlier video of people in Houston driving the wrong way on the highway to get to a ramp to avoid "icy conditions". Sounds like Texas needs to start learning how to drive in "winter weather" and TxDOT needs to learn from some northern states how to prepare the roads for winter.

[OLChemist]

I saw on CNN earlier video of people in Houston driving the wrong way on the highway to get to a ramp to avoid "icy conditions".

Houstonians have a long tradition of making their own on and off ramps. I first visited Houston to attend an event in Sugarland in 1983. We were headed in from then Intergalactic -- uh - Intercontinental Airport. I saw six different pickups make their own off-ramps on US-59 before we got to the neon cockroach. (Pre-2012 Houstonians will know exactly what I'm talking about.)

Sounds like Texas needs to start learning how to drive in "winter weather" and TxDOT needs to learn from some northern states how to prepare the roads for winter.

This is really unusual weather for them. Houston gets one ice storm every 5 years or so. They just need to stay home for that day.

They would have to start by buying many more salt trucks and salt -- not sand mixed with mud. Maybe a some plows. There is so little equipment, they do a lot of the pre-treating well before the storm. In my town, they pretreated the interstates on Sat for an event that was to happen Monday afternoon/evening. I drove the interstates on Sat afternoon a few hours after they treated and there was a haze hanging over the roads from the salt being raised by the tires. I question how much chemical would have been there on Monday had we been hit.

Then they'd need to dynamite 3/4 of the interchanges in the state. A lot of the problem is how they build roads here. I grew up in Pittsburgh, we had elevated sections of road and bridges, but they were flat and as few as possible. We didn't have a lot of elevated flyovers. Ramps were in contact with the ground. The highways didn't intermingle as much with the cross streets, so there were fewer overpasses. In many cities here and throughout the south, long stretches road deck in town centers are in the air.

And what falls out of the sky here is not what I remember from my 20+ years in Pittsburgh and then Boston. These are ice pellets. Snow flakes are rare outside the panhandle. Storms start warm and rainy then cool. You get ice then sleet on top.

[wardancer]

When I moved to Austin in '82 Austin had 3 snowplows and San Antonio had 1 ! When they got that 3 inch snow in Austin , San Antonio got 6" ! They put out a nation wide call for help and got over 30 snowplows from cities up north ! LOL It was pretty crazy ! That snow was the first snow in many years to hit that area ! The snow happened in Feb. My kids were swimming on Christmas , 80 degrees ! In Kansas City there are probably 500 snowplows !Just sayin' !