Leave a CommentShare: |
Subscribe
We lost power early Saturday. We had about half a foot of snow in the morning and by the end of the day, a foot. (Looking out toward the pond, which is almost completely obscured.)
The woods around our farmhouse creaked and groaned under the wintry weight, branches, even entire trees, creaking and crashing.
There wasn’t any mystery as to what had happened to the power lines. The power company said they’d have electricity back by midnight, but as the outage mounted into tens of thousands of homes, the message changed.
By the end of the day, they were saying midnight the next day.
As I set this post late Tuesday, we still don’t have our electricity back. This post is written under generator power and satellite internet. (We got our phone back late Tuesday, too. Note: We don’t have cell service at our farm. When we lose our phone and satellite internet and are snowed in, we are COMPLETELY CUT OFF. And our wild and woolly country backroad does NOT get snow plow service.)
The miracle was that we still had phone service on Saturday. Under generator power and dial-up (we had lost satellite internet), I was able to set a blog post for Sunday and get my column emailed to the newspaper.
By the time I woke Sunday morning, the phone was gone, too. There would be no more checking with the power company for the latest prediction as to when electricity would be back. No way to find out if school was on. (No way to get there anyway…..) At the top of our steep, impassably snow-bound driveway:
And for me, there was suddenly no more work. No satellite and no phone means no internet access at all. I work on my website every day. Seven days a week, 365 days a year. I was…..on vacation! It was strange and beautiful.
I started puttering around the house. I cleaned. I repacked and reorganized all the boxes of extra Christmas ornaments. I cooked. I had cooked a huge pot of beans the night before the outage, so we had beans and cornbread the first day, heated on the woodstove. We were also still able to use our gas stovetop in the kitchen as well as our gas grill on the back porch. We had chili and pork chops with fried potatoes and even pizza. The chickens (below, refusing to come out of the chicken house into the snow) laid and laid….
….suddenly setting to work in the freezing temperatures, and we had bacon and eggs in the mornings. (Photo: From the driveway, looking up toward the garden.)
We read books. I knitted. Kids played board games and cards, had fights with swimming noodles and built snowmen.
We watched TV. (Me, Kitten and Little, Wiggles, and Spice-the-door-opening-cat.)
That’s right.
We’ve been watching TV.
GENERATORS ARE SO AWESOME.
We have enough gasoline to run our generator 12 hours a day for 10 days.
It can’t run everything at once, but we move it around as needed and wanted. We run the coffee maker and the radio, the refrigerator and freezers. We run the blower on the wood stove.
In the evenings, we watch a couple hours of TV and run the Christmas tree lights and a few lamps. We also run the water pump up at the house. We keep a couple extra tanks of water at the house to refill the water heater, using generator power. We’ve been rationing our stored water carefully, not knowing how long the power outage will last, but we haven’t run out. Would LOVE to have one of those special generators that can run the pump down at the well to have unlimited water during an outage, but this hasn’t been bad. WE HAVE WATER. That’s a good thing. We’re safe. We’re warm. The animals are safe. Our food stores are safe. We even have a number of “electrical luxuries” due to the generator. This has, in fact, been the best power outage I’ve ever had.
If you’re prepared, a long outage isn’t a miserable experience. It can even be a good experience. Life slows down. Most days, I feel as if I’m on a runaway train. Long work to-do lists dominate the too-short days, broken by numerous trips for school and sports. During a power outage, time stretches while you’re waiting for electricity to be restored. You might as well relax and have fun, with many normal responsibilities out of your hands. You do what you can—and most of what you can do has already been done, in advance. You turn on the generator, fill up the wood stove, take care of the animals…..then you kick back and enjoy the slow roll of time and the satisfaction of all that preparation. The hum of the generator and the crackle of fire in the wood stove says, “You did it.”
I almost hate to see it end. I’M JUST KIDDING. I really miss baking cookies. But, at least I have internet access again! I MISSED YOU!
Update: The power company is now saying we won’t have power until 11 p.m. Christmas Eve.
Posted by Suzanne McMinn on December 23, 2009
1:25
am
2:04
am
2:10
am
3:21
am
3:50
am
Beautiful Photo’s of the snow covered trees!
Winter Wonderland indeed.
Let us know if the animals start talking on Christmas Eve? k? LOL
Merry Christmas!
~~HUGS~~
4:19
am
Stay warm. Have a Merry little Christmas.
Clover needs cookies so I hope the power is on soon.
4:31
am
4:40
am
Thanks for sharing your outage odyssey (pictures and words) with us.
4:53
am
4:53
am
5:20
am
The photos of the trees and snow are just beautiful! I know the snow does drastic things and can do much harm, but it is beautiful!
5:23
am
The snow is so beautiful, but so dangerous.
5:26
am
5:42
am
6:02
am
6:07
am
6:14
am
Hugs Granny Trace
6:18
am
6:27
am
6:31
am
6:31
am
6:36
am
6:38
am
Thank you for sharing. I can stare at my computer screen and pretend that I have snow out my window here near the Texas coast.
You are truely a gift to all of us.
6:43
am
6:49
am
7:04
am
7:21
am
7:22
am
So glad you’re back! Loved the cocoa pictures of Morgan.
7:32
am
7:46
am
Susan
PS. It is beautiful. In southern middle TN we are still awaiting our first flurry. You WV folks get all the fun weather!
7:47
am
The pics are great – so lovely. Glad you all are safe and warm.
And yep! Jerry did an wonderful job in your stead. Take care and welcome back.
8:02
am
wELCOME BACK!
8:09
am
Glad you are all warm and fed and happy. Welcome back!!!
8:11
am
Welcome back!
What beautiful photos–they would make nice Christmas cards.
Generators are a wonderful thing, they let you enjoy the things that are essential as well as the things that make you feel warm and fuzzy in times of power outages.
It seems as though you had time to relax and spend time with the family, it couldnt be at a nicer time
I am happy to hear that you are all safe and warm with pleaty of good thing to eat, after all, what more could we ask for?
JO
8:14
am
8:24
am
Clover looks really huge! Is she pregnant or just the winter fur? Looks pregnant to me!
Kris
8:28
am
8:34
am
Those are gorgeous pictures of all that snow.
It was good to relax a few days wasn’t it? You are always so busy.
I can’t believe how beautiful all that snow is.
Deb
8:38
am
8:40
am
8:51
am
8:52
am
8:52
am
8:54
am
8:57
am
8:58
am
9:00
am
9:06
am
Euni in Colorado
PS Woke up to 3 inches this morning with promise of more to come!
9:07
am
9:09
am
9:09
am
9:11
am
9:16
am
9:24
am
9:27
am
9:41
am
10:05
am
Love the snow …
Can I come stay with you the next winter …
10:12
am
How come the snow you got is way more prettier than mine? That’s just not fair! lol I love the way the snow looks on your trees. It’s just beautiful!
My trees didn’t get as covered as yours but it was still pretty. We got 12 inches of snow here in Hurricane, West Virginia. Glad you have been able to take a mini vacation! Just think, there are people who actually pay to go where there is a lot of snow and we get it for free! Hope your electric does come back on soon! Especially before Christmas! 
Angela
10:27
am
10:33
am
You did it!!!!!!
Happy Happy Merry Merry!!!!
10:39
am
anni
11:08
am
11:35
am
We’re still without power over at Newton (Southern Roane County)too. Have stopped believing those Allegheny Power estimates of when power will be restored since they’ve all been wrong so far. And, since we’re at the end of the road with broken power lines on the ground, we’ll probably be the last or near last to have electricity again.
I am thankful for the small generator we have, for the gasoline to run it and for my “52″ (aka 71) who is the only person at our house who can start it (although it isn’t easy) and for Wildblue.net satellite internet service which has kept on working (when I can steal a little generator power). Like you, I’d love to have a generator to run the well pump as well as one with an electric starter.
Here’s hoping your lights are ALL back on soon.
Your neightbor across a couple of hills
11:45
am
So glad you are back!
12:00
pm
12:00
pm
I loved the pictures on this post. They reminded me of growing up in rural upstate NY. It looked like that every winter after a good snow. My favorite part of the big snows was waking up so early in the morning, just before the sun makes the sparkling glare on all the crystals of snow, is all the silence. You can hear the snowflakes hitting the ground. But, in my parts, that serenity was very short lived, as my family and family friends were avid snowmobilers (we often had no choice but to use them as our main source of transportation) and all the tracks would mess up the morning’s peace. But usually, a day or three later, I would get to enjoy it again.
Now I’m in New Mexico. And I seldom see snow up close here. But, to my pleasure, there was about 1/8″ on the ground when I crawled out of bed this morning! Yay!
Glad you’re back Suzanne!!!
12:01
pm
—forgot to ask–where do the dogs stay in bad weather?
JO
12:04
pm
12:12
pm
12:39
pm
12:42
pm
1:29
pm
2:04
pm
3:11
pm
Marry Christmas to all your well loved farm animals.
So happy to have you back.
I so enjoy your pictures and blog.
Anne
3:22
pm
3:45
pm
I can definitely relate over here in Nicholas County. Lost power Friday night at 9:30 p.m. and woke to 18″ of snow and no phone. The power came back on today, but no phone so I’m making use of my work computer while I can. The chickens have really hated the snow. We basically have kept everyone but the horses in. And we had two baby lambs born just this morning and one born day before yeseterday. There’s no stopping mother nature! Enjoy the white Christmas!
6:01
pm
6:29
pm
6:30
pm
7:00
pm
I hope you will post some pictures of your handsome sheep in the snow…pretty please!
9:07
pm
We are in the midst of a bad snowstorm here now. Could get anywhere from 15-20″ and then it’ll start blowing. We don’t have a generator, however.
I pray our electricity doesn’t go out. But we do have a gas stove and a woodburning furnace and lots of food. So we’ll be ok.
The only bummer is that it’s putting a damper on everyone’s plans for Christmas. But it is nice to just stay put.
Merry Christmas to you and your family!
9:52
pm
9:56
pm
I don’t know if you do Christmas on Christmas Eve or Day, but MERRY CHRISTMAS either way!
10:50
pm
11:02
pm
1:59
am
Glad you’re back.
And I got my calendar earlier in the week. Thank you again! We love it.
11:52
am
Stay warm! And…
Many, many blessings from Ohio…
1:45
pm
6:59
pm