September 13th, 2006

ur power went out today at 2:30 pm when a rotten Poplar tree went and knocked the lines together shorting them out and making them sag to the ground. This is very much on the topic we were just speaking of a few days ago on OHG, living without electricity. I figured someone sent enough energy my way to test me out.

I seriously thought that a logging truck took it out as our power never goes off and usually when it does. Since I had not planned on anything for dinner yet, and I had the feeling it would be awhile before the power was back on, I fired up the woodstove after opening all the windows.

Partly as I was not feeling great (been sick 2 days now), partly as I was craving it, I tossed 6 chicken breasts into the stewpot, added vegetables from the garden (potatoes, carrots, celery) and spices and opened the damper to get the fire in the woodstove roaring. I put together some bread and let it rise and waited until the stove was medium and turned the damper back down and baked my bread in a Corningware souffle' dish on a 3/4" high upside down tray I use as a spacer and tossed a Stainless Steel bowl over the top and set it to the back of the stove where it stays cooler.

After the bread was done in about 15-20 minutes, I roared the fire up again and put the soup to the front where it going to get boiling and then to simmer when I turned the damper down (this is a heating stove, not a cook stove per se).

I got out the wind up radio to listen to the 2 radio stations we get on it, to see if there was any news of why the power was out and for maybe how long. You may smile at this, but we always have reports of someone's cows running away from home or a pair of goats with one blue collar and one red collar standing down by the KK store, so they also report where and why power is out somewhere... sometimes.

We need to water the hogs and we will be sending a clean 5 gallon bucket down the hand dug well on a rope to fill the other 5 gallon buckets in the back of my pickup and drive it up to the Piggies.

No one complained about the heat in the house from the woodstove surprisingly (probably due to hunger pangs from getting back from football) and after last winter, they are used to eating meals cooked in the livingroom. Though when I first started doing it here, they thought I must have been possessed. (It keeps me out with the action instead of being solitary in the kitchen by myself).

Yes, I am typing on the computer right now, but only for less than 14 minutes more, as that is when my battery dies. It is actually quite nice, having no refrigerator noise (which we hear easily as it is so quiet here), no TV, no radio (as I turned it off), just hearing the wind, the kitten prowling about and the boys rattling papers as they do their homework and eat soup.

I told the boys to get a rush on doing their homework as it will be dark in less than an hour in the house, unless they preferred to do their homework in the middle of the driveway with the wind picking up. Dessert tonight is cookies pan fried on the woodstove and the rest of them will be for the boys' lunches. Don't knock them until you try pan fried cookies, they are very good. I used to do that out on campouts sometimes. I changed out the portable phone for a landline phone.. we only have one phone jack.

I did think about what I couldn't do from our conversation the other day in here.. the livingroom I could not vacuum (so I am glad I did it this morning before the electric went out - but they do make those floor sweeper things), but if I lived off grid, they would be not carpeted, just lino or wooden.. easy to sweep and mop. The only other concern right now is the freezers.. but in the winter I would not worry about them overmuch. My computer battery light just came on.. so I need to go before I loose this post.

Later:

Amy called and came over for dinner just as I filled the oil lamp and soaked the VERY dry wick which has not seen oil for many a year and then lit the lamp so the boys could continue their homework. Actually oil lamps toss off alot more light than I remember. I curled up on the couch next to "Kid" and read on my book while Amy ate her dinner.

About 7 hours after the power went out, it came back on thanks to the poor linemen who had troubles themselves as their man lift on their truck broke a hydraulic hose and spewed oil all over the place. So the line workers (one of which is a friend of my bf, so of course my bf had to go down and bug them *S*), had to put their corks or whatever their climbing boots are called on and scale the poles to attempt to get this tree off the line. It was a good reminder that we can easily survive here without electric. It shows me that I do need to get more wicks and now a new bottle of lamp oil or two, since my lamp takes a whole bottle of it. My bf and I talked to the boys and said this was one of the reasons that we stock up and we have the odd things like the wind up flashlights and wind up radios. My bf said that is why we do alot of the things we do, so in case the electric or anything else happens, we can survive. One of the boys said "that could never happen" and my bf surprised me by telling the boys that it could be alot closer than we think. We do not generally talk about things like that between him and I, though we both realize that is one of the reasons we do what we do.. just in case of....

Picture Left: "Kid" doing homework by lamplight