The Big Blow

Almost 48 hours with no power!
We had an horrendous wind storm on Friday night that took out all our power and blew my satellite inernet dish off the house! If this had been on the other coast, it would have been classified as a hurricane. It blew so hard we thought the windows were going to implode!

We woke in the early hours to this howling, shrieking wind storm from the south. All the lights, and of course the heat was off too. It sounded awful, but I was amazed at how firmly the little house stood its ground, just the windows shaking and gusts hammering the doors. In the morning, we got the old woodstove going and it took the chill off the house and we heated water for coffee and tea. Like camping out!

Chris had clients he was supposed to meet so he hops in the car and off he goes, only to return within a few minutes with the news of a BIG tree down across the road. It was all tangled with the electrical and phone lines, a bit scary! So he ended up walking up to the office - 3 1/2 miles - to find the office of course, also dark and cold and no internet! By the time he was ready to come home, I had checked on the road and the tree had been cut and moved so I was able to pick him up.

From there it was directly to the store for more candles and batteries. I was concerned that we would lose everyting in the freezer but it is very well insulated and all the food is still frozen solid. Back home, Chris cut - by hand (all the time wishing he had cut the wood days before with a skil saw) enough wood to last the evening. A good way to use up all the old stuff from the deck that he has torn apart!

So we end up with candles and a wood stove and a game of scrabble before heading to bed really early, hoping that we would hear the thunk of the forced air heater in the night. But that was wishful thinking and this morning woke up to a pretty cool house but not nearly as cold as we thought it would be. Got the fire going again and made oatmeal porridge with walnuts and cranberries. Not too bad!

And then the sun came out! And it was beautifully calm and actually quite warm so was able to do a little garden clean up. A sailing friend of Chris came over and he has no power either. He also has no wood stove at his house and said the place was like a fridge! So we are very grateful for our little black box!

One thing that was amazing to me was how quiet the house was without anything electrical going. You could hear a pin drop! I think we need a new fridge and I will get rid of the buzzy light over the stove and turn the computer off when I am not on it.

Today is SuperBowl (not that I give a rat's ass) but there is not a soul coming to the office, where I am so I can check my emails etc. So I will go home and get a nice hot shower (the water should be hot by now) and read a book or something while Chris watches the game.