Chapter 4 :~) - Ramius to the rescue!
We shifted into camping mode, and started the routine of off-line life, which mostly revolved around filling water buckets from our emergency supply barrel for the horses and for the toilet and for us, continuing to clear branches, and dealing with food. Also talked to everyone on the cell phone, called parents, called Ramius, Rose called here and found out we were OK. We were eager for news of what was happening elsewhere, wondering what the weather was going to do, wondering how bad it was around town and when we might get power back. Reports were that it might be days. It probably will be days to get out to the very rural places, even like the beach house that is down a small private road. Back here, we are on a fairly major road, so we were higher on the list, probably.
But we learned that the temperatures were expected to drop into the freezing zone, and there was a potential for snow, and having only electric heat, we had no source of heat except the barbecue, and I've read enough headlines about that to know we can't use that. I'd been talking to dad about needing to find an emergency heat source because with all the crap weather we'd been having, none of them so far had been during critical cold times. A power outage isn't a huge emergency when the temps are in the forties or higher, it starts becoming a real problem if it's bitter cold.
Dad had suggested maybe we could use a Kerosene heater he has, it was not too bad for fumes, and as long as we kept a window open, maybe it'd be safe enough, but we'd go back and forth on whether it was safe to have any kind of flammable fuel heater inside. I was already thinking we might end up with me, ecurbh, Rosie, and all the dogs and cats huddled in our bed under every blanket we own for the duration.
Well, I talked to Ramius about the cold night to come and the potential for snow showers, and sortof begged him to come down with that kerosene heater. "It'll be an adventure" I said. "Bring us that heater and come camp with us!" The amazing thing is, he said he would! He'd come down and bring the kerosene heater!
It was funny when Ramius arrived, because he pulls this electric heater with a cord on it out of the back of his rig, and ecurbh was standing there staring at him, wondering whether Ramius was that much of a moron. That was all part of the joke, of course, because the surprise was that he had another present with him, a generator Ramius and dad had already purchased as a Christmas present and decided we'd probably appreciate getting it early! WOO HOO! How exciting!
We set it up on the front porch, put up some tarps to keep it protected from any blow-in rain or snow. While the guys assembled the generator, Rosie and I headed to town to fill gas cans, which was a considerable challenge. Most all of town was dark, and some of those who had power were already out of gas. It took us quite a while to find a station that was open, and it had a long line. Never had to wait in line like that for gas before. Nearly everyone was also filling cans for generators. I wished I'd taken the camera to show damage from around town, but I didn't. There were trees down everywhere, even on the freeway.
Upon our return back home, we fired up the generator. We were camping in style now!
Here's ecurbh making some stew from meat and veggies we had in the fridge...
That stew was really good. And heat was really good! We consider Ramius, and dad, to be quite the heroes. Give these guys a problem, like me complaining about not having heat if the power goes out, and they solve it the right way. I was thinking of a propane or kerosene heater, they decided to get a generator to keep me from getting something that was unsafe. Deep thanks to them, they really saved us this time, and better yet, have given us some long term preparedness.
We were able to warm up, and even more decadent, watch DVD movies on TV! This is actually a bigger heater Ramius went into town to get after the little one didn't seem to put out very much heat. I guess electric heaters were on sale at Home Depot ;~)
These were taken the next morning, during first coffee. ecurbh in particular looks like he's been run over. We're still behind on sleep :~)
We could power the heater, a light, the TV and DVD, and even the electric fence for the horses. It was really nice. I gave the horses all the hay they could eat. They did really well for having had a pretty rough week of bad weather where they were, for the first time, put outside to deal with it best they can. Bay looked really tired and a little stiff on Friday (before the lady with the horse rode up anyway) and I Buted him, but they were otherwise fine. And the fences were fine. That's the remarkable thing, even the back forty only had small limbs on it that we could easily clear.
Once we had all our basic needs met, we went over to get Rosie's siding put back up. Her landlord said he'd do it, but he was pretty busy over at the store with his own issues, so we decided to get it done, just in case it rained or snowed before he could get to it.
So there we are! Ramius went home, and we got ourselves bathed with water heated on the barbecue, powered the generator up and settled in for yet another night camping... We didn't quite know how to handle it when the lights came back on. It's change that's hard to bear, once a person has become adapted to new realities. We didn't shut the generator down right away, we didn't trust that the electricity would really stay on :~)
And that closes our story, we still have a lot of cleanup to do, but no emergencies. We'll go up on the roof today, there's a lot of branches up there too, but we don't ~think~ any damage.
I hope, the end, except for a few pictures from the beach house and surrounding areas I'll post in a bit... I don't want to write any more storm stories for awhile.