Thursday, December 16, 2021

Watch out for wet snow

We woke up Monday morning to about four inches of beautiful snow.

It was just magical.

The branches of the weeping willows were weighed down, since the snow was very wet and heavy.

We spent the day just going about our business, admiring the scenery, little realizing what lay ahead.

It continued to snow heavily, falling on livestock and weighing down more branches.

Deep in the night, we woke up to a persistent beeping noise. "Power's out," Don mumbled. The beep was the sound his computer's emergency battery backup made while in hibernation mode. He got up and completely shut off his computer and came back to bed.

Yes, the power was out, and it stayed out. All that heavy wet snow was too much for branches and power lines, and electricity was out all over the county. We spent a quiet day indoors, watching birds on the branches and at the feeder.

It's hard to express how grateful we were to have the wood cookstove. Unlike the power outages we experienced last winter when we had to scramble to stay warm, this time we stayed cozy and comfortable.

The hours ticked by. Don finished his first attempt at sourdough bread, baked in the cookstove oven. It filled the house with wonderful smells.

A neighbor came out and plowed the road.

Don later plowed the driveway. We expected a hard freeze overnight and he preferred to push snow, not ice.

I took down and dusted off the kerosene lamps.

I did dishes using stored water (no power = no water, since our well pump is electric).

Lots of dishes!

Power was still out the next day, and sure enough things froze solid. We walked Darcy on a sheet of ice.

Fortunately we each have a secret weapon on our boots: cleats. We didn't dare step foot outside without them.

The second day came and went, and still no power. It was time to remove the contents of the refrigerator.

We tucked everything into ice chests and put them outside. The outdoor chest freezer is fine, especially in freezing weather. If need be, we just had to crack the lid open at night, since temps got down to 22F.

Finally, after nearly three days without power, the electricity came back on, though we had a lot of flickers. God bless all the hard-working linemen out there in the bitter cold.

We spent the day doing laundry, finishing canning projects, flushing toilets, taking showers, doing dishes, filling jugs and pots, and anything else involving water. I also topped off all the kerosene lamps.

We're still getting a lot of power flickers, so we're half-expecting to lose electricity again. Such is life in winter.

16 comments:

  1. Patrice, we had a much smaller and less intrusive version of this during this week (Snow, power loss, pump on electric). Fortunately there is a wood stove and a generator, so I was able to stay warm, work on the computer, and cook a meal (on the woodstove). It was nice being able to not worry about such an issue.

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  2. I SO want a wood stove. We have a wood burning fireplace but it wouldn't be easy to cook over and the heat all goes up the chimney. I'm glad you were able to be as prepared as you were. Snug as a bug!

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  3. In the photo of cleats, I see a name brand on the boot. Are those good, long lasting ones? I've been searching for a good pair of boots worth my money.

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    1. The brand name is Noble Outfitters. The model is Task Master.

      https://www.nobleoutfitters.com/products/mens-muds-taskmaster-high

      They're pretty good boots, at least as good as Mucks or Lacrosse; well insulated, good tread and good fitting. As I recall, they were a little less expensive than some of their more famous competition.

      -Don

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  4. Planning on getting a generator for the well?

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    1. Already got one. But I didn't get to wiring it up yet. It's on the 2022 list.

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  5. When we moved to the country to retire we purchased a propane fueled small whole house generator. Unfortunately last winter when we had rolling blackouts the generator was dead. The one time we really needed it we could not use it. It has since been replaced but I hope we do not need it again this winter!

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    1. Generators are like a car or anything else you want to depend on, you need to test start them and run them at least every other month to few months and should always do it going in to winter or before an approaching hurricane, etc. You may need to trickle change the battery or change it if it has been years and it is an electric start. If it gas powered you want relatively fresh gas in it so you need to run the gas down periodically and replace it or have fresh gas on hand to replace it.

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  6. If your well isn't over 230' a Solarjack pump and cistern will take care of the water problems.
    JW M

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  7. I got my husband a new recliner yesterday. It’s a Christmas present and will be delivered next week. The salesperson kept trying to sell me a power recliner. I told her that I didn’t want any chair that would get stuck in a position without electricity. She said, “Well how often does the power go out anyway? Hardly ever!” I don’t think she gets it.

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  8. Maybe a silly question.... but with all the snow, why didn't you fill a pot, melt it on the wood stove and use the water to flush the toilets? What am I missing? Why did you wait until the power was back on to flush the toilets?

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    1. We followed the usual "if it's yellow, it's mellow" rule of thumb for flushing toilets. We weren't nearly to the point of needing to melt snow yet, since we had more stored water available. We were just being highly frugal with it.

      - Patrice

      Not a silly question at all. Mostly we didn't melt any snow simply because we didn't have to. We had around 15 gallons of water in storage in the house. For those times we "had" to flush, we used around two of those gallons. We knew that the power would come back on sooner or later, so mostly we didn't worry. Besides, the usual rule of thumb goes that for 10 inches of snow in a container, you end up with 1 inch of water (Because our snowfall was so heavy, it had more water in it then that, but not that much more.). We simply weren't in a dire enough situation to do too much. Mind you, if the outage had gone on much longer, I'd have rewired the well pump for the generator a bit sooner than I planned.

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  9. Patrice, I like your drying racks! I need to get back into hanging our laundry.

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  10. An old 5 gal bucket, a noodle cut to fit around the top, and pine shavings borrowed from the chickens' supplies equals an excellent composting toilet.

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  11. Do you leave your freezer plugged in during the winter? We have a fridge in our garage but I wasn't sure if we should unplug it now that the temps are in the teens.

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    1. We always keep our freezer plugged in regardless of the outside temperature. There's just too much fluctuation and variability to take chances.

      - Patrice

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