Snowy, Snowy Day

The weather people were right. It snowed!

Larry had collected our wood stepladders to get ready to take to booths; now they make  pretty cool snow sculpture.

And snowed and snowed, until in the end I think there's about 12 inches of wet white stuff out there. It's incredibly beautiful, so bright it almost hurts the eyes.

Of course, with a wet, heavy snow like this, the power is bound to go out. We've been fortunate this winter with no power outages, until today. Sometimes during the night the electricity went off, and when I called to report it the projected restore time was 11:00am tomorrow. We were prepared for it to be off, though--we put about 20 gallon jugs of water in the cellar, took our showers before going to bed, set up the morning's coffee and tea things, rounded up flashlights and made sure the kerosene lamps were full.  We also thought about what things we could get into if the power was out.

Free gas is a real blessing in an outage. Our cookstove, heat, and refrigerator run on gas so the only inconveniences are lack of lights, and the water not running. One day we'll get one of those natural gas generators and we won't even notice when the lights go out.

We still had plenty to do. Washing dishes takes a little more time, and Larry had a date with the snow shovel. I had a huge pile of papers that needed to be sorted and filed so I got that out of the way,

and then I worked on getting the polyurethane coat on the cabinet I painted yesterday and on the doors for it that Larry had stripped and stained.

He's already started stripping the door on the new pantry cupboard so I reckon I'll be painting it too in the near future.

Both of us enjoyed watching the birds at the feeders.

There must have been over 50 out there, and I counted 12 male cardinals at one time.

Love that little snowbird sitting right on top!

The feeders were busy, busy. I was glad we'd bought more seed when we were in town the other day because they are really going through it.

I never tire of looking at the snow.

When it was getting dark I started the process of lighting lamps and candles while Larry built a fire in the fireplace. I noticed that some of the oil lamps needed their wicks trimmed so I did that before lighting them. We'd just settled in by the fire, wondering what do next with the house being so dim, when, voila! The lights came on!

Tomorrow Larry will get out the tractor, and I hope he'll be able to get the driveway clear enough for us to get out to town. We'll see. With temperatures predicted to be below zero tonight, the snow will freeze, and I am not sure how easy it will be to clear. A foot of snow is a lot to move off a 1/4 mile long road that is all uphill. If he can't get it done, I reckon we'll just wait for the weekend's warmer temperatures to do the job.

I am worried about that warming trend, though. Flooding was already happening before this storm. I only hope those high waters have a chance to recede before this new snow melts. For those of you along creeks and rivers, I'll be thinking of you and hoping you stay high and dry.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Back to Normal, or What Passes for It, and Thinking About Things

When we arrived home this evening, the lights were on! Yay! Except that we had left one window air conditioner turned on, forgetting about it while we opened all the windows to keep the house cool. So the AC was running for who knows how long, trying to cool the great outdoors. Ah well.

I have thought a lot about this summer's electrical ups and downs. We are not big power consumers; we're conscientious about what we use and how much. For example, the AC doesn't get turned on until the temps are over 90 or the humidity is unbearable. Both have been frequent occurrences this summer. We've only had AC for the past 10 years, getting a few window units when my elderly parents were coming to visit. Often we run them only for a few hours a day, unless we have visitors who are more used to the comfort of central air. We have gas for cooking, hot water, the dryer, the fridge and heat.

While we don't use much, we do rely on the electrical appliances we do use. The well pump, the washer, the freezer are our main uses. I have wondered, can we do without them? And I know the answer is yes, we could. The alternatives, however, do not represent a savings in energy use, with the possible exception of the freezer. Without the well pump, we'd be buying and hauling water because we have no other source, unless we built a cistern. In this hot, dry summer, we'd have been buying water anyway. Our gardens would not be watered so we'd have less produce. Without the washer, I'd be washing by hand (been there and done that and I'm here to tell you that is hard work) or taking things to the laundromat. The first option means I would have less time for other more productive pursuits. The second means more expense and use of resources.

The freezer is really the only expendable in the list of major electrical needs. I used to can, smoke or dry all of the food we put up. I still can a lot, but there is no arguing with freezing being a better way to preserve most meats and many vegetables and fruits. We use other small appliances and equipment too, but these I do not consider necessities. The big three, however, those are important to our quality of life. So doing without them is not on my list of changes we could make to reduce our reliance on electricity.

I lived for 15 years without electricity on this farm and while it was a fun challenge when I was young, I realize that today I am not prepared to return to that style of living. It was work, all day and every day, to maintain a reasonable level of comfort. Lamps had to washed and filled weekly; kerosene had to be bought; a generator had to run twice a week to provide water; laundry was washed by hand, in the old hand-cranked washer or hauled to the laundromat. Batteries had to be bought for the radio; the tiny gas fridge made miniscule amounts of ice and often had to be coaxed into working. We had to haul in tanks of bottled gas for the hot water heater and the cookstove and hook up the tanks ourselves. This was not pioneer-level living; those women worked much harder than we did, but with four children I had all I could do to keep up. When I began working away from home, the work got even more intense. Thank goodness for those strong boys to help!

So I wonder in the quest for self-sufficiency, just what is a person willing to give up? What level of self-reliance is "best"? Does it vary from person to person, from age to age? What is, after all, a necessity and what is a luxury in the quest for a self reliant life? My point of view has shifted over the years; instead of independence of "the grid," I look to a life with thoughtful use of resources and a lifestyle that is simple, comfortable and sustainable for us as we look to our aging years.

Perhaps the goal is sustainability, not self-sufficiency. Looking at where we are now I think we have a sustainable life if we add the natural gas generator we want for backup when the power goes out. This summer has made me reflect and evaluate how we live, and realize how lucky we are to have this place and the resources available to us here. I can complain with the best of them but in the end, this is where I want to be at this time of my life. That means accepting the difficulties of living in a place far from the madding crowds.

Copyright 2007 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

When the Power Goes Off

When the electric lines are coated with snow like this, it's a given that the electricity is going to go out. Which it did Saturday. Even more surprising, it came on after only a twelve hour outage.

What do you do when the electricity is off? We found plenty to keep us busy:

Lit the candles and the kerosene lamps, of course.

Larry cleaned and filled the eight or so kerosene lamps we keep in good working order.

I caught up on a bit of sewing. Every pair of pants and every jacket I buy has to be hemmed it seems, so Saturday was a good time to catch up on a few of them, plus mend the lace tablecloth I'd been meaning to get to.

Cooking is both simpler and more difficult. The woodstove in the living room does double or triple duty when the power is off--provides its usual comforting heat, plus cooks dinner, makes coffee, dries clothes and in this case melts snow to use to flush the toilet. We had ten gallons ready for other uses--cleaning, washing, etc. but used the snow for the toilet.

Larry cleaned widows on the inside and will get to the outside when the weather is better.





The little blue radio on the table kept us supplied with music and weather updates as we worked, and the candles and lamps gave a warm glow after dark.

Votives in the bedroom, placed in front of the mirror, gave double the light and were bright enough for us to see to get ready for bed.

In my office, I worked by lamp and candlelight to organize paperwork, finally catching up on a months-long backlog. I'm still not done but I made a good dent in the pile waiting to be sorted and filled a couple trash cans in the bargain. I am still amazed at how paper can literally swallow an open space in no time at all. Paperless society? When?

When all our work was done, We ate dinner in the log room by the fireplace and Larry got out his little battery powered DVD player so we could watch an old Christmas movie. We went to bed earlier than usual and had just drifted off when lights, radio, and all the other appliances buzzed back into life.

That's how we spent our day. The first day without electricity is usually fun; the second means a little more work--the food in the fridge would have needed to be packed into a cooler or two and put out on the porch to stay cold; we'd have had to melt a lot more snow, and dishes would begin to be more of a chore as we would have had to heat water on the stove to wash them. Hygiene becomes more work too. Three days means laundry might be piling up, more and more snow would need to be melted and cleaning becomes a lot more time-consuming. Heating bath water is a big job. Four days or more and it's serious hunker down and get the basics done and maybe a trip to someone's house to do some laundry and take a real shower. Unless of course, you still can't get out...then it's more grunt work.

We were very lucky this time. Many people are still without power and I feel for them. With the holidays looming, many people will be looking at a slightly different Christmas morning than what they had planned. I hope it will still be merry and bright, and filled with love and laughter, even if everything is not quite as perfect as they might want it to be.