This post is brought to you by our pick-up truck. Yes, the pick-up truck is providing the power for me to blog today on my laptop, which was fully charged at the moment we lost electricity last night at 9:15. The electric company has no estimate for when it will be restored. Since some people have been without power for two days and are just now being told they can expect to get power back by 5:00 this afternoon, we're thinking it might be a couple days for us also. The original outage was caused by an ice storm, and then last night the wind kicked up and caused our current power outage.
The wood stove is keeping the house at 63 degrees, which is amazing since it is hovering around 0 degrees F today. All the water buckets were frozen, so we brought those inside to melt. Margaret went to town to get water for us, since our well pump is electric. We'll also have to give water to the animals. With all the ice around here, we'd need to use a pick ax to break it up and thaw it for water. The weather has been terrible with snow, followed by above-freezing temps, and then the ice storm on Thursday night.
Mike is cycling the frig and the freezers on the power from the pick-up, and I found some half-gallon bottles of frozen water outside that I also put in the frig to help keep everything cold in there between times that we're running the pick-up. The deep freezer is actually doing quite well. Everything in there is still frozen hard.
I am really wishing we had our own solar panels and wind turbine! At a minimum, we really should have a generator. Time to sign off for now. I'll write again once we have power restored and let you know all the fun details!
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4 comments:
Do get the generator. As useful as solar can be, it will not work from under a blanket of ice or snow. Likewise, wind turbines are prone to icing up in still air, and then not running when the wind returns, until they can thaw. Generators may be a brute-force approach, but they're there when you need them, every single time. Well, so long as you keep them maintained, anyway.
Did the power outage affect the electric fence or is it running on battery? But with this weather, I guess the animals are probably all huddling in the barn, I hope.
We bought our generator in the summer because of a power outage after a storm. I wouldn't be without it out here. Hope you are reading this in the house. Stay warm! And.....how did they do this in the "old days"?
MM, a generator sounds like the perfect Christmas present!
Ivy, We have two different electric fence systems. One is wired, and is, of course, not working. The other one is solar powered, and the solar panel is covered in ice. As Masked Man said, it doesn't work when covered in ice. The goats are locked in the barn, but the sheep are outside. The llamas are guarding them.
Sharrie, I have been wondering how they did this "back then." Our biggest challenge is getting water for the livestock.
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