Snow Fun

Here in our corner of the North West, 40,000 customers had power out for the last couple of days due to ice storms. At 2am Sunday morning, our dog started barking, so Dh went to check things out. The power lines along the main road were arcing and the power went out. He filled up all the big jars he could find with water before the pressure went down.

Sunday morning we woke up to the whole world glittering in ice. Every leaf, every branch, every blade of grass was covered with ice. An oak tree fell across the fence into the front yard around 8 am, which is what got me out of bed. Since there are several large oak trees outside our bedroom, I decided that it was not a safe place to be, lol.

Ron, nearly 6 feet tall, next to a fallen branch off one of the big oak trees.

We were without power for 31 hours. No heat, no water (electric pump on our well). We camped out, boys in the living room and girls in the telly room. We slept in our clothes and sweaters, in sleeping bags with blankets. I'm so glad we have a gas stove! Nothing like nice hot soup in the cold! It got down to 49* in the house. Not bad for no heat. The kids started teasing me that I couldn't make coffee in my electric coffee pot, but I showed THEM! I got out my percolator stuff for my granite ware coffee pot and made a nice big pot.

We could hear the trees and branches breaking and coming down all night and all day. We lost around 20 trees. The boys said they could hear branches breaking once every 10 seconds while they were outside. They were out with the chainsaw a couple of times to clear the driveway and the fence line. Ralph Jr. said he was out there and had cleared a tree off the fence, and then decided it would be fun to run up the driveway. A big limb off a 120 ft. poplar fell right behind him, where he had been standing.


The sheep are well prepared for cold weather with their woolen sweaters.


Amazingly, our sheep and calves are safe. They are pastured in the wooded side of our property. The kids played games all day and we went to bed early. It was fun making potato latkes for the first night of Hanukkah in the dark with candles, lol.

Here is Mae going for a long trail ride on her mustang pony.

We had a package of bottled water, and Dh drained the hot water heater for washing dishes. I guess it was enough of an excuse to not wash, because the kitchen just Went To Pot after one meal. We used up all the dishes and all the spoons. Then we broke into the paper goods. Probably should have done that, first. I wasn't feeling well and stayed out of the kitchen, which was another mistake.



Dh and I and the girls went into town, today. There is about a foot of snow. Hardly any roads are plowed. None of the store workers thought of shoveling the sidewalks. It's kind of amusing how just a foot of snow really confounds NorthWesterners.

Lessons: Get a snow shovel. Get a big water cooler with a spigot. Keep natural beeswax candles on hand, the paraffin candles gave me a doozy of a headache, even though they were unscented. Keep paper goods on hand. Kick the boys out of the kitchen during emergencies.