Perfect timing on her arrival for as soon as I remembered to fill up the bathtub (for flushing our toilet)the power went out with a bang! Yikes! My youngest daughter was all dramatic and sprung into action. "Why not fill up our bucket with outside water from the rain?" Perfect idea! So, she was happily on that job and told us each time one of the large buckets was filled. We had so much rain that the buckets filled the tub in no time at all and we were able to fill the tub. Such an insane amount of water from that storm.
We checked on the sheep and they were doing fine. I decided to cook all of our food that was near expiration before the power went out. It must be some inside, deep down primal instinct to fill the house with food before a storm. Is it the memories of lifetimes past of starving to death due to the depletion of food supplies during catastrophies? I do not know for sure on that, but I made it my "Mom" job to fill the house with as much food as possible.
We eneded up with only the burners on the top of the stove when the power went so my meatloaf cooking inside before the power hit just had to sit for a bit. It ended up being only a few hours so all was good with that eventually. My parents built a summer house on my property and we had decided to still have our Sunday meal. We normally have it at their house but with the potential loss of power and my gas stove, we decided to have it here. My Mom bought over all of the ingredients and had them all on the stove and simmering in record time. She made her famous speghetti sauce from a recipe from my Great Aunt Gyneth. The infamous sauce recipe was straight from Sicily and had to simmer for three hours. No problem on my gas stove! In the background we had the wonderful ancient music from the Victrola playing and candles lit on the table while the wind howled angrilly outside. We had a wonderful dinner and I even bought out the china plates and silverware for the occasion!
We lost the power from around noon until just before supper but it was enough to appreciate things a bit more. We get so caught up in life in the modern era that sometimes it is nice to be reminded of how good we have things and how much easier life is-and cleaner! It was funny, but what I missed most of all was the running water! Yikes, I feel spoiled just saying that! But the whole time we lost power, I had to boil water on the stove for cleaning the dishes and then pour out the water from the milk jugs we had filled earlier. (I learned that from camping trips-we camp completely roughing it with tents and a river nearby for water). It would have been a major struggle if this went on for a few more days. But it did not and with a big lesson learned. When the power came back on we all rushed in for showers and to clean the dishes and to finish the laundry that had been left inside when the power was lost briefly. Yes, all water related issues of course and then the tv went on and all was back to normal. I did love the silence and the entertainment of our Victrola. It was easy to become lost in time and felt nice for that brief respite from modern times. The dinner was wonderful with family and loved ones close and made all the more magical by the candlelight.
It was kinda of funny because I woke up the next morning to find out my work place in Lewiston was still without power. I went into work on Tuesday and it was still not back on. My co-worker and I worked the whole day by our office hooked up on a generator and no running water. This time I knew how to flush the toilet by pouring water in the back of the tank! I was proud of my new lesson and felt almost a bit more self-sufficient. The power at my workplace went back on about a half hour before it was time to close up!
It was a nice adventure and we have interesting stories to tell of our adventures. I am so sorry for those of you out there who do not have nice stories to tell of this storm, my heart and prayers go out to you. I just wanted to show a bit of the light side of storms. Trust me, there are enough dark stories to tell, I felt that we could use a fun one that tunred out okay. :)