Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Prepared?

No, I mean REALLY prepared? Some of us like to think we are prepared for many things. It's not until you actually have to use your prepper skills that you learn, in what areas, you lack. Well, guess what? I am not as prepared as I thought I was.

Last night at 8:30 pm our electric went out.  Ok, now what? Well, I stumbled around and found a flashlight. I lit some candles and some oil lamps. Let there be light. And it was good. Hehe. Next I realized that I didn't have a phone in the house that would work if the electric went out. Great. Now I have to go up to the old house and get the land line phone. Bundle up, start four wheeler, and ride up to old house in the cold wind. As I'm up at the old house, I get another oil lamp and some more candles. I finally get back down to the new house and hook up the phone.  I called around and found out the electric was out to a whole lot of people.  This could take a while. I was already bored, might as well get ready for bed. No bath tonight for me. No water. We have a well and an electric pump.

Now, we heat with a wood stove so heat wasn't a problem. Well, almost not a problem. We have a fan that runs on the stove to circulate the hot air. With no electric, it didn't work either. With no air circulating, the house gets really cold. We don't have much insulation,(yet) so heat just goes up and out.  It was going to get cold and my electric blanket wasn't working either. They were predicting lows in the 20's. I went and got another comforter and put it on the bed. There were so many heavy blankets, I needed a jack to jack up the blankets just so I could turn over. lol. I put on fuzzy pants and a warm shirt. I snuggled down in the blankets and tried to sleep.  "Tried" being the word here. It was too quiet and too dark. No night lights. When you live in a basement it can get REALLY dark.  I couldn't tell if I had my eyes open or not. lol.

I decided to read. I took a flashlight and read a little.  A little turned into 2 hrs. I just couldn't sleep! Finally I dozed off. 2 hrs later I wake up sweating. I was HOT!!!!! I checked our thermometer. It was only down to 59 degrees. It is normally that at night anyways,even with the fan running. I got up, put more wood in the stove and went back to bed, minus the fuzzy pants.  Still couldn't sleep. At 3:45 am, the electric came back on. I then went through the house and turned off all the lights that I had left on. Got back into bed and slept like a baby. I could hear the refrigerator running, the fan on the stove, and I could see the small night light in the hallway. All was back to normal.

Now the moral of the story is.....Could I live without electric? Yes.  But, I have a lot of work to do before I do. lol

So until next time,

Small Farm Girl, electric lover.

13 comments:

Christi said...

I've asked myself that question before too--Could I live without electricity? Yeah....but I don't WANNA! Glad everything is back for you.

http://lifeonouriowafarm.blogspot.com/

Tonia said...

LOL!!! My adrenaline gets going and makes it to where I cant sleep in those situations!! I was woke up at about 2am one time when I got to looking the whole town that we can see from our hill was out of electric. It was warm weather so what woke me up was the quiet and the heat!!Lol.. I would take a little of that heat right now!

Melissa E said...

Hehe..."there were so many blankets I needed a jack to jack them up just so I could turn over"....you are too hilarious! Glad the power came back on! I freeze when it is 65 in the house and I mostly live in front of a space heater in the winter...so I imagine I would have a long ways to go too!

Texan said...

Last winter in the big snow storm we lost our power for 3 days! What a eye opener that was!

V.L. Locey said...

Ack, isn`t that rough when its cold out? We could live without the electric but since our wood stove also needs power to push the hot air through the vents we would be DERN cold!

Anonymous said...

I don't think we're all that ready either, even having gone throug 2 long stretches without electric. But!! We do have 2 propane fireplaces and for Christmas I bought Bob a weather radio that you wind up. It also has batteries. When the battery goes dead you just wind the handle for awhile and recharge it. Got it from Land's End. Looked all over the place for one and couldn't find one so I had to order it. Sooo, we're sorta ready and sorta not...debbie

Kelle at The Never Done Farm said...

Some times it's nice to have a power outage, to "see" all the areas that need work in our preps.

The phone thing was something we learned after a power outage too and back then( pre Y2K days) cell phones were a rarity.

Without our ceiling fan in the living room, our heat wouldn't circulate to well either, so we'd most likely all camp out on the kitchen floor around the stove. At least the stove is located in the area where 98% of the pipes are, so frozen pipes shouldn't be a problem.

Speaking of preps, we were lax last sring/ summer in getting wood put up for this winter and while we still have wood, we are running much closer to low than I feel comfortable with. So "Firewood Mama" is pushing everyone to work, work, work and gather, gather gather more wood for next winter and hopefully wood left over for the following*wink*

Glad you finally got warm and some much needed sleep. How those goat babes doing?

Razzberry Corner said...

Lol, I hate when we lose power because we also have a well and then have no water! We have bottled water to drink, but the bathrooms are a pain!!! We also have a woodstove with an electric blower, and I have an electric blanket on the bed. I think we have alot in common!! :D Luckily we haven't lost power recently!

~Lynn

Rae said...

Sounds like you did just fine during the power outage! :) The first time our power went out at the new place, I was in a back room. No flashlight near at hand, pitch black, and I didn't yet know the house well enough to walk confidently while blind. I had to crawl to the kitchen to get out the oil lamps. :) I learned that we really need to put a little flashlight in every room! Lol.

Catherine said...

Tell Jay you want an eco-fan for Christmas. And get some bricks, put them on the wood stove until they are hot, wrap them in an old towel and stick them down by your feet in the bed. If your feet are warm, you'll be warm. (Store the bricks under the stove so you can find them when you need them)

Yeah, losing running water sucks eggs. That is what I miss every time the electric goes down.

(Speaking of which, have you heard AEP is putting in for ANOTHER 8% rate increase?!! The THIRD in the less than a year?!! For a total rate increase of 25%?!! Bloodsuckers. Pretty soon we won't be able to afford to have electricity, they keep this nonsense up.)

Catherine

SweetLand Farm said...

Ugh I hate it when the power goes out! It's always at the most inconvenient times too! I think we are a little prepared, but wouldn't want to live everyday with out power. We have a wood fire place and a gas stove so we would be warm and still be able to eat! Glad the power came back on though it's always a happy moment when you hear that wonderful humming of power!!

thecrazysheeplady said...

I had to go 11 days without power during that ice storm several years ago. We have a generator now - our best investment!

duckidaho said...

I think about this. Without electric we lose the freezer eventually. 2 pigs and a couple of deer down the drain...unless I can pressure can it all. Well, I've got enough jars but no electric no stove, so I have a propane backup stove in the garage. Just have to make sure to fill up those propane tanks. Blessings, Russ