Back on the grid!
Posted by: TammyIt’s been a long fall already. Back in September, we lost power for nearly four days when Irene blew through. Living off grid in the warm, waning days of summer wasn’t a too much of an issue. We were able to fill the thirty-gallon fresh water holding tank in the camper and that along with our fresh water supply of water in jugs, provided ample drinking water. The generator and hot water system in the camper provided a method for VERY quick, military-style showers, too. The generator kept our freezer and refrigerator in relatively good shape. Overall, we didn’t do too bad.
Then came Alfred. The freak early fall snow storm hit us hard. Our trees are used to the the high winds and heavy snows of our Nor’Easters but the storm came early in the season with the trees still heavily laden with leaves that they hadn’t shed yet. Each leaf was like a hand, held out to catch the heavy, wet snow. With barely an inch of this snow, the branches had started to bend under the weight. We were watching TV and listening to the electrical outage numbers grow and grow and grow. We knew to expect the outages and I prepared for another four days like during Irene. We lost power around 3:30 on Saturday, the 29th.
I had an interesting problem develop with the second outage. I had restocked my supply of lamp oil well before the storm hit. My oil lamps burned beautifully during the first outage but I was running low on the oil. Well, apparently, there is a difference in lamp oils! I had decided to buy the paraffin oil which claimed to burn, “cleaner, smokeless and brighter” but I didn’t know that you can’t mix regular lamp oil with the paraffin oil. It messed up my wicks and they didn’t burn well at all. My husband made a trip to town trying to hunt down new oil and wicks. We managed new wicks but oil was in big demand. We managed some oil from my folks and his mother to hold us over until we could find more. I replaced the wicks, dumped the paraffin oil mixture and started fresh. Between the new wicks and new ‘old’ oil, we had brightly burning oil lamps once again. In addition, I was able to buy up THE last bottle of the original oil at the hardware store when it reopened after the storm (I was waiting in line outside to get in and had cash).
Another interesting dilemma was heat. The temps dropped dramatically after the storm, dipping into the twenties by Sunday night. We were forced to send our boys to my folks house because it would get too cold in the house and they never lost power. We have a fire place downstairs but it drafts badly, like any fireplace and could only keep the family room livable. There wasn’t enough room down there for five of us. By Tuesday morning, it was a mere 43 degrees Fahrenheit in the house! I could see my breath!
My husband went to work on Tuesday and I went visiting neighbors with hot coffee brewed in my camper coffee pot on the portable camper stove (DONE OUTSIDE TO PREVENT CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING!). One neighbor shared the warmth of her wood stove with me and I shared hot coffee with her. At my other neighbor’s house, he asked me in to visit with him and his wife in their “warm” home. THEY had a kerosene heater! Bob was sweet and offered to bring the heater to our home to take the serious chill off but I asked him if he might know where I could find one to buy. My dear neighbor ended up driving to a Lowe’s about 2.5 hours round-trip with me to pick up one of only three kerosene heaters they had left and I had bought and paid for by phone. Then he shared one of his two, 5-gallon containers of kerosene with us until we could find a kerosene storage container of our own AND a supplier who had power where we could fill said container. That kerosene heater was a God-send! The house went from 43 degrees F. to 70 degrees F. in about six hours! We were finally able to get the boys back home (although giving up cable and electricity at the grandparent’s house was tough 
).
Living off grid isn’t hard but living off-grid in an on-grid home is harder. We saved melting snow from the roof in buckets for the toilets. Then we hauled the buckets up the stairs, poured them into my large laundry bucket and used the water, as needed, from there. There was the constant need to haul wood from the main wood pile to the garage’s wood bin and then eventually inside. We stretched our kerosene supply by turning the heater off during the day upstairs and keeping the downstairs warm with the fireplace (I put up a curtain across the stairs to cut down the draft caused by the fireplace). After four days, the fresh water supply was more of an issue and I was able to fill our fresh water jugs with water at the local community center. I had given up on the fridge and had the boys pile the snow on the deck and we kept everything cold in our “snow-pile-fridge”. Ice cold milk with cookies is truly a wonderful treat!
We did treat ourselves to movie nights! We hooked the television and DVD player to the generator and watched the newest “Transformers” movie by fire light one night. I made popcorn in a pot on the portable camp stove. The fire, the “old-fashion” made popcorn and our family together was almost as much fun as our camping evenings! Well, the boys thought it was even better than camping simply because they had a movie, too. 
I do admit that having the power come back on is a mixed bag of emotions. There is something simple and wonderful about oil lamps in the evening but having flush toilets without running water is hard work. I missed my microwave!!!!! I missed my microwave more than I missed my internet which is saying something! I really do love how these major outages have brought neighbors closer together. You really learn who you can count on when the going gets tough. You get to sit around more and chat and let life slow down. I miss that. I still missed my microwave more.