Power to the People

Well there have no posts for a while. On June 29th, there was a wild, windy storm and our power went out. We thought we enjoyed camping.. not so much anymore!  There were two more storms over the weekend that brought down a lot of other people's power too. Lots of downed trees everywhere; for us just a few branches- some big some small. One of the storms - a mini tornado - happened while I was in church. It's less than a mile from church to our house and the three cars who left church to come down Crawfish road all had to stop three times before my house to move tree limbs blocking the road. Our friends further down Crawfish had a huge Maple (probably 12 foot around and higher than their 2-story house) uprooted in their front lawn that took down power line and a couple fences and was laying in their driveway.  Neighbors with logging-size chain saws came and helped them clear this tree.

My other friends who own the dairy up the road had probably 15- 20 huge 40 year old pines come down.. one on the roof of their house which pulled down their generator line. Also lost a roof off one of their barns - part was across the road, some up in trees. Lots of neighbors and friends went there to help them out.  When I arrived, there were at least 3 chain saws working and soon there were lots more. Fortunately for all, I was one of those without a chainsaw in my hand- and we picked up limbs and moved logs as the chainsaw folks cut through the downed trees. Shortly they reconnected the generator and could milk the cows who were not so patiently waiting.. Cows by the way can get cystitis easily if not milked and then you can no longer use their milk and the cows can die from this.  By afternoon,  we had the road and the driveway cleared. I don't have pictures, but my neighbor does. I might post later, if I get them from her.

The neighbors who had the Maple down (and other downed fences on their farm (which they quickly repaired so animals couldn't get out) showed up at our house unannounced on Tuesday morning and said, "let's go get that pine in your back yard."  We have a chain saw and they brought a bigger one - plus a 30-40 foot trailer.. and we cut down the downed limbs and pulled down the biggest one with the jeep and a chain and totally filled his trailer.. He took it back to his ranch and is going to burn it in one of his fields. Not sure this picture does it justice.. but it was a couple of big limbs!

Just after we finished and Nelson I were thinking about going to the pool at the country club to get showers- pine is really sticky even though it smelled great - his sister and her husband, two dogs and two cats arrived! They are here for a few months and had lots of stuff to unpack out of the car.. They had been warned that we had no power but had little choice but to keep on coming (they drove from Nevada). There aren't many place to stay with that many animals.  We did finally go get showers by the way.

On July 7 (yes a full week with no power).  Electric crews andtrucks were all lined up outside our house waiting to go down Crawfish Rd where there were many breaks in the lines.  My TECO Storm Training came in handy.  I had looked at our pole and told the supv I thought the problem was the cutout on the transformer had blown and that there were only two houses it affected – mine and the man behind us.. and he looked at it and said if that was what it was, it was an easy fix.. ½ hr later it was fixed.. I don’t think we’d be back in service if I hadn’t pointed it out to him.. We aren’t on the lines they were here to fix..  Thank you to Kentucky for sending a power crew to our area to fix our lines.. And thanks to the AEP supervisor for taking me seriously.

Old stove

Well several weeks before this happened the oven on our stove went out. Nelson fixed it last time that happened but this time couldn't get it back on. So off to Lowes we went. We have a space that can fit no bigger than a 24 inch stove. Oh goodness, those have to be special ordered; "no one" uses stoves that small anymore.. Okay - they gave us a three week estimate but it arrived early, but while we had no power. So as soon as power was back on for a few hours, I called to schedule delivery. They arrived early yesterday morning.. The delivery man came in to see where it was going and started to laugh.. He said this delivery caused him to see 2 things he'd never seen before... our old stove design with the hood and a 24 inch stove with a glass cooktop.  The old stove was really actually an nice design and I hated to give it up - but couldn't find anything like it - that hood actually is designed to have a microwave sit on top of it and you can plug the microwave into the stove. However, years ago, the fuse kept blowing on the stove if you plugged in the microwave, so my aunt had a separate plug installed, but it was really nice to have a place to put the microwave in this crowded kitchen and a great height to use the microwave.  The stove was pulled out from the wall when I took this picture.. it really didn't sit in middle of floor. Also, here's our new one. Cooked a blueberry dessert and baked potatoes in new oven and dragon tongue beans on top for dinner last night, so already got oven dirty!

New stove

They had quite a time getting it in.. there are built in stoves, free standing stoves and drop-in-stoves. This is a free standing, but almost had to be dropped in. At first I thought it was going to have to go back, but they lifted it slightly to get it over front opening and got it in. Of course I can no longer pull it out by myself to clean behind it, but we'll have to deal with that somehow. The back part with the oven controls wouldn't go in - it's just over 24" wide, but the space was a little wider in back so when they lifted it, they could get it in. Very nice delivery men.  As you can see we have space to put a shelf in -  that will work for something.

Luci, Butch and I have spent two days cleaning and reorganizing.. so the kitchen is now in pretty good shape.. Luci is a gourmet cook and brought a lot of food and equipment we don't have or cannot get here; forgetting I think how little storage space there is.  Wonder if we shall ever use dining room table again.. 

If only we can convince the mice not to return.. working on that..   We have several other locations to tackle.. kitchen is not only place our little enemies inhabited over the winter.  These cats that are visiting, by the way, have never seen a mouse, so not sure what they would do... and both are fairly old. One cat hides in the bedroom all day long and the other one had free reign of the house yesterday, but showed no signs of interest in areas of concern to us. But maybe after she's investigated everything else..  Dogs are all having a fine time together and all exhausted and sleep great at night.