Lights Out Again

Day 67: This is us, Merry and I, in the dark again. Power went out some time between 3:30 AM when the Toe Attacker started trying to rake me out of bed, and 5 AM, which was how long I managed to convince him to sleep in, using the foot as a pillow instead of a game. He's getting better about that, but some mornings, he forgets his manners. In any event, when he woke me up again at 5, the house was dark. We got up by flashlight, turned on one of the "pocket light switches" (switch-operated, battery-powered LED light), and I navigated out to the camping cupboard where I took down my backpacking stove and made myself a cup of coffee. I was smart enough to make an extra pot yesterday in anticipation of this event (and for the record, I will drink coffee in any form except sugared or moldy). That part of morning taken care of, I turned on this "sparkle light," played some word games on my Kindle, whupped it at a game of chess and then decided that there had to be some fiberart I could do in the nearly-dark. By putting the pocket light switch in my lap so that the light was trained on the band, I managed to inkle about 18" of sheep, being extra super-careful that I wasn't catching any unwanted warp strings. Fried a piece of buttered sourdough on the camp stove for breakfast, thinking that would be a surefire way to bring the power back on. Nope, didn't work this time. Half an hour later, I heated up a second cup of coffee, and just as I went to sit down in my chair with it, the lights came on. It's magic how that works! You must sacrifice a certain unstated amount of precious stove fuel to the Power Gods before they will deign to consider your request for light. I think it's going to be a rough winter. And I keep telling myself, "It's almost Solstice. The Light is returning."

Lights Out!

Day 65: There was a brief "island" in the middle of our latest atmospheric river in the afternoon, so I thought I'd take a quick walk up the road to see which tree had taken out the power lines earlier that morning. Kevin had just missed it...or rather, it had just missed Kevin. The tree fell about five minutes before he was passing my house on his way to work. It blocked the road, so he turned around and came back to my place. The power was out for two hours. So, as I said, I wanted to see for myself, so I took advantage of a break in the rain to walk up, camera under my wing. The central portion of the tree had been hauled away, but the part which had broken the power lines lay in several long sections on the verge. The trunk had snapped about 5' up from ground level, and the sections were roughly 16" in diameter, and were no longer the PUD's concern. They will disappear bit by bit over time, sawn into manageable chunks and carted off by locals who never pass up free firewood. You never see the "harvesters." Some day, it just registers with you that the roadside is log-free again. Funny how that works.

 

(Kevin's photo)

 

Squirrelly

Day 31: Squirrelly. Because it's that kind of day. I'm at a friend's house because my internet is down. My cell service is also down. And my heat pump...under warranty, mind you...is still not fixed, and there's no word on when the parts will arrive. The manufacturer refuses to replace the entire unit even though the company says that a unit replacement is possible when it takes more than 10 days to get parts, and even if they would honour that, the only available replacement unit is in Anchorage AK. The first repairman they sent out didn't know his butt from a hole in the ground, failed to diagnose a faulty compressor. Needless to say, I am livid, and now with internet and cell down, the steam coming out my ears might make you think Mount Rainier was erupting if you happened to look this direction. On the up side, I did manage to clear out space in my freezer, and a 16-pound turkey fit neatly into the niche.

Significant Snowfall

Day 89: Compared with what they have received on the east coast, this barely seems worth a mention. However, it is a significant snowfall for here, especially since it all came down between 9 PM yesterday and 5 AM today. It took my power with it despite our electric company's heroid efforts to cut back branches. I had just gotten out of bed and was down on the floor playing the morning head-butting game with Tippy when the lights began flickering. They browned out several times and then failed completely. In my house, everything is dependent on electricity. Without it, I have no heat, no water (I'm on a well). I hadn't even brushed my teeth, although that doesn't fully excuse the foul exhalations issuing from my mouth. "At least let me get my first cup of coffee, dammit!" Expecting this, I had made extra, so I heated up a cup on my camp stove, and also warmed Tippy's breakfast. Then we settled in under a blanket to read by candlelight for the next two hours. Our little PUD is astonishingly swift at restoring power, and it's seldom out for longer than that. There's more snow to come, and it will be mixed with rain, making laden branches even more likely to break and fall on power lines, but for now I'm warm and washed, the birdies are fed, and I can just sit here and enjoy the winter wonderland outside my window.

Christmas-Present-To-Self

Day 75: Backdating this, because yesterday should have been an ordinary day, but as it transpired, my power, internet, land-line and cell service all disappeared at 6:15 AM. I haven't found out why yet, but I suspect a landslide caused by having almost 3" of rain fall in two days. The power came back on six hours later, a long time for our little rural power company. Usually, they have us back up and running in something under two hours. However, I didn't get cell service until right before bedtime. Land-line and internet were both still down when I went to bed.

The good news from yesterday was that my Christmas-present-to-self arrived, in person of a new chair (a recliner). After reading dozens of reviews and scouting local furniture stores via their websites, I decided to take a chance and order from Amazon. Feeling a bit like I'd just bought a pig in a poke, I was worried that it might not live up to my expectations, but it did...and more. It appears to be very well-made, but the best thing about it is that the seat is about two inches higher from the floor than the old Spin-the-Kitty chair, which means that I no longer have to sit on a pillow to use the bonker loom. It is the perfect height for weaving. The seat is quite firm (a selling point for me), and as a bonus, it has a heating/massage element in the backrest. It took me a whole ten minutes to assemble, and no swear words were involved. Then I had the remainder of the day to spend on "vacation," inadvertent as it might have been. I got quite a bit of weaving done.

Hearth And Home

Day 59: What little snow we had disappeared overnight as temperatures rose slightly and rain moved in. I should have known what was coming next. Yep, power outage. A month or so ago, our little rural PUD sent out a letter of apology to every single one of its customers for the number of outages we've had recently. The fault lies primarily with aging infrastructure which they're working on replacing, but they also promised to be more aggressive with tree-trimming and keeping power lines clear. What happened today might not have been preventable even so. As I understand it, a tree fell on the substation and knocked out power up the whole valley, and all 1600 of us were left in the dark from 7:15 AM to 4 PM as the crews worked to repair the damage. It must have been bad, considering that not too long ago, they rebuilt a whole transmission tower in a shorter period of time. At any rate, it was yet another day of camping out in the living room and a "hearth and home" day of weaving at the bonker loom and reading. When I finally did resort to turning on the gas fireplace, the Heat Sink was grateful and moved off my lap to rest his head on the warm slates.

In The Dark Again

Day 19: By some great stroke of luck, I had finished my morning ablutions, eaten breakfast and, most importantly, had a cup of coffee, and had settled in to await the dawn while doing some needlework. I had put three stitches on the tatting needle when the lights flickered once, twice, stayed on for a whole five seconds and then went out entirely. "Well," I said aloud, "I'm in the pitch-bloomin'-bloody-black-dark again." Fortunately, our service area is small and our utilities crews are prompt. A little over two and a half hours later, power was restored. However, it is at times like these that I wonder how those mediaeval women ever did their meticulous, intricate work by rushlight, or how pioneer women were able to manufacture garments and embroideries by candle or lantern light with such skill that it meets or surpasses that of most needleworkers today. Admittedly, my vision is impaired, and specifically in low-light situations, but crafting a neat join by flashlight was almost beyond me. I got that far, and laid my work aside to prevent the possibility of a misplaced stitch being made. Power outages drive me to knitting. I can do that with my eyes closed.

Double-Faced Tablet Weaving

Day 92: This is a quick catch-up post because I was without power for most of yesterday and was still without phone or internet at bedtime. An inveterate morning person, I nevertheless got up at 5 AM to a totally dark house, then sat in the illumination of my "pocket light switch" (a gift from a dear friend, it is a toggled LED about 3" square) trying to work sudoku until I had enough daylight to weave. After several dozen attempts, I managed to get the propane fireplace to stay lit. Since the weather was not particularly cold, it kept the living room temperature just warm enough that I didn't need to bundle up in a quilt. Working in dim light makes me appreciate the fine work done by people before electricity was available. At any rate, once the sky had brightened (a term I use loosely to describe a lighter shade of gloom), I was able to follow my draft for a double-faced tablet-woven band. The clours reverse on opposite sides of the weaving.

Camping In

Day 95: You all know about "camping out." Well, yesterday, I found myself in the unenviable position of "camping in." A combination of wind and snow had been playing hob with my power since early morning, the lights flickering on and off as globs of wet, heavy snow fell from branches and impacted lines. The Park was being hit hard with trees down across the road, and employee access was being limited to essential personnel. For some mysterious reason, my internet was live but my land line refused to give a dial tone; since the two are intimately linked, I was baffled. Then at 4:30, the Weather Gods delivered its hardest blow and my power went out. Now normally, lighting the propane fireplace for the first time each winter is a half-hour process requiring all my father's best tractor-starting words. It surprised me by igniting on my first request. That said, I have a limited supply of propane, so I closed doors to all nonessential rooms, turned the flame down low and settled myself into a nest of blankets and pillows to wait out the siege. I'd had the foresight to charge both Kindles, so I had games to play, and a "pocket light switch" I'd been given by a friend a few years ago supplied enough light to read a library book. However, needlework was out of the question and therefore I was mightily annoyed. Right before bedtime, the lights came back on, but land line, internet and cell phone were as dead as the proverbial doornail. Nor were any of those services available to me when I got up this morning. Roughly half an hour ago, my internet came back to life, but not the phone. Huh? Remember, I live in the Back of Beyond. Internet depends on a functioning land line. It is impossible to access it without working phone service. Typical of CenturyLink, they can't explain it either, but they're sending somebody out to take a look, but not today.

Varied Thrush, Ixoreus Naevius

Day 122: We're back among the living! Shortly after breakfast, my power went out and my cell phone lost service. Kevin managed to call in on my land line, but almost immediately after he hung up, that went out as well. Power came back on a little over two hours later, but both phones remained dead. I settled in with a good book, taking a break mid-day to make chocolate chip cookies. The mail still hadn't arrived by three and I was getting anxious, sure that trees were down somewhere up the line. I kept checking in between chapters, but got engrossed in the plot for a longer stint and the next time I looked out the window there were two men in my driveway, shovelling snow. Huh? The one furthest away seemed youngish. The other was behind one of my trees, and when I caught a quick glimpse, I noticed several days' growth of whiskers before realizing that it was Kevin. He and his youngest son had come up with a "care package" of milk, soup and banana bread and a pair of heavy duty snow shovels. In half an hour, they'd cleared my driveway.

That said, both Kevin and another friend had tried reporting my phone outage to CenturyLink, the worst phone company in the world. Kevin was told that since it was my service, I would be the person who needed to report the outage. He insisted, "She can't report it because, as I keep telling you, her service is out!" I don't know that he ever got the point across to the moron on the other end of the line, but at 8:30 PM, I still didn't have phone. At 8:45 PM, it was back, bringing my internet with it. Those cheery chirps you're hearing aren't the Varied Thrushes. They're a happy Crow!

Some Days...

Day 9: Ever have one of Those Days when you don't even feel like you should bother shaving? I was awakened some time between 4 and 5 AM by what sounded like a gunshot. It took me a second to realize that the dim light of my digital clock wasn't brightening the bedroom. Yeah, I should have known that was coming. We had a wind-and-rain storm last night, and the power had gone out. It wasn't particularly cold, so I just pulled the covers up over my head and went back to sleep. Our PUD (Public Utility District) is large geographically but serves a significantly smaller number of people proportionately than, say, Tacoma City Light. When the lights go out, they're usually only out for an hour or two. I figured I'd have power again by breakfast time.

I was wrong. When I got up, the house had cooled down substantially. I was going to have to argue with the propane fireplace whether I wanted to or not. It's invariably cranky the first time I light it up each year, and today was no exception. Once I got it to stay lit, I settled into my chair to crochet by headlamp. Ten minutes into a row, the fire sputtered and went out, a new variation on its normal recalcitrance. I struggled with it for twenty minutes but when I couldn't get it to re-light, I decided to let it rest for a bit before trying again. I figured there might have been some water condensation in the line. Eventually, I got it to light and stay on, but at 11 o'clock, I still didn't have power.

I don't usually like to bother PUD Dispatch, but since this was an unusually long outage for us, I thought I'd better call. The dispatcher was surprised by the news. He'd already sent his crews home after a rough night because they'd reported that all repair tickets were completed. He told me he'd have to try to round up "somebody who's home" (remember, this is Sunday), but assured me that I would have my lights back by evening.

At 4, I called again to see if he'd made any progress on finding a repairman. He had, and they'd tried to reach me, but the road between Morton and Elbe was washed out. He was sending a crew the long way around, i.e., through Chehalis, Tenino and Yelm. "They'll be there in a few hours," he said. When the crew finally arrived, it took them all of five minutes to remove the branches from the line and replace the fuse which had blown. The outage had only affected me and my two neighbours, and neither of them had called in. If I had only called Dispatch immediately, I wouldn't have had to spend my day in the gloom.

Siskins At The Feeder

Day 118 (catch-up post): Although we really didn't need 18" of the white stuff to do the job, snow tends to bring Pine Siskins (Carduelis pinus) to my feeders in droves. Keeping priorities straight, my first job was to shovel a path so I could fill the boxes with fresh seed. While the snow was fresh, I took a standard corn broom to it (my neighbour had thoughtfully plowed my driveway), in my opinion, an easier method than shovelling when the fall is light and fluffy. As soon as I'd laid out the seed, the Siskins began appearing. Towhees and juncoes quickly picked up what they scattered, the Towhees descending out of sight into the deep "well" around the base of the pole.

As of the evening of the 8th, I still had no landline, but at least my cell service had come back to life. On my way to work, I saw repair crews at two locations and several spots where branches were still laying across the wires. On the morning of the 9th, a recording from the company claimed that normal service had been restored, but I still had no landline. I put in a repair ticket and have settled in for another wait.

Snowed Under

Day 116 (catch-up post): As many of you know already, we got a wee bit of snow during the night of February 5-6. It continued coming down heavily throughout the day, and finally at approximately 3:30 PM, the predictable happened. The power went out. I threw the breakers as insurance against surges, and sat back to wait. I am always reluctant to start the fireplace because our crews usually manage to restore order within an hour or two, but around 7, cold toes convinced me it was time. I had not yet lit it this season, so what ensued was a 20-minute battle. The tank quite a ways away, and the line needed to be charged. At long last, the pilot stayed lit and I set the flame on low, just enough to take the edge off if I sat close by, "aborigine fire" since it appeared I might be in for a long siege. I closed off the rest of the house and curled up on the couch to sleep. About 3 AM, the lights came on, flickered, went off, came on, went off, came on and seemed to be going to stay on. Power lasted only long enough for me to flip the breakers and get back to sleep, and then it went out again.

When there's no juice, I am not only without heat. I am without water because I'm on a well. That adds another level of inconvenience to what should be only a minor aggravation. Recently when we've lost power, phone service has also been disrupted. It wasn't always that way. As recently as two years ago, I could call in on my land line to report a power outage. Not now. A quick check showed that phone service, both land and cell, were also dead.

During the morning of the 6th, there were several more "on/off" incidents. The longest the power remained on was about half an hour, not enough to bring the house up to a comfortable temperature. During those intervals, phone service remained down. I cooked dinner on my camp stove and settled into what I call "Mowich Mode," hearking back to my days of winter duty at 5000' on Mount Rainier's northwest corner. I put on all my climbing woolies and stayed close to my little "aborigine fire." I had put by several gallons of water for tea, and pulled out my backpacker's espresso maker to have handy when my stash of brewed coffee ran dry. Toward evening, I built a nest in front of the fireplace, stacking fleece blankets on the floor to pad my old bones, my expedition sleeping bag on top, promptly claimed by Skunk. I didn't get to use it. About 7:30, the power came on and stayed on, but even as I write this (4 PM on the 7th), there is no phone service. Other than being colder than I like, this has been a rather pleasant escape from the political situation.

We Are Not Amused

Day 30: No, we are not amused at all. The power went out about 8:45 last night and stayed out until 2:30 while the wind howled outdoors. The house got cold enough that the Sandbags sandbagged me on either side in the bed, which of course doesn't make for the most restful sleep. Lights are back on now, but I'm writing from the library. Internet is down. Land line is down. Cell service is down! Land line and internet are the same company, and their message would indicate that it may be a while before service is restored, but the loss of cell baffles me. Did the tower blow over?

Winter. I used to love it, but the older I get, the harder it is to get through the season, both physically and emotionally. I don't enjoy camping out in my living room as much as I used to, dammit.

Update: A broken fiber-optic cable was apparently at fault, although I'm not sure how that managed to affect cell service. It has been repaired, and I'm back among the connected.

Life, The Universe And Everything

Day 235: Happy International Towel Day to all you hoopy froods out there!

Probability...the odds were two to the power of 276,000 to one against that Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect would be picked up by Zaphod Beeblebrox in the Heart of Gold...somewhat greater than those the corner bookie would give you on a tree knocking over a utility pole, incidentally taking out my power, land line and internet concurrently with a failure of cell phone service in my area, but I think not too enormously greater. Factor in a traffic accident occurring at the same time, half a mile from the house going the opposite direction, and Arthur and Ford's odds start to look pretty good. Make it Memorial Day weekend (one of the busiest holidays) and put the emergency response vehicles on the wrong side of the fallen tree, and...well, Arthur and Ford were in the right place at the right time, and anybody on this one-mile stretch of road was not.

But as anyone who frequents the Restaurant at the End of the Universe knows, there will be more opportunities to screw it up again. Order was restored by 7 AM this morning and we're ready for the second round. Did somebody say "second round?" Make mine a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, please...no, better make that a double. Don't Panic.

The Great Equalizer

Day 101: A windstorm blew my power away yesterday and brought the residents of the house as close together as they ever get. I see photos of other peoples' cats snuggled up together and often wonder why mine can't come to terms. There will be the occasional whisker contact, but it nearly always ends with a hiss from Skunk, as if she feels a need to reinforce that she is mistress of the household. Tip would cuddle if she would allow it, but Skunk came up the hard way, fighting off a pair of savage dogs when she was only six weeks old. It has only been in her later years that she will even accept physical contact with me. That said, the fire brings these two to an accord. They agree that warmth is a Good Thing. As truces go, it's a good beginning.