Sunday, January 24, 2010

Last Night...No Power

Well, sometimes plans change. After working at the shop all day, our plans were to exercise, eat leftover pizza & watch a movie. As we were changing into comfy exercise clothes, the power went out. We heard sirens in the distance, so I figured it was probably an accident. It was very foggy. Then more sirens. It went on for about 15 minutes. All the lights in our subdivision were out. We decided to exercise by candlelight. (how romantic :-) I suggested we take a walk afterward. The only time we would see the neighborhood dark. It was kind of spooky & nice at the same time. We could imagine all the people inside lighting their candles, getting out the flashlights. Kids (and adults) whining about no computers or games to play. We only heard two generators. We had the gas fireplace going when the power went out, otherwise there would have been no heat. This all brings to mind how helpless we would be (at the townhome) for an extended power outage. At the farm, no problem. And that's the way we want it to be.
It turns out the reason for the outage was a plane crash. A small twin engine piper went down a few miles from our house. It hit an oak tree, the ground & then  pieces of it hit a house. Luckily, no one in the house was injured, but the two people in the plane died. It took almost three hours for the power to come back so we played backgammonon & drank some wine until it did. When it finally came back on, it was very erratic. On & off about 6 times. Then off for another half hour & finally on again.  I turned off the furnace & tv after the first few episodes of that.
It is a good thing to have loss of power sometimes (except for the unfortunate circumstances involved). It teaches us that we can live without the hum of fridges, computers & the noise of TV's & stereos. Some family time, all together, huddled around some candles is good for the soul sometimes.

7 comments:

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

We living out on the country side are usually more prepared to handle power losses. Since I have my fire heated stove I usually thinks it´s quite nice without power, to be honest as long as I know it´s not only my home affected I really enjoy it :-)

But I do feel sorry for those loosing their lives in that plane crash.
Have a great day now!
Christer.

Anonymous said...

No offense, but I always get a little annoyed when people post "And now I can just hear the kids and parents whining because they don't have power."

I think a lot of people would be amazed how many other people enjoy when the power goes out. It isn't the end of the world - and OH so self sufficient everyone else but those of us with kids are....

Drives me nuts. Our kids love when the electricity goes out. We have a fun time - the same fun time we were having before - y'know when the power was on?

We lost power for 10 days when Hurricane Isabelle hit VA and you know what? We didn't suffer. It was a very fun time. No air, light, water...and we survived. Wow.

Anonymous said...

I don't mind the power being out for a short period of time. The longest we've been without power was 10 hours. And it really wasn't bad. Like you, we played games and read by candlelight. We had a wood stove, put blankets over the 2 door openings and it kept it 60, which isn't bad. Outside was in the low 30's. We do have a generator we bought several years ago but so far haven't needed it....debbie

Barb said...

No offense taken, I just know people like that & that's where the comment came from. I imagine a few others do too :-)

JC said...

Power goes out all the time at our beach place. If the wind is too much, out it goes. We don't have a generator yet so we wait. I have lots of candles ready. Gas will still work though so we can cook. If we live there, I will for sure get a giant generator.

Sounds like you had a fun evening though.

Sorry about the cause of the outage ..

Kritter Keeper at Farm Tails said...

sounds like you made the best of your situation! that is awful about the poor people who lost their lives...that happened close to our farm too...

angie said...

Hi Barb - I know LOTS of people that whine when the power goes out (most of my co-workers!).