Archive for February 24th, 2007
February 24, 2007 – Storm Day 2
Today was Day 2 of the Storm. The night brought a nice layer of ice to the world.
It also brought a sick child. Emma finished her strep meds three days earlier, Claire was infected about 6 days ago and Emma woke up again this morning with another case. Of course it is Saturday in the beginning of the storm – we called and took her into the Dr. as who knows how long we may be stuck on the farm.
It warmed up briefly and turned to all rain, so there was a layer of water on top of the ice when we had to drive to town, which seemed to make it less slippery than straight ice. We took gravel roads nearly all the way to town, got the diagnosis, and the drugs and she recovered nicely.
Meanwhile the rain continued. I knew it was only a matter of time before the power went out – we warmed the house up to 72 degrees and waited.
The ice kept getting thicker.
We started to worry about our fruit trees.
We kept worrying
Here’s the trellis for the raspberries.
The power went out at noon and shortly before dark, I dragged the camping generator out of the garage and after sitting fro two years, it started on the 2nd pull (yeah!)Â The generator can run one big thing at a time – the furnace, one of the freezers or the fridge. It runs for a half hour on a fill of gas, so it’s lots of babysitting.
About 4:00 the rain turned to snow and I went out into the shed and found the bottom of the sliding doors were under water. I knew in a few hours, the doors would be frozen solid into the ground and I wouldn’t be able to open them for a long time – so the lesser of two evils was to leave the doors open during the storm so I could get the tractor out.
We had an old-fashioned evening listening to the Prairie Home Companion. We were able to cook as we have a gas cooktop, but no hot water.
