It snowed yesterday and I stayed home from the post office - as it was forecasted to be so heavy I wouldn't get back in even if I could get out. Then about 1 AM, it started to sleet, and then to have freezing rain, and the power went out (after flickering several times) at about 6:20 am. The entire outside was frozen ice over the snow - even chopping out a brick of it to put it in a bucket it was extremely difficult. It never melted, either - right now, twelve hours later in the house, it is still a block of ice.
It was 9 hours later that they did get it back on - and luckily, our water pipes were not frozen and busted. That was our fear, and still is, until the outside temperatures actually warm up. Grandma has propane heat and a gas stove, but her water was in question, too. She said everything was okay afterwards.
We used the propane heater we have here during that time, but just in the one room, and I used the brick stove out in the kitchen here with the tea candles, a brick, and three radiating bread pans. It got hot enough to make a cup of tea on - but only for about three hours.
I was dressed up all in my layers - three shirts, three pants, three or four pairs of socks, a big sweater with a hood, a shawl that wraps around and ties, another small blanket pinned around my waist and a big blanket around my whole self on top of that. I told Mark I felt like a jawa with my hood up - and he was half-asleep he said that Jawas wore brown, and then shone the flashlight on me, and yes, the blanket and the sweater were brown. Then he said 'But, you're taller than a Jawa, there's that'
I stayed out in the kitchen and read Opening Atlantis for a few hours sticking next to the brick stove and it actually radiated quite a bit of heat for two teacandles. The kitchen only got down to about 52 degrees during the whole nine hours. Esme slept under lots of blankets and Mark stayed near the propane heater.
We kept cycling the goat in and out and the cats popped in and out as they pleased. I told Lyffan she was not going to catch any of those birds - there were so many of them in all of the frozen trees - dozens and dozens of lots of different species. I fed the chickens through their completely iced door with a pitcher and a tube, spraying the feed on the ground through that - those birds loved that. Several squirrels arrived. Finally, after the power came back on we went out there with hot water and a de-icer can and finally got their door open to give them some hot water. We re-filled every bucket and jug in the house in case the power goes out again, and then made lunch for everyone, fed all the animals, and made a bit of dinner, too.
Now I'm running the dishwasher and hoping that the power will stay on through the next few days until it gets warm enough outside to get out over the roads to town and refill more propane. We still have about half of what we store - but Mark is using it to like he normally does to keep his room warmer for his lung condition.
Oh, I know we won't be going anywhere tomorrow, either - the weather looks like it will still be too cold to do anything for several days. It is what it is.
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