DATELINE: January 2, 2016. The power was out at our house for a tad over fourteen hours yesterday. Except for the chill in the air, we really didn’t mind it. We have a gas-top stove so we were able to have hot meals and our library fireplace provided a modicum of heat if we huddled around.
Fortunately, it was dark by the time our Friday Night guests arrived so they couldn’t really see that the carpet needed vacuuming. Candlelight is forgiving that way. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, whatever might have happened to my grandmother’s carpet sweeper. It would have come in handy for sure. You’d think that in a generational household where no one ever seemed to throw away a thing – not even junk mail from a hundred years ago – that a handy dandy tool like a carpet sweeper would have been saved.
I idly wondered what else my grandparents might have had to ease their lives in those years before electricity came to Oysterville. It goes without saying that my grandfather kept the woodshed stocked with dry wood of every description. My grandmother could go out her kitchen door into said shed and select just the wood she needed for her cook stove whether her need be for a quick, hot fire for frying bacon or a slow and steady heat for baking a cake.
When it came time to crawl into bed between those icy sheets, I wondered if my grandmother had had something that served as a bed-warmer – something equivalent to the electric heating pad that I sometimes use on cold nights. Years ago in similar (but more prolonged and severe) circumstances, we heated our cast iron frying pans, wrapped them in towels and took them to bed with us. Last night we settled for just wearing all our clothes.
We talked about whether we should think about getting a generator… Maybe there will come a time when we decide to do that but for now, anyway, I like that connection with my ancestors that living without electricity provides, and Nyel is big on a ‘grin and bear it’ attitude. We were still weighing the pros and cons and just getting warm enough to shed an outer layer…
And then the power came on!
My favorite trick to warm the bed is to put hot water in a plastic soda bottle, and stick it between the sheets. You can put your feet on it, and keep them warm.
Sometimes I’ll even put one on my lap, while I’m at the computer, and warm my fingers on it occasionally.
Just last night Dave and I spoke of the fact that were our house at the North end of the Peninsula were would have long ago gotten a generator–propane, not gas.
If I lived north of Cranberry, I would definitely have a wood stove but not a generator. I don’t like the awful noise they make. I could get by for days with books and a lantern. However, there is the additional problem of not getting well water when an electric pump won’t work. I wonder what is the old fashioned way around that? Does anyone’s well still have a hand pump.
A few years back we purchased an inverter….not a generator, from Clatsop Power and Equip. It is about the size of a portable sewing machine and uses gasoline but not much. It makes an engine noise but again not nearly as loud as a generator. We are able to plug in a selection of appliances when the power goes out. First and foremost the on demand water heater for showers, then a space heater (since we don’t have a wood stove…etc. Google it to learn more but this is a great backup device!