A terrific windstorm sprang up in the wee hours Wednesday morning, knocking over trees and power poles, blowing trampolines out of people's yards, and making it difficult to drive. Of course, the electricity went out, and it stayed out at our house for three days and two nights. How dependent we are on electricity these days! My husband has a generator which he runs for an hour or two, once or twice a day, to keep the freezers and the fridge cold, and to charge computers and cell phones.
We do have running water even when the power is out, but the water heater doesn't work. So taking baths and showers is out of the question, and water for washing dishes has to be heated on the wood stove. We have an old propane cook stove/oven in a shed, so that can also be used to heat water and to cook meals. It isn't particularly convenient to be going up an down the stairs and in and out of the house repeatedly while preparing a meal, but it beats eating sandwiches and cold cereal for three days.
This isn't the first time we have experienced an extended power outage. We live in a wooded area, and every strong wind storm topples trees into the power lines. Each time it happens, my respect for the pioneer women increases. They always cooked on a wood stove, or over a campfire. They always worked by lamplight and candlelight in the evening. They always had to heat water for washing dishes and bathing.
But those ladies were accustomed to life without electricity. Most of them grew up that way, and knew nothing else. Meals were simpler, laundry and bathing were done less frequently, and nobody worried about whether the computer was charged up or whether the internet was working. Most of us, however, grew up with the convenience of electricity and have a difficult time doing without it.
You wouldn't believe how many times I automatically reached for a light switch, or headed for the bathroom without grabbing a flashlight. It was a great relief when the lights came on again at 8:00 this evening. I am staying up much later than I ought to, partly because it's so nice to have light again. And I can write a Hive post, because my computer can stay plugged in; it's an older laptop, and doesn't stay charged up very long. It's nice to be back, and I hope to post again tomorrow.
I'm right there with you, I CAN do without electricity if I must, and have done so multiple times both intentionally and through no choice of my own, but I am very grateful for modern conveniences, though I agree with @carolkean that I do make an effort to keep our waste to a minimum.
I recall visiting with my great-grandmother as a kid, who was literally brought via covered wagon from her birthplace in Texas to her mother's home state of California as a baby, at roughly six month of age (which would have been spring of 1883), and lived to see men walk on the moon. What an amazing life she lived.
And she did live simply, but well, cooking everything from scratch, making most of her own clothes, and generally making do with what she had, and doing as well as she could to make it better for herself and her family.
She, like my mother and grandmother, was an avid gardener, had fruit trees and flowers all over her property, a flock of bantam chickens for their eggs, and took care of an "older" woman from her church (who was younger than she was) who didn't have her level of mobility.
She died when I was twelve, but I remember those visits clearly, along with her amusement and occasional disdain for the "tech" (think: transistor radios and cassette players) with which my sisters and I were so enamored. She also thought that bras for young girls were silly.
I am grateful that I was able to learn as much as I could from all three of them; amazing and accomplished women all.
How blessed you are to have met this woman (I never met any great-grandparents) - this amazing lady "brought via covered wagon from her birthplace in Texas to her mother's home state of California as a baby, at roughly six month of age (which would have been spring of 1883), and lived to see men walk on the moon." That time period had to be the most dramatic in terms of revolutionary, life-changing technological advances and inventions. I grew up feeling we were all that with our color TVs and cordless phones, and then came the internet, cell phones, satellites, and a new generation of tech-savvy kids who made me look more like a dinosaur than my grandma ever did.
But what's this: bras were silly for young girls...? A more innocent era, with more modest apparel?
You come from a most remarkable family!
Yes, she was a one of a kind; a working woman in a day and time when few women of good family and upbringing were, but when she and her husband opened a general store in 1928, in Mescalero, New Mexico, it was she who became postmistress of the little post office in the store, and she indeed retired as postmistress some time after her husband died, and her son (my mother's uncle Stanley) and his wife took over the store and post office.
How's that for a run on sentence? Lol!
I remember her as being uber religious, and somewhat humorless, at least compared with the rest of our family; but as I've gotten older, I realize that she wasn't humorless at all, just more understated and decorous then the rest of our raucous bunch.
And it was she who told me some of the historical tidbits about the store and the local environs; such as the old woman she had befriended, not long after opening the store, who had once been engaged to a young man in town, but he was shot in the back, and she never married.
According to my great-grandmother, the young woman's fiance had saved up to buy a team of four matching carriage horses for their wedding, which was a fine gift indeed for his young bride.
Unfortunately, Billy the Kid happened by, spotted the fine team of horses, and determined to have them for his own.
The young man pleaded with him, explaining that they were a wedding gift for his bride-to-be. According to witnesses, the Kid muttered something in the affirmative, then shot the young man in the back as soon as his back was turned, took the horses, and rode off.
This happened at Blazer's Mill, which the last time I was back was still standing, and is a short distance from where the store stood.
Funny, though, the last time we drove through there, in early 2010, we drove right down the highway where the store stood, on what is now Hwy. 70, and I never spotted it, despite it being a large two-story 1870s adobe building, which sat right off the highway.
All I can figure is that they must have changed its appearance pretty drastically. The Mescalero Apache tribe bought it from Stanley's widow, Corinne, for whom I was named, I believe in the mid-80s or early 90s.
I absolutely loved that place.
I was so glad to hear that your power came on again! As much as I love the homestead lifestyle, I absolutely adore many things about 21st century life, mainly electricity and hot water. Not that I don't enjoy knowing how to or occasionally cooking on the woodstove, but dang the conveniences that our ancestors strove and innovated for are so wonderful!
And I think you hit on something with they were accustomed to life that way. I am definitely accustomed to having the internet and instant warm water to wash my often filthy hands, and I don't want those things to go away! Which is why I am constantly expanding my generator herd and in the market for a deep well solar pump lol lol. Hope you are all caught up on power outage chores and enjoying a cup of tea:)
YES, you highlighted the same passage that caught my eyes. They were prepared for, and used to, life without electricity! They had tools and skills and more time on their hands, because ironically, the more industrialized and tech-savvy we became, the busier we became, laboring in factories and stores to purvey these time-saving devices. Eek! Don't get me started! I'm in utter horror when I haul my trash and recycle-ables to the landfill, seeing how much waste we produce, and wishing we'd live simpler, "greener" lifestyles. Thanks for the post, @scribblingramma, and I'm not gonna tell you about the August derecho (no running water, no generator here, no internet or phone, and .... wait, I'm not gonna talk about it!!!!).
I can relate - we had a series of storms that came through here starting in March, one of which dropped a large hickory tree on our studio, and another of which left us without power for a solid three days.
Not fun, but luckily, by the time that particular storm hit, our temperatures had risen well above freezing, so it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.
Then, on Christmas Day, some ass in Nashville who had a grudge against AT&T, where he used to work, blew up an RV in front of the building containing much of their switching equipment (and, ostensibly, himself with it), knocking out phone and internet service not just in Tennessee, but also parts of Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia, including part of the Atlanta Metro area.
Naturally, our cell phones, internet, and home phone are ALL with AT&T, so we were utterly out of communication for another three solid days.
And, just to make life more interesting, we were both sick as dogs with Covid at the time. Ugh. We're over it now, with no lingering effects, aside from being more tired than usual. Thank God for natural antivirals.
Ah well, I haven't been able to login to Hive for a while, so it is nice to see your comment upon my return.
Hope you're doing well. ;-)
Ohhhh no - you had Covid, for real?? The good news is, you recovered with natural antivirals (of course you would! You go!!). The bad news is, that tree falling on your studio. No power. Then no phone and internet on Christmas for days. You've earned a reprieve! Fair skies and smooth sailing ahead--I wish for you, hope for you!!!
We lucked out. We've both had Covid twice now; I had it in November, when I thought it was just a really bad case of the flu, and Marek had it in March.
When we went down to get tested, he tested positive, but I tested negative, and I never caught it from him.
And then in December, he came home sick, I developed symptoms over the next day or two, and we both tested positive. But my symptoms came on too quickly for me to have caught it from him, we obviously caught it Independently.
I was concerned, especially since I'm asthmatic, but happily my knowledge of natural medicine saved the day, and both our cases remained relatively mild.
Glad you recovered well, and that your communication inconveniences only lasted three days. Yikes.
Yeah, me too, particularly having several friends and family members who've gone through severe hurricanes, and wound up without powerfor far longer.
In the end, considering everything, we got off light.
This sounds like a separate post in the making. Ha ha!
Yes, thank you, that cup of tea is much easier to obtain now.
Thank you @crescendoofpeace for your very interesting and detailed comment. Only one of my grandparents was still living when I was growing up, and I didn't get to see her very often, due to the distance. But I remember she was very self-sufficient, a great gardener, an accomplished seamstress, and fond of scrounging the dump for things she could take home and fix and use. (Back in the days when a person could do that!) My father was born in 1909 and died in 2008. He farmed with horses in his youth, and lived to see rockets to the moon. He knew what life was like without a telephone, and with a cell phone. Such changes to experience!