On Friday evening around 6 pmish the sky turned green, a gailforce wind blew and torrents of rain fell. We were visiting my parents at their camper on Lake 26 as we picked up the kids and ran for the bath house. There were my parents, my sister and brother-in-law, 2 nephews, my 3 kids and I waiting out the storm in the concrete building.
At first I was flooded with memories of day gone by when I used to work at camp and would be huddled in that very same building with fellow staff and camper waiting out a storm. Then I began to think about home, what was happening there, only 7 miles or so to the southwest. I tried calling Scott, who was working dispatch and could not get through. Little did I know that the damage and distruction was county wide and cell towers along with most power lines went down.
After the first wave of storms we decided to head for home but could not even get half way due to powerlines and trees down. You can only drive in so many ditches. So we headed back to camp and took refuge in the Lodge with the summer staff that had hung around for the weekend. The kids thought it was great, they got to "camp out" and stay up late.
I didn't hear from Scott intill about 2:30 or so on Sunday morning. He was supposed to work until 8 on Friday night, but didn't leave intil midnight. He managed to get home quick, check on the animals and the place and headed back to work then and got a couple of hours of sleep before he had to work again at 6. I have one tired Hubby! I am so thankful that we cut down all the big old oaks that were so close to the house last spring or we would have been in a world of hurt.
When the sun came up on Saturday we could really see the damage. Some place they are saying 7-10 days before we get our power back. I began to worry about our freezers full of venison and Scott's taxidermy projects. "How can we make it a week without loosing everything?". I didn't know. I sent out a facebook plea for anyone with a generator that they were not using and within 5 minutes a friend of mine from the Cities had one for me, I just had to meet her halfway on Sunday. So after 44 hours with no power, I got that beautiful gennie up and running by my self, transfered the contents of 2 freezers into the third chest freezer and away we went. God bless good friends, social media and a 3 hours trip to get the generator. We did loose most of the contents of the fridge/freezer, but what can you do?
It feels like we are camping in our own house or really getting "Back to our Roots." We are cooking over a fire or grilling, getting water from a hand pump 7 miles away at camp. I am so glad that I still had all my milk jugs from sugaring. I just wish we had an outhouse here. I know - funny wish - but it would be easier than haulling water to flush the potty. We have swimming to keep clean. Now I just have to figure out how to get my pressure canner going, my peas are ready to be canned.
On a side note: my garden took it pretty hard but I think most of it can recover.
Well as the sun goes down and we reach 51 hours of no power, I have to sign off as my light and phone batteries fade. Not sure when I will be posting again. Please keep us and others in our county in your prayers. Thanks.
Oh my! I'm glad you saved the freezers.
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