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Sunday, October 7, 2012

Black Out

 The power's out again.  It seems every couple of days there's another solar flare messing with the grid.  This one had to be close.  We could see the sky turn  brilliant orange, red and gold.  My eyes are still stinging from the brightness.  I can only imagine how bad they'd be if I hadn't been wearing sunglasses.

It usually takes the power company a couple of days to get things back up and running after one of these 'events', so for now, all I'm worried about is what to cook for supper.  It'll have to be something simple that I can throw on the fire pit.  I grab some newspaper and kindling and go light the fire.  I'm pretty sure there's a nice package of pork chops near the top of the freezer.  That'll do.  I take them out and let them defrost a bit while the fire's building.

The boys should be home soon.  There's not much I can do in the house right now, so I grab a bucket and head for the garden.  We've already had frost, so most of the garden is done for the year, but there's still root veggies, corn, dry beans, and a few small green tomatoes in the greenhouse.  I pick all of the tomatoes and corn, and even find a couple of small cukes that look ok.  I know I should get the root veggies dug up before I let the turkeys into the garden to clean up, but their pen has been empty of greens for awhile now.  I'm done with the beets, plenty canned in the basement, so I decide to chance it on the carrots and mangels and open the gate.  Within minutes the hungry turkeys, ducks and geese are feasting on the remains in the garden.  Nanner and Sheila, a pygmy and a spring kid, are happy with this fresh abundance too.  They've been living with the birds in hopes of not getting them knocked up this year.

I putter away for quite some time, when I realize the buses haven't come yet.  Where are the boys?  I go back to the house to check the time, after 5pm.  I grab my phone to call them and discover it's got no signal.  Great.  I shut it off, because who knows when I'll be able to charge it again, and searching for signal is hard on the battery.

#4, my youngest, who is still homeschooling, has been sitting at the table drawing while I was outside.  I tell him we might as well go to Grandma's (next door) for a bit.  We head over there on my quad.  When we round the bend I can see three people walking up the road.  We sit at the end of my parent's drive and wait a bit as the people get closer.  It's the boys.  We ride up the road to meet them.

They tell me the buses quit on the highway, just outside of town.  There are vehicles stopped all over the place, and people standing around stranded not knowing what to do, and the cell phones are all out.  The Bigs talked their bus driver into letting them walk home, since she couldn't even radio for help, and it doesn't look like anyone's going to be moving for awhile.  #3's bus was a bit further up the road.  They talked to his driver who said he couldn't let any of the kids off without parental consent.  They argued with him for a bit, until #3 jumped off the bus and started running up the road.  Then they said see ya, and started walking.  Sometimes it's good to have bad kids, lol. 

We all stop in at Grandma and Grandpa's.  Grandpa tries to start his truck when we tell him about the cars on the highway.  No go.  Since my quad's running, it looks like this is a computer issue.  We were warned this could happen.  They're fine otherwise, cooking supper on the grill, and playing cards before bed.

The boys and I head back to our place.  Husband is probably stranded in the city.  It's an hour car ride on a good day, so I figure he'll probably sleep in the car at work tonight.  The boys change into farm clothes, then do chores.  The water barrels are all full, so they cart some water over to the turkey pen.  I go back to the fire pit and toss in some more wood.

I go in the house and peal potatoes, chop them, add bacon grease, lemon pepper, seasoning salt, and wrap them in tinfoil.  Back outside, I put the grill over the firepit and start cooking the potatoes and porkchops.  Pickled beets will round out our supper.

The boys join me around the firepit when they're done chores.  We talk while supper cooks, then take it in the house to eat.  I leave the dishes- I'll deal with them tomorrow.  Hopefully the power will be back on and we'll have water.  The boys play cards by candle light, and I take a candle to my room to read til I'm ready to sleep.

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