I don’t remember fall winds when I lived here as a child, but there must have been. The winds blow down from the mountain southwest of us (which doesn’t mean they are warm), or else they just blow all directions. The last couple of weeks the winds have been blowing, and when this happens, you can guarantee the power (or hydro, as it is called in Canada) is going out. With a 100 miles of lines between here and town, a tree will go down somewhere, and the farther out you live, the longer it takes to fix it.
The longest Dave and Sue have been without power was eight days last spring, when a power pole fell into the river during spring floods. They borrowed a generator from a neighbor. Camp wasn’t running, however, so it wasn’t a big deal. Thanksgiving Day, the power went out here and was out for most of the day. At the Smith’s house, the stove is propane, a gravity-fed water tap in the basement provides water, and the old kerosene lamps come out once more to give light. The twenty men down at camp weren’t so easy to take care of, though. Dave recently bought a generator large enough to provide power for the entire 42-man complex, and it will be in place next week, so these episodes will not be so inconvenient.
We got to experience our first power real outage yesterday. The power went out about noon. We left our dirty dishes, and closed the lid on the toilet. Nick couldn’t run his power tools in the afternoon, so he found something else to do instead. I had plenty of time to dig out the candles. By the time we arrived at Dave and Sue’s just after six, it was getting dark. We heated up leftovers by the light of a lamp and some candles. After supper, Lyra suggested Hide-and-Seek, and the darkness certainly added an element of excitement to the game. The kids used to be scared of the dark when we first arrived. Marley talked about owls, and Lyra about bears; now they run on ahead, or in Marley’s case, dawdle behind, singing to himself.
Back at our house, the half dozen candles we lit didn’t brighten up the place much. Nick held a flashlight for our evening stories. Lyra carefully carried a candle up the stairs, and she and Marley snuggled down in bed, watching the flame flicker. Fortunately, the battery on our laptop was at 100%, so Nick and I snuggled on the couch and watched a movie until the lights came back on around 10 pm. I was glad we would have lights and water in the morning, but it is nice to know we can do just fine without being tapped in, for a little while.
I think I will see if I can dig up some of those lamps, though. And buy some lamp oil, a less toxic alternative to kerosene. I HAVE heard of people using homemade biodiesel, made from recycled cooking oil, in lamps, but I don’t think we’ll be producing any of that around here for a while.
