Well half of this week was spent camping out in the house. You may recall that last Wednesday we were hit with a Nor'easter that left my house in the dark. And cold. Really cold. I think you all know how I feel about being cold. My dogs also hate being cold.
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| There's Pia in there I promise... This was the first night with only a flashlight! |
The horses don't seem to care too much at least. The worst part though, aside from the cold, is that I have well water. So no power also means no water. I had filled a couple unused trash cans with water for the horses so they were set for about a day and a half at least. I did not otherwise prepare. I was complacent. Didn't actually think the power would go out. At least not for THAT long!
At least it was pretty? Kinda? The problem with this storm is that it rained for several hours before snowing. And since it wasn't actually that cold out, the snow was very wet and heavy. Trees and power lines were down EVERYWHERE.
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| These ring lights really came in handy! |
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| Pugs? Or space heaters? |
When I drove to work Thursday morning, only about a lane and a half of my road was plowed because of all the trees in the road. It was like slalom!
We didn't have power at work either, but the generators there are enormous, and everything ran just fine. Literally everything. You'd never know we weren't running on real power.
So years ago, I was supposed to be getting a hard wired generator, but then the guy never finished the job. Thus, I still don't have one. Because I was complacent and didn't think I'd lose power in the winter! Anyway, I posted on Facebook looking for recommendations for a different guy to go through for a hard wired generator. Well, I should have thought that through a little better... A mutual friend tells original guy (we'll call him OG moving forward) that I'm looking for a generator. OG is the same dude that installed the ones at work and at my dad's house, so he's kind of our guy for this stuff. Anyway, OG calls up my dad and says he can get my place totally running that day on a rental. So I call him back. I ask very specifically if he can run the well pump, all the furnaces, and my tenants apartment. I'm assured that it will all run. ALL OF IT. PLUS lights everywhere. Assured. I asked multiple times and got the same answer. So I tell tenant, yay we'll be running tonight! Lol. OG doesn't arrive until about 8. So I missed dinner waiting for him since all my food was rotten. Boo. But worth it right, if we're going to be up and running! I'm sure you see where this is going.
I did get heat in the house and barn. And I got a few lights in my kitchen. That was it. NOTHING in the apartment and as it turns out no water still. UGH. Hey, at least we got warm? Well not my tenant... but she stayed at her sisters so all was ok there. I felt like such a piece of poop though after telling her she would be all good at home. Thank goodness she's a nice person.
Funny thing about the water... We all thought it was running off the generator Thursday night. But Friday morning? Nada. So then I was late for work because I had to drive to my moms to use her shower. And in the process, I managed to fall down the stairs. (I'm a faller, not really that surprising. But insult to injury, ya know?)
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| Does that knee look swollen to you? |
Anyway, work was fine. I filled up about 15 gallons of water at lunch to refill the cans at home for the horses, and then once more before I went home for the day. So the horses were good at least for a bit. Friday night I hung out with the puggers on the kitchen floor. I read a book and they did pug things.
Saturday morning I went out to get more water for the ponies. Not sure why they decided to both be really good drinkers and also absolute water slobs when we had no running water.... But alas. That's how it goes. When I got back with the water, I came back to a non-working generator. Hahahaha. I had to laugh. I mean why wouldn't it stop working? Anyway, OG came and got it going again. AND THEN the most exciting thing happened! At 3:30 on Saturday all the power was back in my neighborhood! Unfortunately, I couldn't get back on the grid until OG came and switched me back over. My meter wasn't set up for a generator, so he had to remove it temporarily. Thus, I couldn't put it back myself. I let him know as soon as I found out that the power was back, and he said he's be by in a couple hours. So I waited. And waited. At 6:30 I checked in for at ETA since it had been 3 hours, and he said 2. (Also, I'm paying hourly to rent that thing, so...) He was pretty snotty and said he'd be there later. No real idea when later would be. So I missed another dinner waiting for him to show up. Somehow despite missing so many meals, I'm not in fact any skinnier. Sad tale.
OG eventually showed up at 9 and got me back on the grid.
A few years ago, when Super Storm Sandy blew through, I was sans power for 10 days. But back then it was September. So it was warm, and daylight lasted into the evening. Plus my pool was open so I could steal all the water I wanted from there for flushing my toilet. It was MUCH less awful than these three days in the winter. FACT.
Anyway, I was really happy to have life back to normal on Sunday. I did a walk around the yard to assess the damage. There were some limbs down but nothing terrible fortunately.
Then did the sad task of cleaning out the fridge and freezer. But the brightside was that I discovered two full packages of Hershey's bars and a box of thin mints from last year in the freezer. Those things don't go bad!
And of course I did the horse laundry and groomed the boys. I also refilled all the containers I could find with water, because we had another Nor'Easter heading our way for Tuesday.
Monday was uneventful. There was work, followed by pony grooming, and some basic enjoying of a functional tv and snuggly pugs.
As promised, it was snowing when I woke up Tuesday.
My work never closes. We have warehouses all around the country, so we can keep doing what we do no matter the weather. We did wind up closing our local warehouses, and most of us opted to work from home.
I told my barn helper to stay home, since he commutes pretty far. So I did barn chores quick before sitting down to work. My coworkers were super clingy though:
True to form, I still managed to trip and fall working from home. I never set up the wifi on my printer, so I had to plug it in to print orders. Yep. I fell over the cord. At least the carpet was a soft landing. I only bruised one knuckle!
Well maybe two actually... Either way, it was fine. I was actually pretty busy all day, and kind of liked being able to work with Friends on the tv in the back ground... We wound up getting a little less snow than predicted and the power stayed on! So all ended well. They're saying there's another storm heading our way for next week, but I'm hoping that thing fizzles out. I was trying to plan a Badger visit for next week, but I think that storm is going to keep me here. Hopefully in a couple weeks I'll finally get back down there!
But you know what's REALLY up this Wednesday?! It's Jamp's 19th birthday!
We celebrated with a cupcake, selfies, and lots of groomies.
So that's what's up this Wednesday. What's up with you? How was your week? I hope it was better than mine! (Though really it wasn't that bad other than being cold and a little smelly.)
