PowerDown

We lost power Tuesday night around 9 o'clock, right after watching a few episodes of Firefly. There was a storm coming through outside, but it whipped through so quickly that it barely registered on our eyeballs before it was gone. Like lightning.

Unfortunately, the wind or the lightning did enough damage to the power lines somewhere around the area that our power was out for much longer than we anticipated. We've had power go out before, but it usually returns within four to six hours. This time, it took twenty.

Mind you, I'm not complaining. I rather enjoyed the experience, outside of the anxiety of worrying if the food in the fridge was going to go bad and the anxiety of worrying if the sump was going to flood the basement. (Had it been a Katrina-sized event, I'd have a lot more to worry about.)

It was an excellent opportunity to find out just what kind of emergency supplies we had at the house, and how much energy we could get by on. In the first hour, we managed to locate all the flashlights in the house, along with a dozen or so candles. The house was lit like an old-style Christmas card, just beautiful from within. And we all got to bed on time, for a change, since there was no point in staying up just to stare at the flickering lights.

And after all the showers, the hot water was gone, too.

It was a bit more worrisome in the morning when we discovered that the power was still out, and we couldn't find out if the high school was open or not, and James needed to be there early for band practice. The phone directory, which had the telephone number for the school district, was stored in the wireless phone, but it wasn't working anymore. The number we had in the yellow pages wasn't working either, but we weren't sure why. So we took James to school, and as we drove around the neighborhood, we discovered that the power outage was highly sporadic. Some of our neighbors around the corner still had power. Entire neighborhoods nearby had none; yet immediately after those, as we drove along the road to school, we found others fully lit.

James got to school - I couldn't tell if he was excited to be there or not! - and the rest of the kids went off to their respective buses when the time arrived. Cheryl had a dental appointment, so off she went. Eventually, no one was left but me. Before going off to work, I bailed out the sump drain, just in case the groundwater decided to rise.

Around lunch time, I headed home to see if (1) the sump was filling up; and if (2) the food in the refrigerator was getting warm. Stopped by the store to pick up a couple bags of ice for the cooler, just in case. At home, the situation hadn't changed. No power. So we put the perishables in the cooler and then I whipped together a backup power system from a couple batteries I had lying around so we could get the DSL router going and check the internet. And try charging up the wireless phone.

Also pulled out my solar array panel so I could charge up one of the old lead-acid batteries for additional backup. Nifty panel. In full sunlight, it got 13.5 volts, which was enough to quick-charge the battery in about four hours.

The kids were disappointed to find the power still out when they got home in the afternoon, but we made the best of it, finding interesting chores for them to do. After all the chores were done, James went on a bike ride and Mary drew chalk art on the driveway and Adam read a book and Deb did something else.

Then the power returned, and life returned to normal.

Just in time for dinner.

==

Mary did a curious thing tonight. After the power came back on, I was out in the garage preparing some boards for cutting, and she walked up to me and said she needed me to show her how to use the saws.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I want to build a table for my doll house," she replied. And she looked down on the workbench and saw a thin block of wood which was just about the perfect size for the table top.

"Can I have that?" she asked. "Sure," I said. Then I showed her several different ways to cut some table legs out of some other scraps, including the hobby saw, the mitre saw, the band saw, and the compound mitre saw. She preferred the band saw, because it cut fast.

When it came time to put it all together, she was thinking of using nails, but I persuaded her to use glue instead, for the sake of an unblemished table top. "It just wouldn't do to have the nail head sticking up through the table top." She accepted my point, but still thinks it would be sturdier with a nail in there somewhere. I told her I'd ship her out to Grandpa's for the summer and he could teach her all about making furniture. She thought that would be great fun!

After we got the table put together, she helped me carry some particle board scraps up into the attic so I could use them for walking on, and then it was time for dinner.

What a fun day!