Reply #17: We are OK [View All]

[sazemisery]

:hi:
For those of you not familiar, I live in a valley next to the Arkansas river near Muskogee, Oklahoma. There are 4 families that live on my dead end road. It is 12 miles to town and that road is a series of winding hills with some mighty treacherous curves. My Jeep Wrangler does great but I will not risk life and limb to go to town. Luckily, I am self employed and I can work from home via GoToMyPC.

We thought we were going to escape this time as the forecast early on said mostly rain for us. As Monday noon approached, it was apparent that it would be much worse than expected. The temperature dropped steadily all afternoon.:scared: The rain started in earnest around 6:00 pm and became ice around midnight. We had a continuous heavy ice/rain mixture all night and into early Tuesday morning. That turned onto sleet around 3:00 pm and continued until 5:00 am Wednesday morning. They say we got 1 to 3 inches but I have 3 inches in my driveway and in some parts of the pasture 4 inches deep.

The power went out around 2:00 pm yesterday afternoon. After going through 2 of these ice storms since 2000, we invested in a LARGE generator that runs on propane. We are able to run the upstairs heating unit, the blower on the Buck stove fireplace insert downstairs, space heater in laundry room (to keep pipes from freezing), hot water heater, refrigerator and freezers, lights, and even the TV and computer.:blush:

Our biggest concern is the tree damage. We store our wood in a large dog kennel with a sheet metal roof supported with angle iron. Three trees fell on this and crushed the side with the gate. We are going to have to cut away the chainlink on the other side to get wood for the fireplace. There are at least 15 to 20 trees snapped off at the base and another 10 with the tops broken off. This is not to mention the storm of 2007 that took out at least 50 of my trees. As I type this, I can hear what sounds like gunfire all around as the limbs and trees splinter and break.

I feel quite guilty with all this extra power. I have called my neighbors and invited them all over to dinner tonight. I only have use of a 2 burner propane stove. Running electric appliances puts a strain on the generator and heat for the house is more important than toaster ovens.

I will probably have lasagna with salad and bread. We made a large pan of this 2 weeks ago, portioned it out and stored it in Food Saver bags in the freezer. I will have enough for us and our 7 guests. I had just made several baguettes on Sunday and have plenty of salad fixings.

Thanks for all your concerns and thoughts.:grouphug:

Do you like how I morphed this update into a C&B thread?










:grouphug: