On Living Off the Grid

Like so many, on the night of Friday, June 29th at 9 pm, our world went dark.  The power goes out here off and on, so we didn't think much about it.  We were in the midst of a heatwave, so the next day quickly became uncomfortable in the house.  I never realized how comforting it is to have a/c - I just took it for granted.

 Saturday evening when the power wasn't back on, we bought some ice to try to save the food in our fridges and freezers.  On Sunday morning our power came back on, and we thought we were good to go.  I spent the day cleaning out the fridge (we did lose a few things), doing dishes and baking bread and pretzels.  But then very early Monday morning the power went back out.  And this time, it didn't come back on.

We have a well, so we don't have running water when the power is out.  Luckily, we do have our white trash swimming pool up, and it's not green (yet) so we were able to cool off.  We also have a gravity fed spring on our property, so although it isn't drinkable water, we can use it to fill buckets for the toilet.  We can hook a hose up to it and take showers in the yard - they might be a bit chilly but it's better than a week without a shower! 

Monday Cort really struggled with his asthma.  Technically he's supposed to be doing a nebulizer treatment 2x a day as a preventative.  When you don't have power, you can't use a nebulizer.  We went to a church shelter for the day to get him out of the heat, and he used his inhaler.  He struggled some that night, but the next day seemed better.  I worried about him though.  Then I started getting migraines each afternoon - a combination of stress and heat.  I hadn't had migraines in years, and didn't have medications on hand for them.  Normally, I'd go into a dark cool room to sleep it off.  But instead, I lay in the sweltering heat of the day, with no escape from the pain in my head and a high sensitivity to light and noise.  If you've ever had a migraine, I'm sure you can imagine how I was feeling at this point. 

In the evenings, crazy storms continued to roll through, washing out our driveway (see to the right of the apple tree).  We welcomed the brief cool down and breeze that the storms would bring.

Although the new leak that sprung from one of our sliding glass doors was not so welcome. 

Piles of laundry mounted in our house.  Meals were a challenge - we could cook on the grill, but didn't want to open the fridge to get out food.  My uncle brought up their generator and was kind enough to set it up for us, so we wouldn't lose any more food.  We were thankful to have a way to charge cell phones and laptops.   

I went to the doctor, in desperation for escape from the migraines.  I broke down crying on the exam table, causing great alarm in my 3 boys who then proceeded to make rounds telling me how much they loved me, and how beautiful I was, for the remainder of the exam.  The doctor noticed Cort's asthma, and suggested that if it got worse again we make sure to get him someplace with air conditioning until power returned.  I was thankful for some medication to treat the relentless headaches.

The week definitely dragged on.  Friday came around again and still we were without power.  And while I realized that other people lived in much worse situations, my spirits were discouraged by this point.  Kind people offered us places to stay, but I've always felt tied to home, and was reluctant to pack up and leave.  Furthermore, the news was full of reports of people who had their homes vandalized and robbed after they'd left to find a place with power.  We headed to my parents' house to do laundry, cool down, and give Cort a nebulizer treatment.  When we came home, the power was on!  The next few days I spent playing catch up with the cleaning and cooking, but I was so happy to be functioning at a normal level again! 

Paul came home from work that Friday night and said, "Do you want to camp out tonight?"  So not funny.

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