At 3 AM on Saturday, we were awakened by the power going off. We have UPS’s on our computers, network, and satellite TV equipment. When the power fails, they beep loudly. The house was still warm. I kept the nighttime setting at 70 degrees instead of the usual 64 because snow and high winds were forecasted. We decided that we didn’t want to set up the generator in the dark. The refrigerator and freezer wouldn’t be in trouble before we got up.
Mrs. Lion dragged out our generator and pulled the necessary cables to power the fridge and freezer as well as the blower on our wood-burning stove and our bedroom lighting and TV. The stove warmed the house, and Mrs. Lion used the camping stove to boil water for french-press coffee. We have a hand-powered coffee grinder to go with it. When Mrs. Lion set up the generator, there was no estimate of when power would return. About an hour after the generator was going, it came back on.
That meant all the work done setting up the generator and cables had to be reversed. Mrs. Lion was pooped. We had sandwiches for lunch, and Mrs. Lion took a nap while I watched TV. An hour later, the power failed again. We have been getting relatively strong winds. Apparently, another tree went down, taking out the power. Mrs. Lion groaned. We decided to wait until we got an estimate from the power company when they expected to get power back. Their usually unreliable estimate was three hours from when we checked. Poor, exhausted Mrs. Lion dragged the generator back from its shed and set up the cables again.
An hour after we were on generator power, the main electricity came back on. You guessed it. Mrs. Lion dragged the generator back to the shed. This time she only disconnected the cables and left them in place. This is the first time in the thirteen years we have lived in the Northwest that power went out twice in a single day.
Needless to say, Mrs. Lion is exhausted. Hopefully, we will not lose power again for a long time. We probably won’t since Mrs. Lion left the cables all over the house. Murphey’s law strikes again. Now you know why she didn’t post yesterday.
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