It's da Bomb!

This week, we on the East Coast, have been experiencing the weather phenomenon known as a "bomb cyclone."  I wasn't familiar with this term, so I looked it up here.  Basically, it means that the pressure in a low pressure system falls significantly in a short period of time.  The results, at least in our corner of the world, were record low temperatures and a couple of inches of snow.

So far, it has also meant that the girls had 2 snow days and 1 two hour delay.  (Are you familiar with the song, "It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas?"  Well, I'm at the "Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again" point!)

The night time/early morning temps have been hovering around 0* to -2* for the past several days, but last night it was down to -6*.  We seem to be over the worst, as it was a balmy 23* outside today!

JP all suited up to work outside

When the temperature gets that low, those of us with "livestock" worry a bit.  It's difficult keeping liquid water for the chickens, rabbit & cats when it doesn't even get to 32* during the day.  Luckily JP worked Monday through Wednesday at his new job, and has been off for the past 4 days, so he has been able to lug the water to the chickens - a full container weighs about 25 lbs, and I am still on a 20 lb. lifting restriction since my surgery.  Otherwise, I have to take 2 trips:  one with a half full container, and another with a half full bucket of water to top it off.  Sheesh.

We were woken up a little past 2 this morning when the power went out.  We are fortunate to have back up heat in the house with our woodstoves, but out of luck when it comes to having accessible water when the power is out.  We got a fire started in the woodstove, and discussed the fate of the outside animals after reporting the outage, and went back to bed. 

About 30 minutes later, we woke again with all of the smoke alarms in the entire house going off.  We ran around with flashlights trying to remove batteries, but only got about 3 removed before they shut off. 

After that, we were a bit wired to try sleeping.  L, who woke with the smoke alarms wanted a night light.  (I worry a bit about J, who seemingly slept through the whole thing!!)  We decided to try moving the kitties into the garage, since their heater went off with the power outage.  After that chore, we sat on the couch by the fire with the dog for awhile, trying to relax a bit.

We did finally return to bed, and were able to get to sleep.  The power came back on around 6:30.  Soon after, the smoke alarms from which we removed batteries started chirping low power.  ARRRRGH!

We rose late, took liquid water to all of the animals, stoked the wood burner outside, and had a leisurely breakfast.  Of course, as soon as JP and I got in the shower and soaped up, the power went out again.  Since we have a pressure tank to pressurize the water from our well, we were able to quickly rinse off.

This time it only lasted less than an hour, but once it came back on, we filled several 5 gallon buckets with water, along with all of the back up animal water containers, and stashed them in the extra shower.  It reminds me of the winter we moved in here!

JP tells me that the forecast is for 60* on Thursday!

Happy Winter!

Whoops, I did it again!

I managed to arrange it to do my grocery shopping in the "big city" of Washington again this week, dropped the girls off at the Eagle's Nest, and sipped my free Frappuccino while strolling down the grocery aisles. I figured that I deserved the reward after making through another 26 hours without power this week.

We had a big summer storm on Wednesday, I carefully drove home through the swirling leaves and bending and breaking trees after spending most of the day in the auto repair shop. I wasn't surprised that the power was already out when I got home. The storm was short lived...only 30 minutes or so, but the destruction lasted longer. A walnut tree came down next to Mom and Dad's house.



Several poplars had huge branches come down.



No damage to our homes or vehicles occurred though, just to my comfort. The girls and I played lots of board games the following day, and were rewarded at the end of the day with a shower (hooray!) a full day earlier than we expected.

The remainder of this post is an homage to my garden and the growing things on Poplar Ridge this summer...

I've got lots of produce coming out of the garden these days.



From left to right and top to bottom: acorn squash, butternut squash, beans, cabbage, cantaloupe, pumpkin, cucumber, onions, corn, watermelon, sweet peppers, tomatoes (click on the photo to enlarge.)

My perennial bed is spreading, growing and blooming.



The little strawberry patch of alpine strawberries bears sweet and tiny fruit all summer.



This crazy squash is going nuts in the compost bin. Any ideas what it could be? I don't actually recall eating anything like this last year!



Mom and Dad were off celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary today. JP got home the earliest we've seen him all week. We are gearing up for our summer fun week as a family...stayed tuned!

These Walls Ain't Goin Nowhere!

Pardon the vernacular, but we were pretty impressed by the poured concrete walls for the 1st floor of the house. They are SOLID! The foam forms will remain on to provide 2 1/2" of insulation inside and out. The siding and drywall can be attached right to the foam. I will try to get a picture at some point, of the anchors they will secure to.

We took a tape measure along to prove to ourselves today that the house and garage are indeed as big as we had planned (I know, I know, we really do trust our contractor, it just doesn't LOOK big enough!). Guess what? Everything is fine!

The extra block has been moved out of the garage in order to pour the floor soon. We will be needing to use it in about 2 weeks to store our stuff that won't fit in an apartment, so hopefully it will be ready!

We have a temporary power pole and transformer now, if only the Power Company would bring lines up the hill. The construction crew is having to use a generator, since it is now 5 months and counting since Allegheny Power has been paid for the job!

I'm adding this picture just because it's cute. L has been fascinated by all the "diggers", and took the opportunity to play on our neighbor's tractor that is at the building site right now.