A storm blew through late Tuesday afternoon. I didn't notice it except for the school day ending with multiple waves of outdoor practices being cancelled. I hit a few patches of rain on the road home, but thought myself lucky until traffic stopped after the gas station in Keene.
Tree debris on the roads was the first sign that however brief it was, the storm was stronger than I'd thought. The second sign was cars (and even a school bus) turning around to backtrack instead of waiting.
I was close to home and there wasn't an easy alternate route, so I stuck it out. I wasn't close enough to see anything going on, but I wonder if there were crews clearing the road ahead. We'd sit still rather than creep and then we'd drive forward a ways before shifting into a parking lot again. The only traffic I saw from the other direction were cars abandoning the wait.
Eventually, I got to my normal turn off. The main road was closed for everyone, so it was now an alternate route. Traffic began to move steadily for over a mile, so it must have just opened up.
I saw multiple trees downed that weren't in the road.
While these trees weren't pavement placed, it wasn't a stretch to imagine some trees had been.
People turning at the stop sign backed traffic all the way back to before the field started on Langhorne. And I saw another fallen tree. This one fell short of the road, but could've been a problem.
It took me a little over an hour to get home. Normally, it's 18 to 20 minutes. The only storm "damage" I saw was that our package delivery box had been flipped over.
Carrie and Shane weren't home for the storm. They'd gone north to pick up a saddle from Jacqui and to see Pockets. I didn't expect to see lights on in the house, but I did expect them to turn on when I flicked a switch. They didn't. Power was out.
I didn't think much of it and went on with life. I let Loki out to run and Carrie and Shane came home not long after. We did horse chores and Ernie stood in his bucket. Shane and Carrie had eaten on the way home, so I had peanut butter for dinner to avoid opening a fridge.
I fully expected the power to kick back on, but it never did. I read an ebook on my phone while Loki glared at the flashlight.
Much to Carrie's amusement.
I put Shane to bed. Carrie fell asleep. I did some work on my laptop since it and the router had some charge and then I went to bed myself.
Carrie woke me up at 2:30 AM. "The power is still out," she said. "If we don't get power soon we'll lose all the food."
We were out of gas from mowing, so Carrie drove off into the night to get more. We knew the Food Lion was without power, so she figured the gas station in town wouldn't
Carrie bought the generator on a Black Friday sale the year we moved in. Since then it's sat in the box.
The instructions didn't say anything about setting it up with a flashlight while sleep deprived, but I bet it's not recommended.
I zoomed in to take a picture on my phone and it switched to selfie mode. I took one pic of my bedhead before getting to work.
The first step was to flip it over and install the legs and wheels. Generators are heavy.
The instructions were lacking, but I used the picture on the front to guide me and got to work. The first three screws were easy, but the fourth one vexed me.
The generator was under it, so I couldn't fit a socket on it. Then there were frame supports alongside that allowed me only one side to come in flush with the wrench....and then those same frame supports prevented me from using the wrench to turn the bolt more than a fraction of a facing.
I got frustrated. It's why I stopped to take pictures. "It's like they don't even want me to put the stupid screw in!"
I finally got it in and reached for the wheel axles. At that point, I realized the manufacturer really hadn't wanted me to screw it in right there.
If Shane had been awake he would have learned a few new words (or at least ones he'd heard from school, but never my mouth).
I swear the stupid legs moved from when I first looked at the picture.
When I told my classes the story I said, "You know when you wake up and you think you're awake and smart, but you're really dumb? I was still dumb."
It kept me busy. I finished before Carrie got home with the gas.
Which led to the next complication: We needed oil. We had oil, but it was the the wrong viscosity. It probably would've worked, but Carrie didn't want to take any chances.
This time, she had to drive all the way into Charlottesville to find a gas station open off 5th street. I finished up and then noticed something listed in the manual was missing.
May differ indeed.
I found and cleaned out a funnel, but it looked problematic. The intake was low and the funnel went in parallel to the ground. It looked like more than half of anything I poured would spill out on the ground rather than fill the engine.
Thankfully, Carrie came home with some paper funnels I reshaped to work.
The "Quick Start" instructions didn't mention grounding, but there was a later section and it was listed under the warnings. They recommended a copper rod (which we didn't have) and copper wire (which we also didn't have). Instead, I hammered in a bar of rebar and we used some insulated wire from the barn.
All that was left was to hit the start button....which didn't work. Maybe the internal battery died while the it sat inert for a year and a half?
We did manage to figure out how to open up the fuel line, work the choke, and start the generator manually. It roared to life and the well kicked on. Did I mention the well? If we don't have electricity, we don't have water. It sounded like one of the horses tried to drink only to find the waterer empty while we worked. There was a "Clunk! Clunk!" that sounded like annoyed pawing.
We ran the generator for an hour. It's not strong enough to power the whole house, so Carrie made sure it hit the right circuits for the fridges. We finished around 5:30 AM.
Shane woke up around 6:30 AM chock full of energy. "I slept really well!"
He was the only one. I went to work and told the kids I'd pulled a "reverse teenager." Instead of staying up until 2 AM, I'd been up since then.
Carrie ran the generator for an hour once every three hours or so while I was at work. It was loud. Really loud. We figured out where the exhaust was and angled it out and away from the house.
Carrie sent me this pic. The generator kept him busy and her sane!
Carrie mixed in some old fashioned 'entertainment' and rearranged the living room.
The power company updated our status midday. They posted the expected repair time was Thursday, May 6th by 10 PM. That's the longest repair time I'd ever seen (1st world problem, I know...).
However, we got a call Wednesday around 7 PM that Shane's school had power back on. We opened our circuits back up and we were back in business, too!
The generator turned out to be a good buy. We know it works and how to work it, so we'll be ready if there's ever a repeat situation.
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