All was dark and quiet

Yesterday, was that only yesterday? we feared we would have to cancel our helicopter flight due to high winds, but fog ended up doing us in first. As darkness came, so did the winds. Gusts up to 69 knots knocked whole trees onto the power lines all over the island and Washington. Three large branches came crashing down, narrowly missing my car and landing right where Daniel and Amanda's fancy new car had been parked only days earlier. Our power flickered and by 8pm, we were in darkness. An early bed time with stories by flashlight made for a fine evening, but when the lights weren't back on by morning, I started worrying about our freezer and the well, both very power dependent. I dropped Tim off at work and borrowed a very nice generator from Tim's kind boss to get the freezer cold again. Driving to and from his work, streets were impassable as firefighters with chainsaws worked to clear paths through the fallen branches. Most of the stop lights were out down the length of the island and spots of power were sporadic and small. In early afternoon, the city truck fitted with a snowplow finally reached our road to push debris to the sides. At quitting time, lights still off, I picked up Tim and headed to the mainland Costco for a new, super-duper, score-of-a-deal generator picked out by Dad and Grandpa headed to his friend's house to kick back with TV, light, heat, microwave, water... all the luxuries power brings.

Convening back at the house, Tim and I moved our little borrowed generator from the freezer to off the edge of Grandpa's porch to get his heat and lights back on in his room first thing so he could settle in for the night, then got to work hooking up our new generator. Eventually it will have a connector straight into the power box to directly power the house, and probably a second cord for powering the pump house intermittently, but for now we have it set up on the patio with some extension cords running to the freezers, our room, and Grandpa's room. Oh yeah, then there's the internet. The internet and the booster for our cell signal also require power, but Tim had a clever plan. Surely I must have a picture? No, maybe tomorrow. Tim has built a box of very high quality, large batteries for such occasions as this, so for as long as the batteries hold out, we have the wonders of internet!

-This message sponsored by Batteries: keeping you lit up when the wind blows it up.