Powered Down

We take electricity for granted on most days but once the power goes out it seems like all intended tasks need that magical juice to get accomplished. It’s those stories that I had intended to post, or the dinner I was planning, or the stock tanks that need water, or firewood that was going to be wrapped. Once the electricity goes out I instantly remember what I should have been doing.

Rural power and belonging to a Co-Op for our electricity is by nature fraught with issues. We are those customers that are too sparse for the big electric companies to care about, there are just not enough customers per mile for them to be able to do business and make a profit. We are the fringe, the few, the forgotten. We are also in a temperate rain forest that grows tall fir trees, burly big leaf maples, willowy wild cherry and stoic ash trees that all tower over power lines. Even those power lines that have been buried are prone to shifting soils that break the lines as easily as if they were strung along poles.

Our winter storm system had the trees drooping, large limbs breaking and some trees going down. We saw snow plows go by once and a while and many times they were plowing the debris off the road between trying to remove the snow buildup. This came as a help and a hindrance, it was good to get the extra snow off the roads so travelers didn’t have to try to maneuver through deep ruts and broken tree bits, but the underneath layer at ground level was thawing. By pulling off the snow accumulation, the ground layer was exposed to the colder air and would freeze into a solid, bumpy sheet of ice. Our county road became a skating rink for rigs even with chains on their tires.

Word around the rural grapevine was telling us that many areas around us had been out of electricity that had been on and off, mostly off, over two days. Then our power went out. We were advised that it wasn’t our local lines but the feed coming from the BPA (Bonneville Power Administration), this is who our local Co-Op gets the electricity that it sends to our farm. Wide areas of our Co-Op area were affected, we were not suffering alone.

Over the next day we heard that some had power only to lose it again. We were just out and kept the generator running so we did have minimal lights, flowing water for house use and the outdoor boiler powered so we had heat in the house to be comfortable. We were not roughing it by any means, but now that the power is back on it is sure nice to be able to flick a light switch when walking into a room and it illuminates the area with ease.

Now that we are powered back up I will be scrambling to get caught up on those things that work better with electricity just in case our weather system causes more trouble.