evenings with no electricity

mountainmoma's picture

As you can see from the photo I took from the upstairs landing, not much light from the wood stove and kerosene lantern.

But, I also see why having a lamp was such an improvement, it is so much cozier to have a light of some sort and not just the fire, but of course the fire is more important for overall comfort and feeling of emotional comfort too.

It has been a brutal couple days. California storm area. The refrigerator is full of bad food at this point, I am house sitting a property 1/2 mile from here where I am taking care of animals with no power to the well --- luckily water was falling from the sky yesterday and could be caught.

It gets dark early, and with this type of light no dishes, chores or cooking preparation is being done after dark. I am heating up a soup on the stove, but that just means I moved a pot to on top of it. Totally makes sense thathistorically in these conditions the main meal would be mid day when there was usually natural light.

My area you see there is a bit of a mess as I had to use daylight hours outside and not doing inside chores, so no dishes done.... the winds were wicked the other night, ripped off my front gate and animal pen gate where I am housesitting. Ripped apart the woodroom and tarps so wet wood and daylight spent salvaging that situation.

But the fire is cozy. And I sat there on the floor in front of the fire, leaning back against the couch front, quilt on my lap, a cup of tea, with the kerosene lamp on a stool next to me so I could have enough light to read so the evening passed well. (my attempt at popcorn failed, but it wants a particular heat level I didn't get I guess. Like all of us here, given the world right now, I went long on popcorn...)

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ClareBroommaker's picture

Were you able to put the gates back, or did you have to improvise? And there were buckets to be found to catch water for the animals?

That's a shame about the food in the fridge. And the woodroom & tarps.

Now I hope your soil stays on top of your hills through all that rain!

mountainmoma's picture

My soil will stay put, my property is not sloped much. However, yes, there is a lot of soil next to the county roads, the ways out, that did slide down over the roads, lots of that going on in the usual areas.

I always have extra 5 gallon buckets, they are so useful.

Things are improvised.

I was just thinking of how this is like it used to be historically, and it may not be a great amount of light, but it also does not use much kerosene at all. I even had the pot of "pease porrige" and even 9 days old, just bring it to a boil once a day....mine was Lebanese lemon lentil soup

power company had its computer call me, there will be no electricity until Tuesday they say, so a full week of an outage

kma's picture

Glad that you are ok and in good spirits!

David Trammel's picture

It's good to hear you are "weathering" the current situation. I've listened to several segments on the radio about the West Coast and all the rain. Stay safe.