We just got the electricity back on, after two days in the dark. Not cold, because we heat, at this time of year, with two woodstoves, but very, very dark. We lost the power at about 10:00 am on the 21st, with about a foot of snow down. And it just kept snowing, wet and heavy and the trees bent further and further and the poor Hydro repair crews couldn't even get down the roads. Our repair time kept getting put back. Finally, this afternoon the crews arrived, just behind the plough, and unloaded a snow machine to follow the line through the bush to the break. And now we have light, and hot water and the internet (our node is at the top of a pine tree and it boggles my mind that it made it through, but it did).
Not great photos, but here is a bit of a sequence. I was using the barbeque on the back deck for a measure.
About noon, the first day.
Later that same evening
Across the field back of our house after about half the snow was down.
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas into which no more snow will fall.
Enough, already!
Saturday, 22 December 2012
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
Oh, Christmas Tree?
It has been a cold, wet, icy day, dark,
damp, dismal. And productive. I have been doing my Christmas shopping
list online, and getting assured delivery dates with a minimum of
hassle. Sometimes I love the internet. Poor JG has been in the city
all day - a meeting, a medical appointment and (shudder) shopping in
stores. However, so poor has the weather been that he probably did
not have as much of a hassle as I imagine. One wonderful year we
slithered over to the nearest shopping centre in the midst of an icy
blizzard and did a whole evening's worth of spending in solitary
splendour. I did feel sorry for the staffs, who had to be on duty
until closing time, weather or no.
Another year the YD came home just
short of Christmas with a guest from sub-Saharan Africa. On Christmas
Eve (this is when we lived in a city) in -18ÂșC weather, she took the
guest to the shopping centre to buy long underwear and other
equipment for a Lanark Christmas. They could not find a parking spot
in the whole mass of parking garages that surround the place. In fact
they could have probably walked it faster from where we lived then,
except for the fast-frozen visitor. Who loved, loved! the snow, never
having seen much before, and leapt out of bed every morning to shovel
and marvel. Me, I shovel and whine.
Other than smugness about the online
coups, I do not feel very Christmassy this year. I horribilifed the
YD by saying I was not really enthusiastic about putting up a tree.
This afternoon I am off to the Hall to help pull together a Christmas
feast for 25, which we will serve tomorrow. A two day marathon. Our
Hall committee is very small at present, but we have to keep events
going or we will have no money for heating, power and necessary small
repairs. And the Hall is our contribution to the community. So, two
days of cooking, two fat birds, three sweet desserts and dish pan
hands in perpetuity. I should not be complaining - I enjoy working at
the Hall, and it keeps me in touch with lots of friends. But it is
hard, this year, with Marion gone.
It is a gorgeous winter day, today.
Blue sky, sparkling snow, crisp breeze, sun pouring in to all the
windows. It's the first bright day in a while. The little birds are
swarming the feeders, and I have to get the suet up pronto. The YD's
animals have gone back to the city and I can now clean the footprints
off the hardwood floors - my cleaner came yesterday and together we
de-haired the place. Cat and dog hair accumulates in the most
unexpected places. We have a wood stove in the living room that you
can burn with the door open, with a separate screen to put across to
keep the sparks in. I keep the screen stored behind the stove. It was
absolutely stuck full of hair yesterday. And the YD's dog, she avers,
is one that does not shed. In fact, Shammy is not bad, compared to
the dogs we had while the kids were growing up.
This nonsense has taken me two days to
put together and I now have to quit. I have to assemble ingredients
for aspic to take to the Hall, make several lists, do a bunch of
mail, drop stuff off to a neighbour and be at the Hall by 1:00 pm. It
is now 11:00 am. And I thought that when I quit the major board I was
a member of, I would have lots more time.
Bah, humbug.
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