Bet you’re all expecting this to be a totally romantic post? Well, sorry to disappoint – it ain’t!
For those not living on this island, we’ve had the worst winter for storms and winds in a very very long time. We are sinking in mud here at Oldfarm. You cannot walk on the lawn – it is just like a sponge. The pigs are totally fed up of the mud, as are the dogs, cats and hens. The only ones enjoying it all are the ducks – and boy, they are loving it.
Two of the Khaki Campbells enjoying the flooded lawn
So far we have lost 6 Rowan trees, our last Crab Apple tree, a really old Victoria Plum tree, the roof off the fuel shed and a pig ark!
Last Wednesday we had possibly the worst storm yet. It seemed to come out of nowhere at 2.20 pm – I remember the time as we were just moving an injured piglet into the ‘nursery’. Once the job was done, we could hardly open the door to get back into the house, the winds had grown in such intensity.
As I stood in the kitchen looking out at the polytunnel, I was sure we were going to loose it. The roof seemed to be lifting off it. Thankfully it survived.
The storm howled about us until about 7 pm and then disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived.
Then, just when you think everything is good, the electricity went. So it was early to bed on Wednesday night.
The electricity was still gone on Thursday morning when we got up. The skies were still dark and ominous….. so in order to see what we were doing, yes, we had breakfast by candlelight!
Besides not having any light, a power cut means that we have no water! Our well is 100 feet deep and needs power to pump it up to get it to the house.
It is very hard to plan your day when you’ve no power, but we did get jobs done.
When the power eventually came back on at 5.30 pm we were chatting about the worst bits, and what we would have done if it had lasted longer.
- We were lucky that the freezer was packed to the brim, and we did not open it during the outage, and had been offered a small generator from a neighbour if it had continued.
- We must stock up on rechargeable batteries – and have them charged!
- Being without internet and phone was strange but doable!
- Water was our biggest issue. Thankfully we have a rainwater barrel that was full, but we must invest in another.
- We kept the stove in the kitchen going at a low level and decided in a ‘worst case’ scenario we could have brought a mattress down and slept in the kitchen! And we also have open fireplaces in most rooms.
- The Big Green Egg came into its own! Alfie made a pile of bread on it, and dinner was also cooked on it. We need to keep stocked up on charcoal 🙂
Brown soda bread
White loaves
There are still some 4/5,000 people still without power a week later.
So I guess the lesson learned is we should be like the boy scouts and be prepared. How do you manage when you have a power failure?
A Year In Redwood 
You have a big green egg – I am so jealous. I’ve been in love with them for ages. And a friend tells me they cook well if fed really, really dry thorn. If the weather is going to make a habit of this those of us with wells are going to need generators – I’m on city water so if that goes I’ll be dipping a bucket in the river, using the steps for that purpose that have been there for a couple of hundred years. When it comes down to it we all need to make sure the logpile and candle drawer are stocked up. Lidl were doing a great rechargeable lantern last week for not much money. And a camping stove is a good investment. We’ve been lucky this time around. On the local chunk of the east coast we’ve seen a lot of the local cliffs and dunes disappear, including the kerb stones of a neolithic tomb, but compared to the rest of the country we got away lightly. I do hope you dry out quickly and that you and the livestock manage to stay healthy through it all – I’ve never seen so many sad sheep as there are around at the moment, fleeces solid with mud
I know Kathryn I would be jealous too! We got our Big Green Egg about 7 years ago… in the good old days! We love it. Use it all the time no matter what the season! This was the first time to try baking bread on it, and it did a wonderful job.
There seems to have been so much coastal erosion this winter. In the scheme of things we’ve not done too badly. Part of the reason all the trees came down is that they’ve been sitting in ponds of water for months, which I’m sure has compromised their root system.
As I type torrential rain is falling AGAIN!!!
We`re so dependent on electricity here at the Chook House, I`m almost wishing we had a black out. It might be good to experience a night without internet connectivity! I say, almost, though because I`d probably miss it more than the Teens myself!
As to how we`ll really cope… Well, we have an open fire, candles and a pack of cards so we`d do okay for the short term. A week might be challenging though!
I know 24 hours was a challenge… we may well have killed each other if it had gone on for very much longer… despite the cards and other board games. 🙂
Hi Margaret,
Here in Dingle, we were without electricity from 1.30pm on Wednesday until midnight and from 8.30pm on Friday until 2pm on Saturday. We survived relatively well. My boyfriend has a super stock of gas lights, rechargeable lamps and lots of batteries. We have a gas hob so we were able to cook. We almost always have a well-stocked larder so we had plenty of food! And we had plenty of logs for the stove. Combined with books, Scrabble and the radio, it was all good really. Almost nice to be cut off from the outside world for a while. I don’t know if we could have put up with it for days though!
Sharon, we must invest in some gas lights, although I do have a huge supply of candles of all different sizes and scents which I love. I think more than 24 hours is a real test of our boy scout skills???
M
Today in New Brunswick Canada we have snow and then freezing rain coming – always a chance that the power is going to go off as the ice builds up on power lines. We’ve only had one 7 hour outage this winter (so far) but it can go into more than a day
We lose water as well and the best hint I can give is to fill the bathtub before an impending storm hits. You always have water for flushing. I keep a large jug (2 gallons) and fill this for drinking. We also have old lamp oil glass pillars that come out and loads of batteries on hand. Freezer issues are not usually a problem but if we went into a second day, we have snowbanks outside – which are 5-6 feet high at the minute – a natural freezer. And lots of books and board games.
Linda, I love your description! I agree with your idea regarding the bath… I had thought of that too! Although this last one seemed to come in 2 phases, we thought we were finished and it came back even worse than before. Today we have torrential cold rain…. and MUD!!!! Lots of MUD!!!