Tuesday, August 22, 2006

The good ole days

Last night dacheese, SLA, and Scott went to the college to try their hand at pottery. This left us alone with Madders. As we were just finishing our delicious dinner which G'rat and purplelurple cooked for us the power went out. It was still a little light outside and we thought the power would be back on within a few minutes. So we sat there in the semi-dark looking out the window at the tree blowing in the wind. After a short while and no restoration of power we all went out into the back yard to watch the storm as best we could and enjoy the breeze, because it hadn't cooled much from the 105 degree day. Madders loves being outside so this was fine with her anyway.

Abe decided to find some battery lanterns that we had on the camping trip and get those ready in case the power wasn't restored soon. G'rat and I went into the house and worked on the kerosene lanterns, which of course we always have at the ready...except this time we noticed that one had a way too short wick and the other was completely dry. So we put the two together and created one working lantern. We also lit the candles in the fireplace which actually produced a nice amount of light.

We opened up the windows and both doors after we moved back inside to let some of the breeze blow through. G'rat put the kids to bed. Then they went for a drive to see exactly where there was power in cooltown. Abe and madders and I went and sat on the swing on the front porch and watched the light show in the sky. JVA came over and we sat and talked waiting for the potters to return from school. As we were sitting there listening to the start of the rain we realized that if this were 'back in the day we would not only be sitting out here, we would probably be sleeping out here as well. Our neighbor was also sitting on their front porch watching the storm and trying to escape the heat of the indoor world.

It was great stepping back in time for a short while, where there is no TV, no computers, nothing to interrupt spending time with family. But when we heard the whir of the everything powering back up right before 10 we were glad also as sleeping without fans was going to be really uncomfortable.

2 comments:

Elise said...

It was a lovely storm last night in Mesa. We opened all of the windows and turned the AC off. It was actually cool enough.

lvh said...

Not sure if it's better to lose electricity in the summer or winter. A couple of years ago after we got 36" of snow in 6 hours, the electricity went off. We definitely weren't used to the well because JW was washing paint rollers when it went off and we quickly ran out of water. So, we scooped up some clean snow and put a pot on the wood burning stove (thank heavens we have that upstairs) and had 4 hours of peace and quiet. Then the electricity came on and JW disappeared back down to watch something important on tv. some days I think I was born in the wrong century.