Posts Tagged ‘power outage’
Home Heat
We got home yesterday in the middle of the day, and the heat outdoors was still set to “High.” After a night without power at the lake, the four of us who had stayed one more night –Cyndie, me, and our friends, Barb & Mike– sat in the porch and contemplated our situation.
We had enough leftovers to feed ourselves for breakfast, but then we would create dirty dishes that needed washing at a time when we had no running water. A restaurant breakfast was looking like a favorable alternative.
I reported seeing an Xcel Energy utility truck cruising up and down the Wildwood road in the pre-dawn hour, which was an encouraging sign that they were aware of our problem. Cyndie was able to text her brother, Ben, to learn he had received an email notification that power was expected to be back on by 7:30.
We decided to hang around long enough to see if that would prove to be accurate, placing virtual bets on actual timing. A short time later, 7:23 to be exact, the landscape pond waterfall sprang to life, revealing we were back in business. Sheets went into the washing machine, and breakfast was reheated.
Closing up the house for departure from the lake place was done with much more confidence than if we had needed to do it in the dark, not knowing which light switches may have inadvertently been left in an “on” position.
In the absence of a huge lake to keep us cool at Wintervale, we thankfully enjoy the benefits of geothermal-sourced air conditioning in the house. Asher seemed happy to see us again, but after a short walk outside in the hot sunshine, he quickly sought out one of his preferred cool spots to rest.
As always, the horses appeared very tolerant of the harsh conditions, enduring the uncomfortable humidity with a stoic calmness, despite pesky flies and the absence of a longed-for breeze.
When it came time to feed the horses, we let Asher roam off-leash on the way to the barn. He spotted a squirrel that had been feeding on spilled grain under one of the feed buckets and gave chase.
The critter made one brilliant maneuver that I figured would save it from capture, but Asher stayed after it. They both disappeared into the jewelweed around a tree, and just as I was expecting to see the squirrel leap up the trunk, we heard a squeak instead.
Asher emerged from the underbrush and immediately trotted off to bury his quarry. I guess it’s never too hot for a predator/prey drive to play out. We figure he is just protecting the horses from these pests and putting the rest of the scavengers around here on alert that they are risking their lives if they are going to mess with things around the barn.
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Power Lost
The power went out last night shortly after 10:00 p.m. and has not come back on yet, so this post will be short. I didn’t bring a battery pack to charge my devices, which would be a smart thing to consider in the future. I expect we will be heading home this morning earlier than we had intended.
B’bye for now, beach.
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First Test
Despite my desire to get the already too long grass mowed yesterday, due to an all-afternoon soaking precipitation on Thursday that delayed getting started early, I ended the day without ever having turned the key on the lawn tractor. As so often happens, activities unfolded with total disregard for my feeble plans.
Knowing we had an appointment scheduled for George to trim the horse’s hooves at noon, I chose to dip into a project down at the barn, finally assembling the shade gazebo that we purchased over a year ago. I threaded nuts on bolts for hours on end throughout the intense afternoon heat.
Cyndie provided valuable support, including going to the trouble of making a temporary fence to enclose the horses on some of the too-long grass outside the paddock, so they could do some “mowing” for me.
At the end of the day, we decided to save the work of stretching the canvas over the top for this morning when we would have fresh energy. That turned out to be a really smart decision, especially since I have yet to drive the anchors into the ground.
In the middle of the night, we were startled awake by an incredibly intense storm. We both fully expected to find the spindly frame tossed into a tangled mess, pressed up against the round pen rails nearby. Lightning flashed at a shocking rate, wind stressed our house, and the power went off for a couple of hours.
The generator kicked in perfectly, but the sound of it tended to fuel the dramatic feeling of alarm over the significance of the storm raging outside. Alarms chirped occasionally within the house, at the sudden absence or intermittent return of AC power during the outage. There are only a few essential circuits that the generator maintains, so much of the rest of our electronic devices remain at the mercy of the power grid.
Getting back to sleep was a challenge. I always think about how the horses are faring when the level of intensity of thunderstorms is so extreme. By the time we find them in the aftermath, they always seem so unperturbed.
This morning they were happy as could be. I wondered aloud if Legacy knew that today was his birthday. The elder statesman of our herd turned 19 today.
To our joint surprise, as we came around the woods and the new gazebo frame came into view, it looked exactly like the way we left it last night. It survived its first test with an excellent result.
Now we need to walk the trails and see if all our trees held up nearly as well.
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Power Outage
We had some extra excitement yesterday. It was our first chance to see our new backup power generator in action. I had returned home from work at an early hour and Cyndie had just come in from mowing the lawn. She mentioned that she could hear that someone from the fence crew was working down near the barn. That was good, because I didn’t see anyone there when I pulled up the driveway, and I was expecting someone to come drop off some equipment, and maybe start digging out the hill for our new roadway behind the barn.
I was planning to head down to see him after we finished our little lunch break. I didn’t have to wait that long. Our power went out. It didn’t seem all that surprising, because the day before it had gone out long enough to mess up all the digital clocks, but then it came back on so fast I didn’t even realize it had been out.
I figured the outage was related to the intensity of heat wave we are experiencing. This time, power went off long enough for our new generator to kick in and provide backup. I figured I would need to call the 
power company to report the outage, but first, my intuition told me I should go check on the fence guy.
Just as I had hoped, he had successfully cleared out the hill to create new access behind the barn. And, just as I had suspected, he had cut wires feeding power to the barn. We had both forgotten to account for that line. Since it was a privately installed feed, after the meter, it hadn’t been marked by the crews that have been marking buried lines. Still, we should have thought of that.
All of this was very easy to understand. What didn’t make any sense to us was how, or why, this had taken out power to our house, too. I needed to call in the big guns from our power company.
It turned out that the incident of cutting the power lines to the barn caused a fuse to blow in the main power transformer on our property. They opened up the access panel to the transformer and used a long insulated pole to open a vent that relieved pressure, and then pulled a fuse out from within an oil bath. Very interesting procedure. One that I have no desire whatsoever to do.
They had power restored in minutes to everything but the barn. We’ll need to be digging a new trench and splicing some wires before we get power back in the barn.
Relative Something 