Remembering Gratitude

Left in the Dark
     The power went out for no obvious reason the other day and was out for over 3 hours. It wasn't a big deal, at least not as big as it would have been had I been in the middle of baking bread or something you just can't do on the wood stove. (At least I can't. I do know someone who did all her baking in a barbeque grill when they lived off the grid.) For living in the country, our power service is exceptionally good. Power outages are rare; most are related to icy weather or wind storms. Given that we're surrounded by forests, power outages from fallen trees are expected. Turned out that's why the power went out the other day. A large tree from a nearby forest fell across the road, taking down a power line. One from the same forest did the same a couple of months ago. The weather wasn't particularly bad either time, but sometimes trees lean just far enough or aren't as healthy as they appear and boom! - down they go.

     It was late in the afternoon and we expected the power to be out an hour at the most – it's usually back in less than that. Those fellows (all I've seen working on power lines are men, but women surely do the job just as well) are always right on it. I think of them during the worst storms knowing they'll probably have to have to leave their cozy homes or offices to fix downed lines while the rest of us “struggle” without power.

The woodstove provided heat and a wee bit of light

     Having no power can be inconvenient, in varying degrees. If your livelihood or health depends on it, then it's critical. For the rest of us, it's a reminder of how dependent we are on electricity. There were tasks left on my to-do list that day but now I couldn't do them because they required an electrical appliance (vacuum, clothes dryer, stove, etc.) or water. We're on a well and power is required to pump it. You could use what's in the pipeline, but that's unwise unless you're desperate, and we haven't been yet. We heat with a woodstove, so warmth and basic cooking isn't a problem. For longer-term outages we're ok since we have a compost toilet, and a generator to power the refrigerator and freezer if the outage stretches very long. Most years it's not used.
Checklist

     This power outage reminded me to review our checklist of disaster-preparedness. Here in the Pacific Northwest we're aware that “the big one”—a major earthquake—is due anytime and will leave us without power (thus water) for weeks, if not months. Some predict years. It could level buildings and trees, leave roads impassable and result in fires in homes and forests. Not a pretty picture. One can imagine lots of scenarios but we don't know exactly which to prepare for. Will the house collapse? All of it? Or will we be able to access parts of it? Where should we stash emergency supplies? The answers will seem obvious when it hits, but planning is like solving a mystery. Will we be better of out in the country, or worse? What time of year will it hit?

     We have lots of water stashed, so weren't concerned about that in the recent outage, but we realized after two hours that the power might not be on when darkness fell. Candles and oil lamps were gathered and a fire lit in the woodstove. When darkness did fall, I curled up with a couple of candles and a book. It was rather pleasant, actually. Not much else I could do. Hmmmm...that reminded me to add books to our emergency supplies.
Valuable Lessons

     When I was a young Peace Corps volunteer, I worked as an itinerant teacher, living most of the week in rural villages or veredas (homes scattered across mountain sides) in Colombia. None had electricity, though some villages had power for an hour or two a day. Often water was carried to the home by family members or mules from a nearby creek or community well. A few had their own wells. I learned to wash my face, brush my teeth, and do a simple "spit bath" from one very precious glass of water.
Women washed laundry in rivers and I learned that's not as easy as it looks. My first attempt provided many laughs for the women who were showing me how. Showers were always cold and I quickly learned the best time for one was at mid day when I had worked up enough body heat - especially when in the higher foothills of the Andes. Laundry dried best if you did it early in the day since it was hung on bushes, trees, fences or laid on cement patios. I'd never given water—or scarcity of it—much thought before. It was an excellent education. To this day, I never fill a sink full of water to wash dishes as we did when I was a kid. Using one of the bowls you're washing anyway is plenty.
      I have often wondered if part of John F. Kennedy's goal in organizing the Peace Corps was to educate the Americans who participated, as much as those they were supposed to have been teaching. It sure seemed to work that way.