Stygian Darkness

Random notes from the powerless. Do you know how dark it gets at night? When there are not street lights, no night lights, no illumination from clock radios, or LED lights from computers, etc. Dang! Its Dark! I was thinking of Stygian Darkness as I stumbled to the bathroom the other night. And, amazingly enough. One candle makes all the difference!

Things learned:

1. When you're cold. Cold water makes it bone-chilling cold!

2. You can't have enough candles. We've been reading by candle light at night. The tapers give off the most light down to the page, but burn faster than the fat ones. I went to a hardware store for a paint brush to finish the cabinets at Adam's house. I heard the clerk say: "If it heats or lights.... we don't have it." No candles, no batteries, no flashlights, no heaters, no generators.

3. When the need arrives, the time for preparation is past. So many people are discovering the need. My neighbor quoted a lady she talked to: "I wish now I had not bought those clothes I don't need and I'd spent the money on a generator." We are SOOOO grateful for our generator. It allows us to get on line, to do laundry, to take a WARM shower, to cook.

4. You can't use a gas oven with the power off if it has electronic ignition. We kept the power on to turn on the oven. But when it gets to temperature, it turns off... and doesn't come back on. We had a little underdone bread the first day.

5. An emergency radio is really useful. We've cranked ours up and listened to news. However.... plastic cranks break if cranked too vigorously.

6. Keep your gas tanks half full or more. Tom had just filled up. How great to know we didn't have to wait in lines for gas. For the first few days the stations were without power and you couldn't get gas.

7. Colored glow sticks are for fun, not illumination. If you want even a "nightlight" kind of illumination, get the untinted ones.

Time for the generator to go off. The icicles are off the clothes line and today the sun is out. I think I'll try hanging the laundry outside today. Church is canceled tomorrow. It still has no power either.

A Natural Disaster

Front Yard Tuesday. Notice the skyline behind the trees in the front yard.

Then compare that with the skyline on Wednesday's photo. The hight of the treeline is reduced. Every tree looks like it has sticks on the top. The crowns are broken off. Many of the branches are broken leaving only jagged stumps stabbing the sky.

We had a good steady freezing rain all day Tuesday. Tom wondered about the tree on the side of the house. He didn't have to wonder too long. By late afternoon we heard some cracks and found branches on the roof and on the side of the house.
This tree branch rests against our bedroom wall. It knocked a picture off on the wall. And if you look very carefully, it looks like the drywall has a small crack in it. Tom moved the branch away from the house. It's really only minor damage.

Today I stood in the yard just listening to the drip of melting ice and the clatter of falling ice. Occasionally there would be another crack or a series of cracks. While I was out there, the cedar by the circle drive dropped a major branch, and then the entire top of the tree broke and fell to the ground. The huge oak in front had a cracked branch leaning on some others. In the short time I was out there, it cracked some more, then all three branches broke. Unfortunately, they didn't fall to the ground, but hung up in the tree.


Tree house Tuesday Morning.

Treehouse Wednesday morning. The railing took a hit from a falling branch and many of the tree branches are down. As I stood outside, I heard ice clattering off the roof of the tree house. Maybe it's a good thing it has a metal roof.

Today they said 3 weeks to a month before the last person has power restored. While the ice is diminishing, cars or trucks have taken out low power lines and a series of utility poles. No wonder they keep saying to stay off the roads. Below is one of the huge oak trees in the pasture that is totally uprooted.

Tom calls this a squirrl-proof bird feeder.

Disaster Zone

Monday the predicted ice storm moved in. The direst predictions came true. Freezing rain, ice, snow, more freezing rain. By Tuesday morning we had a beautiful world. Ice covered everything and shimmered in the daylight. But it kept raining.

A little before 9am on Tuesday, our power went off. As the rain fell, it froze as it touched the trees and the ground-- over 2 inches of rain... which meant over 2 inches of ice. We had some trouble with our generator-- overloaded it and it threw the reset button. But we didn't know that. All we knew was that we couldn't get power in some of our outlites, the lights wouldn't work some places. Of course it wouldn't power the heat at all.

So when night fell, we used candles and used the wood burning stove. Even with the blower motor off, it gave out some heat. Afternoon and into the night the trees became encased in ice. The bent. They snapped. By evening, it sounded like gun shots going off, followed by a crash as another branch shattered to the ground. Lightening flared periodically. But it wasn't lightening, it was transformers, or power lines snaking down and flashing great blue light up to reflect against the clouds.

We read by candle light around the kitchen table and went to bed. Snap! Crash! all night long. It seemed like there couldn't be a tree left standing! When we awoke on Wednesday morning, we saw a changed landscape. No tree was left unscathed. Branches bent to the ground under loads of snow and ice. Huge limbs broke and lay piled beneath trees. When we did an afternoon walk... and still branches were snapping... about 10 huge trees had been uprooted and lay sprawled across the pasture, or had cracked other trees as they fell in the woods.

I need to turn off the computer now. We only run the generator a few hours a day. Will write more later and send photos.

Attack on the Kitchens!

A week ago Thursday we had tickets to a Dallas Brass concert. These are five very talented musicians who gave a superb two hour performance. Their last performance in Mountain Home was six years ago during a hail storm that literally rattled the building and delayed the performance. Not only are they impressive musicians, but when they visit the local schools they teach, encourage, and mentor the classes. Then during part of the evening’s performance, the school bands play with the Dallas Brass. A most enjoyable evening.

We have finally resolved one of our remodeling dilemmas. A couple of years ago we switched out cupboard handles in one bathroom; we liked them enough that we decided to do the remaining bath and downstairs kitchen (all three had the same cabinetry); unfortunately, we could not find enough to do the bath – until now. Are you ready for the story of the expanding project?
One of Tom's projects was to remove the last eight or nine sheets of paneling downstairs (mostly in the kitchen area) and replace them with drywall to match the remaining part of the downstairs that was done two years ago. As long as we are doing that, why not replace the 30 year old cabinets? And what about making that kitchen into a function kitchen – complete with stove, microwave, frig (we currently don’t have those three aforementioned items there) and new cabinets? See how this project has grown?! Since we will put in ‘knob less’ cupboards, the bathroom will get the knobs from the old cabinets. All for the want of seven knobs and we get a kitchen makeover!

A sister in the ward is an interior designer and was delighted to come look and provide suggestions and assistance. She had some good ideas which we will include in our remodeling. We will work on it when we have the money available; things like the stove and frig may have to wait a couple of months. Tom has already removed the drywall and half the cabinets. The now exposed cinderblock wall will need to be painted with drylock to keep out moisture and new wood supports installed before the drywall can be installed. That shouldn’t take that much time, but…

While we had Leslie look at our kitchen, Sandy also took her over to Adam’s rental house (which is currently empty) for suggestions. She really got excited! There's lots of room for possibilities. The house is 60 years old with probably the original cabinets-- so things can only get better.

So with our downstairs in a state of destruction, Tom spent Saturday removing Adam’s cabinets—and the dead bugs that went along with them. That left about 3 different colors on the walls.

Okay, so maybe things can't only get better. Tom filled holes, sanded and primed the wall. He had to be extra diligent since a potential renter was scheduled to look at it today.

We will purchase premade cabinet sections, stain and install them. Hopefully we can get all this accomplished this week – We have another kitchen needing Tom's attention! Maybe we need to take lessons from Steve S on how to do remodeling from a distance!

Sandy writes: We had some days this week that got up into the 60’s and I took advantage of them to prune back the dead mums. We also severely pruned the great rosebush that arched over a cattle fencing trellis to the east of the house. It was collapsing the thing. So before spring, we need to replace the trellis with one of heavy wood.

I've been trying to be more diligent with her exercising. I've been going to curves and trying to walk around the property on the days I don’t go. I figure around the perimeter is about a mile… and safer than the street. Still with the Harry and David… and the Sees Candy Cynthia and Jim sent… and the candy Kathy and Steve sent… and the goodies Sally sent … and the candy Sue and Steve sent… I'm not winning the battle of the bulge.

On Friday Sandy went to a Relief Society Soup class. There were lots of good ideas for nutritious and tasty soups, and one VERY rich potato soup made with cream. Sigh. Why are all the best tasting ones, not low cal? Friday afternoon we went on a “date.” Out to some houses to look at repair work needed, out to the Home Improvement outlet to look at cabinets, and then to a late lunch.

Today I spoke in church on Pres. Monson’s talk: Finding Joy in the Journey. I think it went well. My mantra this week has been: I CHOOSE Joy! After church, the Rasmussen’s came and brought most of lunch so we could home teach/ visit teach them. Mmm. Good soup.

Our young adult group is growing. We had a young woman with a 2 year old child baptized last week who is YSA age. Another in our ward looks to becoming single again and two of her YSA aged siblings just moved to town. Oh, and one college grad. is home preparing for a mission. We are having a fireside at our house today and hope to have a good group.

Crater Lake Trip

This picture doesn't really fit with the title, but we were excited to Arrive on Amtrak at Klamath Falls, be met by Adam and Savannah, and drive through the snow back to Medford when we arrived for a visit December 20th. On January 10th Randy and Geneve Spencer and Adam and Savannah and Tom and I drove the 2+ hours to Crater Lake. The day was sunny and beautiful so we had a spectacular snowshoe guided hike up to the perimeter of the crater. The Ranger did a great job of explaining how nature adjusted to the 500 or so inches of snow that fell each winter.

We were amazed at the 6 feet of snow that had already fallen. Note the visitor's center behind us. We had to enter via a tunnel into the place.They say if you can walk, you can snowshoe. That's mostly true. Just don't try to step backwards. Geneve, Randy, Adam, Savannah, Sandy on the show shoe walk.

It was amazing to see all the snow and ice on the trees. Tom at the precipice of the crater.

The I-have-been-there photo.

The scenery was stunning. Absolutely incredible. It was so cool to be there!

December's sort of Mini Sister's Reunion

In December when I visited Mom, Sue was scheduled to come down, so Sally took a day off and Cynthia came over. We had fun!

WE SANG!!! Every Christmas song in the Presbyterian Hymnal... and then some more.

WE cooked. Or at least we hung out in the Kitchen. I didn't know a spatula would stick to a pan like that, did you?

Just kidding. Everything is Fine, just fine. Really.

I really don't know what we were discussing over the stove. but the series of photos looked funny to me. Like a child with her hand in the cookie jar. "Cookie? What cookie?" Anyhow, a good time was had by all.

Sunday Letter-- Walking on Water

We returned to our real home in AR on Wednesday.


Monday was mostly a ‘finishing’ day at Adam's. Install trim around the door, window and tub; touch up the paint; install the toilet-- see previous post; fix a squeaky swinging door. I also finished a couple of smaller projects on the exterior of the house. We went out for Mongolian BBQ and ate more than we should have. Then came back and finished one or two more projects, to include rewiring the guest bathroom light switches and outlet. Between Adam and I, we managed to get all the fixtures to work without burning down the house, so we considered the job successful. There is never enough time to complete all the ‘honey dos’ on the list; when it got to be 930 pm it was time to stop, and I did.

Monday Sandy went to lunch with a friend she met at Curves, then in the afternoon she packed for Tuesday's departure. We had traveled west with four bags, one of which was mainly gifts for others and anticipated a lighter return. Not to be. You can’t stay in Harry and David land without accumulating more stuff (all of which is worth it!). We traded Adam a smaller expandable bag for a larger one he had obtained from us years ago. Sandy’s first packing of that bag weighed in at 75 pounds; only 25 too many! It took her three more attempts before we got it down to about 50 pounds. Of course the domino effect came into play here; you can’t reduce the weight of one bag without having to shuffle the goods in the others as well. Even with all this effort, we still left two boxes in Adam’s care to mail home to us.

Randy and Geneve, Savannah’s parents, arrived before 6 am to drive us up to Portland to catch our 2:40 flight. We had an enjoyable 4+ hour drive there, and even had time to stop at the IKEA store and do some shopping and eat lunch-- yum. Swedish meatballs! They dropped us off at the airport with plenty of time to spare. We really had a good time with the Spencer’s while in Medford and appreciated their driving us to Portland. The troublesome suitcase weighed in at 51.5 pounds, but they did not ask us to reduce the weight to 50 – we expressed profound appreciation for that charitable act. Our Southwest flight actually left a couple of minutes early and arrived a few minutes early in Las Vegas, where we had a two hour stop over. Again, we left a little early and arrived about 10 minutes early at Tulsa; Miranda was kind enough to meet us there at 1130 pm and bring us back to her house to spend the night. Of course we couldn’t go right to bed, we had to visit…

Miranda was able to go to work late, and had blueberry muffins ready for our breakfast when we finally got up on Wednesday morning. Then she was off to work (Dan, as usual, was on the road on Tuesday night), and we headed to Aldis for some quick grocery shopping and two of our favorite used book stores, where we unfortunately were limited in browsing time. We needed to be home to teach a New Testament class at 6 pm. We did arrive with sufficient time to unpack and put away a majority of our stuff before leaving. We had a good lesson with the adults and then, instead of teaching the young adults, there was a baptism scheduled for a young single adult female, so we attended that exciting event.

It is good to be back home. The house was just as we left it, but the weather took a nose dive. In Oregon the lows had been in the 20s; the highs in the 30s or 40s. Our first night back was in the single digits! And the next two days barely got above 20 degrees. On Saturday morning Tom did something he'd wanted to do for years: walk on water! Okay, so the ice on the pond was thick enough to walk on. But by that afternoon, when the temperatures warmed up, it was no longer safe to do so.

Some important lessons learned while helping Adam and Savannah with their bathroom: A tool belt is a very handy device to have for such projects; a speed square is an invaluable tool; a worm drive skill saw is superior to the regular type of skill saw; and people who loan you their tools are indeed good friends.

After getting our house in order, it was off to Adam’s rental house to do some repairs there. His tenant paid rent last month with a bad check and then up and moved. The property manager had their handy man haul off the left behinds and we had our neighbor clean it before our return, so we didn’t see the worst of it. We did get the carpets cleaned and a new stove installed besides the little maintenance things that were required. There is still some paint touch up to do and it should be ready to go.

I also returned on Thursday to teach GED at the rehab center. Prior to our trip west, I had been working with three clients to prepare them to take the GED test, which they did the week after I left. It was comforting to me to learn this week all three had passed!