Only after I sacrificed two huge 200 year old oak trees do I have power. The power company said the ground was to muddy to repair the lines, but they could completely move the line if they could cut down 2 huge oaks I had which I would have preferred to wait for the ground to dry BUT ... me having a rare moment of kindness knew that if I didn't let them move the line and cut down the trees, not only my power would still off but a bunch of people down the line would be without power for another 2-3 weeks. So on top of the tons and tons of wood I already have on the ground, they drops those oaks on me too ... alone with the big maple and really old redbud ... I was p**sed! Since they only told me one of the oaks would have to come out and they ended up taking 4 trees ... we're talking huge. One oak was about 3 feet across and over 100 feet tall, well it's not anymore it's just a stump now.
Over all it's wasn't that bad to be "roughing" it for 2 weeks, I ran the generator a few hours a dry, cooked over the fire in iron skillets, lit the place with old antique kerosene lamps and I kept a fire going so I was warm. Hauling wood end all the time got the place filthy, but that's cleaned up now. The family went to my Dad's they weren't much liking it, they're just not that adventurerous, the Mrs's came back a few days but wasn't liking it one bit. Shoot I even made a pot of burgoo (You Kentuckians know what that is) outside in a iron kettle, trying to use all that food in the freeze before it went bad. I can't com[lain still there are a lot of people without power yet and some may be out for another month yet.
The guys that came in from out of state said they worked Katrina and the damage to the electrical system here was far worse than that, we had 100% power outage in all of western Kentucky and parts of northwestern TN. With my generator I had the lone lights for miles around.
For the most part life is back to normal all that is left is to clean up the mess, I've already cut about 10 cords of wood (a cord of wood is 4'X4'X8' stack) and I only have about a 100 to go ... one thing is for sure I will not run out of wood anytime soon. I'll have tons of hickory and maple of smoking meat and tons and tons of oak and various other woods for burning.
Congratz on returning to the 21st century. Glad you got your lights back. :cheers:
Great to hear that, Cheeze: like I said in the email I sent, I looked at those pictures you posted and went :buggedout: ~ I don't know cold that extreme.
Good to hear you're OK, buddy. :smile:
Glad to hear your back in black! I'm sorry to here about the trees. :bluesad: I hold a big respect for them old timer trees. I had some nice ones at my old place. They gave me a sense of,I dunno, stability. Like looking at the stars and the moon.
"Burgoo" sounds like a version of what Tara Sue called 'slumgullian". Toss a lot of stuff in a pot,and cook it up. Kinda like a hillbilly stew. We used to make Hillbilly Pie too. Mashed potatos with canned veggies and hamburger all mixed up.
Thats a damn shame about the trees. Glad to see you back though Cheeze :thumbup:
Thanks fellows, I'm not threw with the power company, as they could have ran the line 25' to the east and not needed to cut a single tree. I know they are working hard to get the power back on ... but when this is all said and done and the next meeting (we're a co-op power company) I'm having someone ass. Because this is one unhappy customer.
Good to see you back Cheeze!
If you had no power, what was running your computer ?
A hamster in a wheel....
Congrats on getting back to the world of power!
Welcome back on line!
like He-Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKqwNczmXlg
All hail the return of the mighty CHEEZE!!!!! :cheers:
Sorry about the trees. :bluesad:
Some folks are deaf to pleas. :hatred:
Glad you didn't freeze, :smile:
Somebody stop me PLEASE!! :hot:
SMACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, I needed that.
Glad to see you back, buddy! :teddyr:
Welcome back to the 20th Century! Hope that they get your part of the woods back in working order in the near future. It's nice to rough it for a few days, but after a while the novelty wears off. Plus it's awfully hard for present society to function without power and fuel. Commerce and all the more intricate workings grind to a halt.
Me, I miss the days when you could swap a good club for somebody's rabbitskin pouch.
Quote from: Andrew on February 09, 2009, 09:27:03 PM
Welcome back to the 20th Century!
He never left it. (http://5g8.net/smileys/snicker.gif) (http://5g8.net)
Actually I'm in the 21st Century now ... I was in 19th century for a while.
True I don't mind roughing it, but I prefer to do it on my own terms when I'm in the mood to cook out over a open fire etc.
On the up side, I'll have a lot less leaves to get up next fall. And since I smoke a lot of hams, chickens, turkeys etc I'll have plenty of wood for that ... I'll have maple, oak, hickory, pecan, cherry and apple. So there will be a nice variety of woods to use, each having there own unique flavor. So that's a plus, not to mention the mountains of firewood.
For the most part it wasn't that bad, I could fire up the generator and get online or watch TV for a awhile, I have a gas stove and a kerosene pump stove, kerosene lamps and lanterns, but the novelty did wear off rather quickly ... what was annoying was been surrounded by all the modern toys and convinces and not being able to use them. I had a 10,000 kilowatt generator wired into the house, and let me tell you 10,000 kilowatts isn't that much on a 400 AMP house.
You really tend to take simple things like flipping a light switch and nuking some food to for granted until it's not there.
Below a rare image of me 2 weeks after the storm still cutting wood.
(http://davart.net/Gallery/albums/Stuff/mesaw.jpg)
Another small simpling of limbs and trees down ...
(http://davart.net/Gallery/albums/Stuff/mesaw01.jpg)
My best buddy when the temps dropped to ZERO ... and today it was 72
(http://davart.net/Gallery/albums/Stuff/mesaw02.jpg)
Kurtwood Smith!
Quote from: doggett on February 09, 2009, 08:41:48 AM
If you had no power, what was running your computer ?
A hamster in a wheel....
It's called a generator ... 10,000 watts of gas fed electricity.
Quote from: CheezeFlixz on February 10, 2009, 12:47:46 AM
Actually I'm in the 21st Century now ... I was in 19th century for a while.
Well, now you are, what with the Internet and fax machine and everything. I like being in the 21st, but can at least function easily from day to day so long as I am in the 20th. It's the 19th and earlier that get ya.
I've mentioned it before, but the one thing I've told Katie that we should do to the house is put a small addition on the kitchen and use that space to install a modern wood stove. That could make a big difference if we ever end up with an ice storm like you had to weather. Having a fair sized generator that is wired into the house, like you have, would also be really nice.
Quote from: Andrew on February 10, 2009, 10:32:10 PM
Quote from: CheezeFlixz on February 10, 2009, 12:47:46 AM
Actually I'm in the 21st Century now ... I was in 19th century for a while.
Well, now you are, what with the Internet and fax machine and everything. I like being in the 21st, but can at least function easily from day to day so long as I am in the 20th. It's the 19th and earlier that get ya.
I've mentioned it before, but the one thing I've told Katie that we should do to the house is put a small addition on the kitchen and use that space to install a modern wood stove. That could make a big difference if we ever end up with an ice storm like you had to weather. Having a fair sized generator that is wired into the house, like you have, would also be really nice.
Being in the country I have a fireplace and wood stoves, the wood stove is great for cooking on as I have mostly cast iron and the all important Dutch Oven (http://www.dutchovencookware.com/dutch-oven-campware.html) Oh I advise on the wood stoves I have two, one requires the blower to run when in use or the flue pipe will get red hot (even triple wall), no electricity, no blower, the house burns down, very bad. The other has a blower on it, but is not required and the stove will operate fine without a blower, it's a Vogelzang. Always keep a pan or teapot of water on the stove, wood heat is very dry and the moisture will save your sinuses.
I keep a good store of seasoned wood in the barn and garage during the winter. In two weeks I used a little over a cord of wood. That's was burning a fireplace and wood stove about non stop.
I'd also recommend kerosene lamps (I used the old antique one I had around the house) they are far cheaper to run than propane lanterns, I have a kerosene lantern too, a little more trouble to lite but puts out 650 lumens which is brighter than propane. FEMA handed out 20 gallons of kerosene for free (well my taxes will pay for it) also you can get a kerosene pressure stove like this I have one but didn't use it...
(http://www.base-camp.co.uk/pictures/opti45.jpg)
Propane bottles are about $5 a piece and only last about 6-8 hours a gallon of Kerosene will last for days and fuel several lamps. I'm not a fan of kerosene heaters, to easy to catch things on fire, or be over come by carbon monoxide.
As for a generator I have a 11,500 (to be exact) watt but I'm looking at upping it to 25,000 or 30,000 watt 100 amp I think I can run the house fairly normally with that, the 11.5Klw you had to pick and choose what you ran and heating a 60 gallon hot water tank was not cost effective. I had to divert nearly all power to the tank and it took 2.5 hours to heat and used 3+ gallons of gas. Boiling /heating water on the stove took less time and was far cheaper.
Hard wire your generator into your house and use a switch box to disconnect of the power lines so you're not feeding back into the system. If both wasteful for you and deadly for the line workers. I just use an old switch/breaker box I took out of a house. You can also wire directly into the box and just trip the main.
Have ready to eat food like MRE's, Ravioli, Fruit bars etc ... and water, when the power goes off all you have is what ever is left in the water tower if it's a 100% outage like we had. I got water back running in 2 days and I also have a well I could pull from if needed. Some folks here are going on week 3 with no power and no water.
I even had to break out the John Wayne ... those cans don't open very well without electricity and I have no idea if I had a manual can opener other than pulling the John Wayne (P-38) off my old dog tags. It seems silly to fire up a generator to open a can. The JW still works great ... who knows how many 25 year old C Rats where fossilized on it.
I was fun dusting off the old Marine Corps skills for a couple of days then it was just annoying. I'd also suggest sending the family to the grandparents house if they have electricity ... to much "together" time in that situation can be stressful, tempers flare.
What else ... oh a air mattress, radio, flashlight and batteries! I got a C Crane wind-up radio like this one ...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001F51GXE (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001F51GXE)
It's all right does AM/FM/Weather has a flashlight, cell phone charger some other stuff.
I was fairly well prepared, but I'll be better prepared next time. Live and learn.
Quote from: indianasmith on February 09, 2009, 08:05:25 PM
All hail the return of the mighty CHEEZE!!!!! :cheers:
Sorry about the trees. :bluesad:
Some folks are deaf to pleas. :hatred:
Glad you didn't freeze, :smile:
Somebody stop me PLEASE!! :hot:
SMACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, I needed that.
Glad to see you back, buddy! :teddyr:
Yeh you get a bit cheesee, it's so cold I'm like Sneezee, glad too he dint no freezee, these rimes be gittin' sleazy, but I'm like... breezy, cozza' no... CHEEZEE, King a no weezee, beetz da crap outchoo eezee... :thumbup:
Quote from: Allhallowsday on February 11, 2009, 09:35:54 PM
Quote from: indianasmith on February 09, 2009, 08:05:25 PM
All hail the return of the mighty CHEEZE!!!!! :cheers:
Sorry about the trees. :bluesad:
Some folks are deaf to pleas. :hatred:
Glad you didn't freeze, :smile:
Somebody stop me PLEASE!! :hot:
SMACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, I needed that.
Glad to see you back, buddy! :teddyr:
Yeh you get a bit cheesee, it's so cold I'm like Sneezee, glad too he dint no freezee, these rimes be gittin' sleazy, but I'm like... breezy, cozza' no... CHEEZEE, King a no weezee, beetz da crap outchoo eezee... :thumbup:
Guys don't
tease...
Quote from: The DarkSider on February 11, 2009, 09:38:39 PM
Quote from: Allhallowsday on February 11, 2009, 09:35:54 PM
Quote from: indianasmith on February 09, 2009, 08:05:25 PM
All hail the return of the mighty CHEEZE!!!!! :cheers:
Sorry about the trees. :bluesad:
Some folks are deaf to pleas. :hatred:
Glad you didn't freeze, :smile:
Somebody stop me PLEASE!! :hot:
SMACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, I needed that.
Glad to see you back, buddy! :teddyr:
Yeh you get a bit cheesee, it's so cold I'm like Sneezee, glad too he dint no freezee, these rimes be gittin' sleazy, but I'm like... breezy, cozza' no... CHEEZEE, King a no weezee, beetz da crap outchoo eezee... :thumbup:
Guys don't tease...
don' teezee... don' teezee...!!
oh Pleazee sayth the Cheezee