This afternoon as we grilled ribs outside on the patio and the outdoor thermometer read 77 degrees, it was really hard for me to fathom that just a week ago, I woke up at 5am, took a shower and then as I was drying my hair, the power went out. I'd been expecting the ice storm so I'd prepared, so I thought.
The first DAY in the sticks without power wasn't too bad. We have a gas cooktop so I cooked a big pot of chili. We have a fireplace that will heat half the county so we were snug as a bug in a rug in the living room. Pete pulled the king size mattress off our bed and we slept on the floor in front of the fire. Ali and Addie slept on the sofa and loveseat but eventually ended up in the bed with us along with a chihuahua that probably kept wondering why the heck we didn't just turn the lights on. The first night everyone slept but me. The trees were popping outside so loudly it literally sounded like gunfire.. sometimes rapid gunfire. I could not sleep and my phone was dying so I went out to the garage at 2am, got in my car, turned on my heated seats, plugged up my phone and found out that half the county was also up at 2am completely wigged out over the sound of trees snapping around them. I just prayed Lord please don't let that big huge tree in Mama's back yard fall on the Big House. Lord please don't let these spindly pines snap and land on my roof. I could not see what it looked like because it was dark but I heard it and I knew it was going to be ugly when the sun came up.
This is the girls' swing set in the backyard:
I've seen places tornadoes tore through that didn't look this bad. Structurally, most everything around here was fine, but I never imagined how devastating ICE on those gorgeous Georgia pines could be to a power grid. OH. MY. WORD. You would just have to see it to believe it. The devastation was just surreal. Power lines were laying on the ground everywhere, tangled in trees that were snapped in half, wrapped around fences, and laying across highways.
The next day was Valentine's Day. Addie was so bummed about not having school. EBA does Valentine's Day in an EPIC fashion and Addie wanted to wear her new Valentine's Day shirt for the occasion. I let her wear it even though there was no school. The weather got a little warmer and the ice started to thaw, but still no power.
Stir craziness was starting to set in, so Ali Grace and I started cleaning up the limbs in the yard. We worked for a couple hours and made two piles taller than we were and you could hardly tell we'd done anything. We got a good laugh or two out of Ali Grace's "pine tree power clean". She insisted on honing her weight lifting technique while we worked. It was good to get outside and burn off some energy but still no power..
The next afternoon we decided to "bug out". Even though I'd filled the entire jacuzzi tub with water in preparation for the storm, it was starting to run low. I can live with just about anything but I CANNOT abide by an unflushed toilet. Note to the city folks: if you're on well water, your pump won't work during a power outage so you've got no running water. We were all getting on each other's nerves at this point anyhow so we decided to go to Gran and Papa's house in Jesup for a couple nights. We took the girls for an ice cream at Dairy Queen, since with all the madness, we hadn't been able to get them anything for Valentine's Day. STILL no power.
On Sunday, we heard David and Jess had power in Harlem! Finally! Yay Georgia Power! Since they were so much closer to home, we started operation bugout 2.0 and set out to Harlem. I think at this point Pete had had about enough. He really felt like we'd have power by then. Tempers were starting to flare around town and everyone and their brother was either complaining about the power company or complaining about the complainers.. It was a good decision to go stay with David and Jess for awhile. This is a pic of Addie with her bug out bag!
I got to babysit Sarah Rose, who introduced me to her "crazy pills" (Reese's cups)! I know I let her eat too many crazy pills but she's just so precious when she asks and she squints her little eyes and puts her hand over her mouth and giggles. You just can't tell her no! Plus, at that point I needed crazy pills too so we shared.
Mama called me on Monday morning in Harlem and yelled "Carmen!!HART EMC just pulled into the yard!!!" Honey I felt like I'd won the dang lottery and that ain't a lie! What was completely unbelievable is that HART County is where I grew up, my old stomping grounds.. born and raised! I thought to myself, if anybody can fix this mangled mess of power lines and get us back on the grid, it'll be those fellas!!
As soon as Jess got home from work, we took off back to Vidette.
After literally being in the dark for 5 days, the girls had a blast with their cousins Emma and Sarah.
And when I got home, I found out the Teacher of the Gifted had brought over her mama's pimento cheese. It is the best pimento cheese since people started cultivating pimentos. OUT. OF. THIS. WORLD. Mama hadn't left me much, but what was left was sooooo good. But still, no power. The Hart EMC guys had promised my Mama they'd do their best to get her power on though.
We cooked supper over at the Big House in the summer kitchen and as the sun started to set, so did my hopes for getting power that night. I was eating a piece of chicken and standing out on the patio of the Big House looking at my house across the road when all of a sudden I noticed a flood light come on. I started screaming like a nut! THERE ARE LIGHTS ON AT MY HOUSE THERE ARE LIGHTS ON AT MY HOUSE! I dropped my piece of chicken and took off running across the road and rang the bell outside my house!! WE HAD SURVIVED!!
Top 5 things I learned from this 6 day Amish Experience:
5. Never underestimate how much water it takes to flush a toilet or water a horse.
4. I don't care if we only have a catastrophic ice storm every ten years, we still need a generator. People have criticized the power company for not being prepared. Maybe they weren't, but I wasn't prepared either. I'm going to start watching more episodes of Dual Survival too. Next thing you know I'm going to know how to make a slingshot out of a granola bar wrapper and use it to kill a rabbit.
3. My husband needs a battery powered CPAP machine. His snoring was much more likely to make me lose my ever loving mind than was the power outage. That CPAP will be the first thing plugged into the generator the next time this happens! Before the freezers, before the lamps, before some old person's oxygen. The CPAP machine will be first..
2. Dr. Klaus Steinbeck, one of my UGA Forestry professors once said "Mother Nature is not a sweet blonde with bunnies and butterflies. She's a mean redheaded bitch." I was somewhat offended by that comment back then, but you know what? Mother Nature is indeed a mean redheaded bitch.
1. Friends can get through just about anything together. Whether it's offering a hot shower, helping clear your neighbor's driveway or hand delivering the best pimento cheese in the South, friends helped friends survive this mess of a week and if there's nothing else positive about this disaster, I've become a little more appreciative of my friends and a little more proud to be both a Burke County woman and a Hart County girl.
