How I love electricity :-)

Our power was off for 19 hours, starting during a storm Saturday afternoon.

Well.

First of all, I was supposed to be away with Kevin last night, leaving the kids home alone. SO glad I wasn't feeling well, and ended up staying home.

The power flickered on and off a couple of times, and then ... it stayed off. Just BEFORE I got up to fill the bathtub. Oops.

Those of you who have never had a well and septic, may not fully appreciate how important electricity is in this area.

Our basement washroom ... unusable, since there is a pump to send it up to the septic tank.

Upstairs washrooms ... sort of usable, as long as you pour water in to flush. But, of course, your water supply comes from the well using another pump. If you empty the lines, then the pump goes dry, causing other problems and requiring priming of the pump when the power does go back on.

Had I been wise and filled the tub, we could have used a bucket to throw water in to the toilets.

But I didn't.

We used purchased water. Oops. For the water cooler. Luckily we had enough, but what a waste.

It was interesting though ... Kevin preached this morning at church, and the message was called "Living the Simple Life" (correct me, Kev if I botched the title). He chose his topic in June. Last night, the kids and I were playing games and reading by candlelight, a very simple life. We had a LOT of fun. We were able to bless the group home down the road ... a friend of mine was working there on overnights, and she called to ask if we had any way to boil water. They have developmentally delayed adults, and she was quite worried that if a few of the men didn't get their post dinner coffee there would be an "international incident" :-D. Luckily we have our trusty propane burner, which is just the handiest thing we've ever purchased, so she was able to come down and make coffee for the residents.

I got no sleep, because we are in "teach pups to hunt" season, and the coyotes (which have interbred with Eastern Wolves and are getting bigger and braver) are everywhere this year. Obviously with the power out, we had no electric fence, nor light on in the back. I slept with the window open, and got up every hour or two to wave the flashlight and yell. The coyotes' yodelling and howling were just lovely ... 15 part harmony ... and would have been even lovelier had it been in someone else's backyard :-).

Tonight while the 4H kids were working their project lambs, my neighbour Mike called me over to say that he got up at 4:00 (the one time I managed to actually sleep) to check on his cattle, and there were about a dozen coyotes staring into to our sheep pen on the laneway between his farm and our property. More were racing down to the road, and more were out back his farm. Just crazy. He was concerned they would try for our sheep, and got out his 22 and shot in the air a few times. They left. I, finally sleeping soundly, didn't here a thing.

Today, the power is on. I spent a few minutes making sure that the fence was very hot, and I presume I will once again get a lousy night sleep as I listen for "pup-hitting-the-fence-with-wet
-nose" yelps all night :-).

Mike let me know that, in the future, if an outage were to happen again, that I can run a wire from his electric fence to mine since he has a generator at his place. That will give us some peace of mind. He is a good neighbour!

Last week of Drama camp for Claire coming up! Hurray! They will do a play on Friday (2 showings; one for parents and one for the public). Alison works 8-4 all week, and hopefully will get 2 lessons a day (save for the rainy days). Iain and I will take our work in to Picton and work at Miss Lily's Cafe (Jana, doesn't this sound like a Gilmour Girls' kinda place?????). I must take photos of our "office"!