Power outage 10.24.10

It's that time of year again.. power outages. We had our second one this fall yesterday.  Our first one was also on a Sunday and it lasted 9 hours. Yesterday's outage lasted 6 hours.

How does your family react to a power outage?

Are you calm or freaking out?

Heat source?

Way of cooking?

WATER?

I was unpleasantly dealing with being dizzy for my second day in a row. We woke up to winds we though would break the windows in! The noise woke everyone except Devon, of course. We thought for sure we would lose several if any trees. Not sure what time it was when the power went out, around 8 or 9 am. We were being lazy and snuggling a few kids when it went out, and it was a slow morning due to me being dizzy.

Got up and found Drew outside, getting wood, clearing drains, and checking for trees.

Devon was in bed. The girls filled water pitchers, then were checking the chickens, walking the dogs, and looking for trees. The littles were crumpling paper for the fire. I didn't have to say anything. Wow, all these years of power outages have taught my kids what needs to be done and when. It was great.

Drew had a fire going in 5 minutes after he was inside with the dry wood. The girls dried the dogs and moved Red's bed closer to the fire (he chills fast). Breakfast was easy, pancakes on the campstove on the front porch.

After breakfast everyone got ready for church.. then of course Russ was called to an Emergency for work due to power being out, everyone thinks they need 20 oxygen tanks! crazy.  Anyway.. it was interesting.

So what came to my attention? The same as this season gets started every year... how and what to cook. We eat what will spoil first, milk products. Usually we bake with them. So we had mac and cheese (a little too salty, but cheezy creamy yumminess). We still had our family potluck, almost by candlelight! The power came on just before my family showed up. So I spent a few minutes putting out candles and a lantern (as it had gotten so dark I couldn't see my recipe). Guess how I cook with out power... go on guess...... camp stove, fire place coals, charcoal and my dutch oven.. love it!

I mentioned to Russ I strongly feel we need to get a Stove Tec Rocket stove for when power is out. It would make an easy way to boil water outside with out using up my gas. I have a post about it on the blog.