Power's OUT and it's HOT!

We all agree, Rowdy, it's HOT

As of right now, our power at  home has been out for almost 6 full days.  Only once has it been out longer, which happens to have been 14 years ago this week, when we moved into our house.  it was out the first 9 days we lived there, due to severe storms that rolled through the area the day before we moved in. We may be on track to beat that 9 day record, if rumors are correct that it may be Monday or Tuesday before a crew is in our area.

So, while this is not much fun, considering high temperatures have been in the 90's for a week and are forecast to continue to be so for several more days, it is not as bad as it could be if we did not have a whole house generator that runs on the natural gas from our wells.  That being said, things like central a/c take incredible amounts of power and other things like water pumps and freezers are more critical, so the a/c is not functioning.  

The cause of this outage was a very fast moving storm that blew through here about 6 pm Friday evening.  I guess it had really strong winds judging by the damage it caused, but we are very protected down in our "holler" and had no damage at all near the house.  Up on the rigdes, it is a whole different story.  2 of neighbors had trees on top of their homes.  Many many trees are just snapped off like these up by our hayfield.  

Sam had come home and then gone out to a neighbor's place right before this came through.  He literally could not get home.  He said trees were falling in front of him and behind him on the road and were bent almost parallel to the ground from the wind.  After detouring several times, we called me from his cell phone and had me head out in the little truck with a couple of chainsaws to try to meet him.  I had to stop and cut one tree off the road while rain was coming down and  the thunder was rumbling and the wind was blowing, but then after getting past that tree I could not get the chainsaw started again so had to climb over 2 more trees carrying a chainsaw to get to where Sam was in the car on the far side.  Above is how that section of road looks almost a week later.  We finally got home, very wet and missing a side mirror on the little truck (it got knocked off as I drove over a downed tree in the road).  Our power has been out ever since.  According to reports I have seen on the news, this is the largest outage local power companies have ever experienced and since we are at the very end of a line and serviced by a small power co-op, we aren't exactly top priority.  

 With the heat, our lettuce is about done in the garden.  Everything else is pretty dry.  We were watering the garden regularly until the power went out.  The beets are almost ready for picking and pickling and the tomato plants are doing pretty well.  I think some of my garlic looks  ready to dig up also.

We tried something new with the tomatoes this year.  We put cattle panels in behind them instead of using stakes and tying them up.  Every morning (or almost) I spend a few minutes weaving the plants through the gridwork of the cattle panels and it seems to be working pretty well.   The romas are so bushy that they are kind of difficult, but the rest are growing right up the panels.  Very tidy.  

Our yard has been chock full of white clover.  There has been little rain, so Sam did not mow last week and the bees have been very busy in the clover.  I guess it should not be surprising then that I was actually stung walking through my yard in flip flops on Saturday!  That is the first time since I was a kid that I have been randomly stung by a bee.  I guess I scooped her up with the toe of my flip flop and she ended up between my big toe and second toe and zapped me on the inside of the big toe.  Yikes!  I WON"T be walking through clover in flip flops anymore.

 So then I had another interesting bee encounter one evening after our dog walk as Sam and I sat on the deck (we shut off the generator so we could enjoy sitting outside) with our margaritas.  A lone honey bee came over and after buzzing around my foot for a while, decided to walk around on my heel and ankle for a good 5 minutes.  She seemed to be interested in something on my ankle and after zooming in on the picture Sam took I see something red on my heel and I don't know if I walked through something on our walk that was appealing to bees or what.  But she spent a great deal of time investigating before flying off and I remarked to Sam that 2 years ago there is no way I would have sat quietly while a bee explored my bare ankle.
 

On Friday, before the storm came up, I had done up a dyepot of blue dye to dye some of my rug yarn.  I have had a request for a red white and blue rug, so I need to dye some red and blue.  I think the blue came out quite well, but I have not been able to dye the red since I do not want to heat up the kitchen by simmering 3 gallons of dye for 2 hours.  I will wait until I have a/c again to do that.

I have also taken a weaving project off the loom, just today, but will write about that in a future post.  

I finished up my first sock I started last week and have been working on my  mystery shawl knit-along.  It is quite nice so far.  Can't wait to see what it looks like when it is done.  I received clue 3 yesterday so this photo is only clues 1 and 2 and 1 row of clue 3.

I should have taken this picture outside in better lighting because it really is a pretty buttery yellow with peach tones and my beads are an iridescent peach color as well.

With so many trees having been broken off by the incredible force of the winds that came through on Friday, I was happy to see that one of my favorite trees is still standing, despite all odds.  This old beech stands along the road where I went to find Sam and it always amazes me that a tree you can actually see through continues to survive year after year.