Day Six

Yesterday I was soooo sick of the drone of the generator I turned it off for a few hours. It is located in our shed off the kitchen so the room we spend the most time in has become a not so peaceful place.
But today I LOVE my generators again! We would be up a creek without a paddle at this point between no water for the sheep and chickens and what we did have would constantly freeze. We would have no heat, lost food in the freezer and would have to kennel the pets and leave.

This power outage due to the ice storm last Thursday, the worst in the history of New Hampshire and also Public Service Company of NH, has made me realize how unprepared we all are in the event of something more widespread and catastrophic. Once this mess is behind us, Long Ridge Farm is making improvements to our systems to be sure we can manage under long periods of power outages. We have had a full system generator for the house for 10 years and used it regularly. We lose power here frequently as we are on a line that runs though three towns and a lot of woods. We are the end of the line so we'll be last to get the power back. This morning PSNH told me to plan on not a couple or a few but multiple days more without power. I wanted to sob but there is no time for that now.

We are presently warm, dry and safe, the sheep and chickens have heated water buckets and a warming lamp for the chicken coop. I was doing the chores this AM and realized how normal the sheep barn is. They don't know any difference from any other day. There was a certain peace there as I just stood and watched them eat their hay, the barn clean, snow falling. The hum from the generators far enough off to sound soothing.

I let the hens out for a bit this morning and they all ran down to the big barn and huddled on the porch there. I took Sidney for his walk and when I came back I thought "time for you birds to go to your house, too cold and snowy". Grudgingly they went and are quite warm and cozy now. More to come as the days come and go.