Winter Camping

Who says you can’t go camping in the winter. On Thursday an extremely powerful Nor’easter hit the eastern part of the country. Many places received heavy, wet snow, others heavy rains and high winds. We were in the rain/wind category. It poured all day which triggered the sump in the workshop to come on. We’ve had a lot of rain this winter. The sump has run on and off at various times. It never used to come on during the winter months, global warming perhaps. The rains were so heavy with an already high water table that the sump in the playroom came on, that’s never a good sign. Anyway by evening the winds were fierce. We lost power around 8 p.m. for about an hour. Then it went out at 10:40 p.m. and didn’t return until about 6 a.m. yesterday morning.

We have 2 generators. The smaller is to the left of the larger. Thank goodness for them, especially the larger. We were able to keep both sumps running or we surely would have had a flooded basement. Our town is rural and we all have our own well and septic systems. When we lose power that means no water and maybe 2-3 flushes before the tank is drained.

 

Greg went to work on Friday. Mark is great during these events. He loves to get the equipment going and has no qualms about getting dirty. He went to Home Deport first thing and bought a bunch of heavy duty extension cords and  3-way plugs so that we could keep the sumps going, power the fridge, rotating to the freezer, the toaster oven and a little t.v. We also had a space heater to keep the chill out of the family room. In the evening we were able to plug in one light and we moved about with flash lights. The house got down to 59 degrees which feels so much colder when there is no humidity. We were fortunate that it was in the high 30’s versus single digits.

For me the biggest inconvenience was having to go to work yesterday without having showered in 2 days. Greg helped me wash my hair in the sink with icy cold bottled water. Once I warmed up it did help me feel better. As I drove to work I saw all kinds of tree damage. It looked like a war zone. There were also plenty of electric company trucks and tree workers out. The news reported that the winds had reached 70 mph. I know what they mean when they say it sounds like a train.

We consider ourselves very lucky. The news showed all kinds of destruction, trees through peoples houses, on their cars etc. There are still people in our town that won’t have their power back until tomorrow.

Landmarks were also damaged such as the Crane Estate in Ipswich. The strip of stores and businesses in Hampton beach had a huge fire fueled by the winds. Five to six business were lost in no time.

As human’s we like to control things or at least think that we are in control but mother nature always has the final say.

Hampton Beach Fires

Castle Hill Story

More Storm Stories

They Can’t Take it Anymore

Religiously all winter Mark has been tending to the batteries in the 4-wheelers. They couldn’t take it anymore and put the battery in Greg’s Honda and took her out for a spin. The cart hooked up to it was the Christmas/birthday present we gave Mark. He has plans to do all kinds of yard work with it. Time will tell. Click on the photos for a bigger look see.

She’s All Grown Up

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, the 16th was Emily’s 18th birthday. How did that happen? She wanted a big cookie instead of a cake. Her main present was a new laptop which she will be taking to college in the fall. Guess what her favorite color is?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day started out different. Early in the morning we had a small herd of deer go through the backyard. There are 3 in this photo. We saw at least 6.

We finally got snow. All day they had been predicting it. It started late morning and went into the night. It was a fairly heavy, wet, snow and unfortunately we lost power during a movie we rented for Em’s birthday. We were able to finish it the next day. These are the photos I took yesterday morning (the 17th). They don’t do  the beauty justice. It really was like something out of a painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To the left represents Emily’s future (and ours). Her acceptance to Champlain College came on her birthday. We had received her acceptance to MCLA the middle of December.

 

Unfortunately the financial package Champlain offered was very unimpressive. We are weighing all of our options as is Emily. She is leaning towards MCLA for a number of reasons. I have asked her to make her decision not based on finances. Champlain is more than twice the cost of MCLA so in the end I think we will all be doing the practical thing as starting life with over 120k in debt makes little sense. I’ll keep you posted. We have until May to decide about MCLA and March 15th is the deadline for Champlain. Her major is creative writing.

Storm of the Century?

I really shouldn’t complain. This winter hasn’t been that bad snow-wise. Yesterday they were predicting a big storm for us. Tuesday, in preparation the news started to report cancellations for the next day. They told people to stay off the roads. Wednesday morning there were a ton more cancellations. Emily was dismissed at noon and we waited and waited. Derek’s afternoon and evening classes were cancelled. The picture on the left is before the storm. The picture on the right was after. Hmmm… One thing the news did comment on was last evening was the best commute home ever.

Breakfast for Two?

 

So far February has been a light work month for me. More about that later. I’ve been enjoying a few Saturday’s off in a row which is very nice. I’ve always wondered what that was like. Saturday morning we went to one of our favorite breakfast places. It’s fairly small, very quaint and the food is wonderfully homemade. I didn’t think to bring my camera so these are from Greg’s cell phone. I’m still not thinking like a real blogger yet. Anyway we sat down, placed our order and enjoyed some conversation until… a group of about 10 retired woman came in and sat right next to us. They were very enthusiastic and very loud. Did I say they were loud? They were laughing and having a grand time. They invited us to join them. One of them told us they were all retired teachers except for one nurse. They meet the first Saturday of the month for breakfast. She was telling us that so we could plan accordingly for the future. They really were very nice. We just felt like we were sitting in on an episode of the View with all the cross talk.

We finished our breakfast with little conversation because we really couldn’t hear each other anymore. As we were leaving they wished us well and I told them they had given me something to blog about.

I made reference above to a light work month for me. Last week one of the girls resigned at work. A few months ago I told my boss that I would be willing to start out at 16 hours on the books, meaning I would no longer be per diem. I would be giving up my flexibility and control of my schedule but it would guarantee me 16 hours per week. The details aren’t worked out yet. I told her I would like to stay per diem until June when Emily graduates so that I could attend the many things that will be coming up. In the meantime I will start working every other Saturday again starting this month and will pick up more days during the week.