Around 4 p.m. on Sunday, storms rolled in with high winds and some hail. It briefly stopped, and it was still, then the winds slammed again, and our electricity went out and stayed out for 49 hours and 40 minutes. Up the road, a large maple lost a huge branch. It took out three power poles--and those were newer ones--on the far side of the two-lane road, while the rest of it was suspended in the phone and media lines on the other side of the road. When our electricity goes out, we also lose the water, because we are on well water with an electric pump. It also means that the grinders for the sewer system do not work. We warmed up soup on the wood stove for dinner and went to bed, hoping for the best, but when the electricity was not on by the next morning, Scott walked up the road and saw the tree; he came back and told me power would not be coming back quickly. I grabbed some twin-mattress pads and put them over the front of the refrigerator and freezer, then tucked sheets around the sides where the refrigerator fits into the cabinetry. I put large containers with bags of flour up against it. For the one in our annex, which runs colder anyway, we lowered the Annex temperature to the low 40s.

It was difficult to get information as to when it might be repaired. The utility company had a general recorded message, as there were so many outages. We drove back roads into town to use the library internet and discovered that their website also had no time listed for recovery. I understand, as this was a major weather event.

To my surprise, the town did not even mention it on the local new list, even though the road was closed due to the danger. I also got snapped at when I asked on that Google list if anyone knew the timeline for repair. Fortunately, one good person, who was able to get information from her neighbor who talked to the first workers who showed up, did let us know that it would be a day or two, so we were able to plan. That evening, we emptied the house refrigerator contents into the four coolers of various sizes. We ate some of the contents for dinner (pulling out paper plates), then Scott put them in the shed across the road, since the outside temperature was going down to the mid-20s overnight. He was going to leave them outside our door, but I reminded him of the clever racoons, so, the shed it was. We used the wood stove to stay warm in the house.

It was lovely at 6 p.m. yesterday when the hum of appliances started up again. The contents of the other refrigerator and its freezer, like the contents of the house refrigerator and freezer survived the outage.