Dec 28 - in a war zone

Since I've never been in a war zone I can compare this to a war zone. Obviously had I been in a war zone, I would not use the term so lightly.

The power was flickering all morning as the wind howled. I was sure that we were going to lose power any time ... but we didn't ... at least not until after I got back from Mass. Mass, however, was brief -- 20 minutes -- because the church was cold and, you guessed it, dark. The candles really did their job. Britt had no power. As it turned out, neither did Loring and power was out as far south as Parry Sound, as reported by Art Ysseldyk to Ernie Bain to me -- how's that for third hand !

It's 6:30 pm now and the power has been out for about 6 hours. Outside looked like a war zone, at least while it was light, and assuming that the war was against the trees. Branches and debris are everywhere. I checked Jason's -- except for branches all over the yard and all over the cove and the lake, all was ok. I checked Donnie's -- a tree had fallen down by the docks in his cove, but nothing was damaged. His gazebo had lost one of its winter panels, so David and I brought a drill, stepladder and wooden strips to re-secure the panel to keep the weather off Claudia's furniture.

I decided to check Jim's, even though it was not cold and found that the door to the port had blown off -- the hinges ripped off the 2x4. The porch is screened in and I guess that the wind came through and caught the door. The tarp on my gazebo had come loose at one place and the wind was removing grommets -- but I fixed that. Have you even been on a ladder with the base standing on glare ice ? David disapproved of that one, but he came out to help.

David pulled in a couple of pike -- one a keeper, the other a catch-and-release. Both flags went up at the same time, around noon, but then nothing bit after that. A little while ago I went out and retrieved the fishing rigs and added gas to the generator.

I talked to Jim and Bonnie, since I was worried about the food in their refrigerator and freezer. He is going to call back in the morning to see what is happening with the power and decide then whether to come back from Sault Ste. Marie tomorrow or Tuesday. It will be relatively warm overnight so there is no danger of the house and plumbing freezing. I'll turn on his generator in the morning for him if the power is still out.

I've been trying to get hold of Hydro One on the telephone and their message says "due to high call volume blah blah blah". In other words I've not been able to get hold of them. I did finally get through to their website though, which was down most of the day or at least not responding. I found that we are among thousands without power and they have no prediction, yet, for restoring power. That's great ... been here, done this ... we can comfortably run on the generator for a long time, and did so one summer for almost a week. I'll have to pick up some more gas tomorrow though. Luckily Daryl in town has a generator so he can pump gas ... luckily.

I think that I'll look seriously at the standby generator solution next summer, connected to my big mother propane tank. If we never have another power outage it will have been worth the price !

Time to start the barbecue ...

---------

Now we are 10. Jeffrey, Sara and Emma arrived at 7:40 a.m. this morning.

I talked to Jim Matthews this morning to let him know that the power is still out. They are heading home shortly. Right after I talked to Jim our phone went out. Thank goodness for satellite internet !

Stuff to do ...