First Snow Fall And The Lazy Man's Way Of Dealing With It

 07 January 2024

1101

R. Linda:

Today is the first snowstorm of 2024. Yes, the white stuff is piling up! I be sure that makes your day.

Looking at the pond slowly disappearing

Well, leading up to the storm everyone rushed to the local market to stock up on food. I noticed some of the new folks asking why everyone was doing that and no one answered them. I guess it is a rite of passage for the newbies to find out on their own how it works up here. You get a foot of snow or more and the power goes out. And it stays out. Yup, for weeks sometimes. If you don't own a full-house generator or any kind of generator, you are literally left out in the cold. Everything closes down, no markets, no school, no work, just shovelling to keep warm.

We learned the hard way. We hadn't moved up here more than a month we had a blizzard that shut everything down for three weeks! No fast food restaurants were open either because they had no electricity, and the food all went bad. We had one working fireplace at the time and we learned to cook like early settlers over an open fire. By the time power was restored, we were pretty darn good at old-fashioned survival. 

This led us to get the other fireplaces cleaned, lined and in working order in case it happened again, and it did! We were stocked up on cooking utensils and easy food prep but we weren't really that warm. We had a portable kerosene unit that I used in the old shed outside when I was working on the occasional odd job I needed to fix the house or whatever project. The shed was quite large so this thing heated it very well, only when you started it up, it was like a jet engine where the flames jetted out of the back of it and it burned like a fire. It kept the shed warm, so I bought it in. Yes, I did much to the horror of the wife. 

It looked like this only with flames shooting out the glowing end:

I know it was dangerous and it wasn't this model or make of the one pictured, but similar, and I have it no more to show you, but you get the idea. 

Well, I ran this baby day and night for a week but we were warm on the lower level. I don't think it was meant for a house but we were COLD! The smell of kerosene was in the house for months and the only way we got it out was by replacing everything and in the spring leaving the windows wide open. Tonya went through a slew of oil and scent diffusers, candles, and anything that overpowered the smell of kerosene.

After the flack I got for my creativity in keeping us warm, I went out and bought a portable generator that I had an electrician hook up to me electrical board. Yes, we went out and bought one of these:

Again, not the make and model because I don't have mine anymore, but you get the idea. This you had to pull a cord like you do with a lawnmower to get it to start up and you had to fill it with petrol to get it to go. This is made for outside because the fumes can kill you and many lazy people have died finding this out. It is a pain in the posterior to have to get dressed in heavy jackets and boots to go outside in the middle of a raging snowstorm to refill it, thus the lazy man's bringing it inside hoping the power is restored before the fumes get you. But it works like a gem if you use it properly, except for having to get up in the middle of the night to fill it back up.

Well, a few storms that had me trekking out in a blizzard did it for yours truly. It didn't take another snowstorm for us to go out and buy a full house generator, a unit that sits outside the house permanently and is hooked up to your electricity and depending on how big and powerful the generator is, will give you use of your water, stove and oven, all the lights in your house including the Internet (if it is up and running), and will even keep your outdoor lights on (this annoyed our neighbours who didn't have a big unit). 

So, I bought us one of these:

We bought a Quietsource which is now Generac and what we have at our new home (yes, I learned from the first house, that having one of these was essential). And this unit did EVERYTHING. The fuel came from gas lines that we had already (we heated with gas), and lines were put out to the unit and I didn't have to get up in the middle of the night to pour fuel in it. It just ran by itself and the best was that if the power went out, 30 seconds later the generator kicked on and it was like the power never went out. Yes, it annoyed the neighbours who had all gone out and bought the portable model and had only some electrical hooked up like heat and maybe water. Not us, we had the whole house including the outdoor lights. We were hated I be sure by the entire road. 

The power might go out and our house was lit like a Christmas tree as it usually was and no one was sure if they had power or not until they walked in the door and the light switch didn't work. I was told I was cursed out a lot by me neighbours, but hey, I be a lazy guy naturally and I'd rather spend the money to not have to work so hard if I can help it. That, and I do not like cold weather. Never have, never will. I saved me pennies I did and it was for a good cause . . . ME!

I know this looks like a commercial for generators, but be assured it is not, it is me sharing a little bit of unknown life in Northern New England. If anyone is thinking of moving up this way, make sure you include a generator because it gets really cold, really fast when the power goes out and it goes out often because of snow, high winds, tree branches, and flooding. The other thing, rush to the market to stock up because they too don't all have generators and they will close down and then not only cold but hunger sets in. 

Yup, frontier life isn't the life for me!

Gabe

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