A Day Without Electricity
We lost power Sunday night at approximately 10:30 p.m. Losing power isn’t that big of a deal when it comes back on within hours. But when a storm knocks power out for 21 hours it really tests whether or not you are prepared to live “off-grid.”
We did a lot of learning on Monday. We dream of living off-grid, so we embraced the experience. We also learned that we are ill prepared for a long-term power outage.
It is quite easy to romanticize living as our pioneer fore mothers did. Everything in our home runs off of electricity – heat, all appliances and a well. No electricity = no water. That, perhaps, was the biggest eye opener of the day.
Our Day Sans Electricity
6 a.m. Up to nurse the baby and feed him a *cold* bottle, his first ever. Wish you were able to solely breastfeed that baby once again. Husband realizes we do not have a large enough cooler to store ice as well as perishables needed for the day. He is off to the store to purchase a larger cooler, ice, a charcoal grill and *be still my heart* a cast iron dutch oven.
7 a.m. Put baby back down to see if he will go back to sleep. He doesn’t and I think he sense the excitement as well. Toddler wakes up to a cold room and we change his overnight diaper, get him on the potty and dressed in extra clothing. Fifty eight degrees will be the temperature of the day.
7:30 a.m. Husband returns and I work quickly to transfer everything we need for the day from the refrigerator into a cooler. Be thankful that you roasted a chicken the night before providing plenty of leftover meat. Feed toddler leftover almond flour pancakes and banana. I eat 2 tablespoons of almond butter and hubby polishes off pancakes.
8:30 a.m. Baby is up and we bundle him up in his snow suit for the day. Try to feed baby mashed bananas and coconut milk. He decides it’s too sweet and won’t eat it. I quietly cheer on the inside. Look around kitchen and be thankful I washed up all of the dishes last night. They’re starting to pile up already.
10:00 a.m. Husband finishes putting grill together and is now heating up water for us. It will take quite some time. Notice that diaper bucket is overflowing. Shutter at the thought of washing diapers by hand. Instead remove liner bag, tie closed and hide away. Replace with new liner bag.
11:00 a.m. I throw together a salad from last night’s leftovers – arugula, chicken, avocado, cucumber and homemade salad dressing. The salad is delicious, but it is cold and doesn’t taste as good as it could. Once water is hot we make tea and heat up baby bottle. Baby eats (and loves) mashed avocado with salad dressing.
12:00 p.m. Husband finally makes it to work. Our toddler, Mr. wannasnack, is on the prowl once again. Sunflower and pumpkin seeds tide him over. I try to rinse dishes off with gallon jugs of cold water.Fill up dutch oven with hot coals in an attempt to heat up baby’s room for nap time.
1:00 p.m. Boys are down for a nap and I am in awe of the silence. No fans running for background noise. No washing machine running. No refrigerator clanking around. No computer drawing me in. Just me and the silence. I pick up my needle, thread and the throw pillow cover I pinned 4 months ago to sew up. For 2 hours I sew by hand in perfect silence. I have never had a more restful nap time.
3:00 p.m. Toddler is up asking for yet another snack. I decide it is time to restart the fire on the grill to start dinner. I actually manage to start the fire, after three different trips outside. I throw a carton of organic chicken stock together with a can of chicken, a can of green beans, a can of carrots, dried thyme, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a couple tablespoons of butter.
4:30 p.m. Husband is back home to help with the dinner rush. As I serve up soup he starts heating up water for more tea and dish washing. I can’t remember soup tasting this good. Must be the chill in the air.Feed baby chicken and carrots, another hit.
5:00 p.m. Fill sink 3 inches high with hot, soapy water. Fill other side 2 inches high with cold water. Wash dishes. Realize you use way too much water when you normally wash dishes.
6:00 p.m. Husband returns to work after getting me one more pot of hot water on the grill for me. I thank him profusely for helping me with manning the fire and taking time off of work.
7:00 p.m. The power comes back on. Everything is loud again – the hot water heater, the refrigerator, the baseboard heaters. Realize that we live with so much noise every day that we don’t even know it. The house warms back up to our normal 64 degrees and now I can prepare the boys for bedtime. Move items from cooler back into refrigerator and check to make sure everything in the freezer is still frozen. It is. Phew.
The shocking fact of the day: we used seven gallons of water for drinking, dish washing and general clean up. Seven gallons. Now I wasn’t thinking too much of how to conserve water because we could always go buy more. But what if we couldn’t at some point? If there was a natural disaster of some sort that closed the local stores we would be out of luck.
Despite realizing we are not entirely prepared, I really enjoyed the day. It was peaceful, calm and purposeful. We are discussing “unplugging” one day a month to experience the benefits and learn from the experience.
Have you ever unplugged before, willingly or not?
Interesting post. We’ve never been in the dark, although we’re thinking about unplugging once a week or so when summer hits. You know: raw foods or cooking on the grill makes instead of using the stove and taking advantage of the late sunset for sunlight, but we’d be really in tight spot in winter or early spring when it’s bitter cold outside and the sun sets early. Everything in our home runs off electricity. That was fine for us when the all the natural gas lines to our community went out for several days a few winters ago, but if that happened with electricity we’d really have a tough time.
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I always thought days without electricity (as long as needs were met) were quite fun especially in the evenings. Eating dinner and maybe playing a game by candle light makes for a memorable experience. Good for you for surviving and thinking about purposely doing it again.
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We lose power fairly frequently where we live. It’s always a fun adventure, at least for the first day or two. But like you, we have a well, so no electricity = no water. What I like best about it is how it immediately simplifies everything. You can’t do very many chores with no electricity and no water. So we read more, play more board games, cuddle up by the fire, and when it gets dark . . . go to bed! What a concept! 🙂
Never willingly unplugged. But I was thinking this morning about if we would really be prepared or not when I heard on the news about how vulnerable our power grids are to attack.
I’m glad to hear you’re okay! I’d checked in several times yesterday to see if you’d done the drawing yet, and was getting concerned not seeing you post at all. Sounds like quite an adventure!
Sounds like a very peaceful day. The last time I remember being “unplugged” was when the power went out that August and the entire US/Canadian grid went down. Finally met our neighbors up the street, and was amazed at how generous most people were!
Wow… 7 gallons… and you weren’t doing anything but washing a few dishes and making soup and tea. Imagine if you had to wash clothes and bodies too!
I remember reading all the Little House books when I was a kid. In the one Famer Boy about Almanzo’s childhood he talked about how they took one bath a week, on Saturday night and the whole family got one tub of water. Father went first, while the water was still warm, then Mother then the kids by age. By the time Almanzo, the youngest, got into the water it was cold.
Your story has got me thinking…. where would I even store 10 or 20 gallons of water?!?!
We lost power about the same time….but have our own solar system. So we were the only ones in the neighborhood with power. But our “guest house” was out.
Losing the ability to pump water really opens your eyes. We’ve had some problems with our solar pumping system over the years including one 11 day period without water. It really makes you appreciate it when you have it! And makes you VERY aware of your use.
In December 2007 our little town was hit hard by a storm. We were without power for almost a week, and our roads out of town were all blocked.
Thankfully, we were pretty prepared for no power, and we still had water (had to boil it). Honestly, my kids cried when the power came back on!
It really brought out the best and worst in people. We had neighbors offering help, one let us plug the big freezer into their generator in trade for gas we had in the garage. Others were having fist fights at the one gas station that had gas.
I suppose the moral of the story is…We are surrounded by things we view as vital. Yet, without them our lives can be more peaceful than we imagined. Be prepared, make the best of the situation!
Hi, I just love your posts. Keep going with writing and we love to read more from you in the future.
all the best