Blacksheep Speaks

Welcome back!

I learned a very valuable lesson recently. Babies and teens do not always mix well. Take one normally responsible teen who usually has at least a tiny bit of common sense… add one frazzled grandma trying to do the taxes, fix supper, and finish the laundry… mix well, and wait for disaster. The teen in question has put the baby down for her nap on countless other occasions. Okay, so I probably should have been more specific about the contents of the bottle the baby was to be handed beforehand. But the baby is supposed to finish the bottle before being put in the crib. Definitely, being more specific would have helped, but who the heck puts a baby in a crib with a bottle full of grape juice? The baby bedding will tell the tale for years. Hmmm… maybe it can be passed off as an abstract commentary on life….

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During the recent disaster/blackout, there was one effect no one expected. The water company was also having problems with the pumps and electricity, just like everyone else, and the on again off again power of their generators caused water to surge through the lines at an uneven rate. The result for us? Well, the only faucets in the house that are NOT leaking are the ones we put in the bathroom we redecorated and installed Kohler faucets in last year. It’s the small bathroom in the back, the one almost no one uses. Figures, doesn’t it?

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Well, after several years of near misses, I finally did it. My computer hates me now. It’s actually amazing that it took me this long to spill coffee on the keyboard. But, having done so, my left shift key and the caps lock key no longer work. Have you ever tried typing with just the right shift key? Yick. I could just fix the other laptop, I guess, but that would involve actually knowing enough to buy the cheap memory sticks it needs and get it right. This is going to take a lot of getting used to.

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I know I am a bit old fashioned by today’s standards. When I was a kid, Pong was cutting edge. But, having grown up so electronically challenged, I know that there is actually life beyond video games. So, how do you convince a teen that she will not in fact die if we don’t purchase and install an xbox 360? When I was a teen living here on this same farm, I was able to find things to actually DO… yet I have apparently managed to raise kids that are incapable of this. If I hear the word “bored” just ONE more time….

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And then, a week and a half into this ordeal, FEMA came charging in to save the day. Now, don’t think I’m not grateful. I am. It’s just that by the time they got here, local forces had rallied and most of the population, the ones in the towns, already had power back and things were beginning to return to normal. So not many people actually needed those survival packs. They were distributed anyway, of course. The water company operator brought us ours. And an interesting array it was, too. The Orovo detox people would have had heart attacks. We wound up with four cases of bottled water, though the water wasn’t something we lost at any point. Also, sixteen cans of spaghetti and meatballs, forty one cans of Vienna Sausages, forty two little microwave beanie weenie meals, and several pounds of assorted candy. There was also a picture book for the baby. And, for whatever reason, a cheap, tacky gold colored evening purse. Oh, and Pop Tarts. Eighteen packages. We are sure living high on the hog now!

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Most things around here will eventually return to normal, I know. While it has never been this bad before, this is not the first time we have been declared a disaster area. Life goes on, people survive, and eventually this will all be a distant memory. But there have been casualties, and we can’t replace them so easily. We used to have a beautiful orchard. But now, very little of it survives. The old apple trees are mostly gone, and the peach trees as well. The Flowering Cherry tree still stands, but barely. And, in the yard, the old oak trees are lying splintered across the driveway. The pine trees made it though, how, I have no idea. It does change the landscape, because trees are down everywhere. They will be cut up as firewood for next winter, of course. But still… it’s sad.

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We actually do have one electronic gadget that wasn’t affected by all this, and we were very grateful to have it. A couple years ago, I bought my mom a handheld police scanner for Christmas, and we keep a supply of batteries for it, so it was days before we had to do without it. Hearing what is going on with the police, ambulance crews, county road crews, and the disaster coordinator really helps keep you up to date on the state of things. Our police and the other mentioned crews did an admirable job, heroic, in some cases. But this little disaster has certainly shown who is who in the business community. For some, pride in their performance parts ways with common sense, and greed takes over. Generators, when available, were known to double in price, but could be bought with cash only. Same for food, batteries, candles, anything like that. I know where I am NOT going to be shopping in years to come, let me tell you.

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Learning to survive when your county has been declared a Federal Disaster Zone can be a bit tricky. When this happens in the dead of winter, it can be even worse. We here on the ranch had it better than most in some ways. Because we are generally snowed or iced in for short periods EVERY winter, we have learned to keep a good stock of canned foods around anyway. When you lose electricity as well, however, two things become very important… heat and what to do with all the stuff in the fridge before it all becomes dog food. I had to develop a method of cooking on a fireplace insert, which is not so unlike the old potbellied stoves used by our ancestors. Thankfully, we had a good supply of firewood put back. Heat was not a real issue for us. That thing can actually keep the whole house warm, and make you step outside to cool off at times. But cooking on that thing… well, your whole day is taken up with how to cook the next meal or what the next meal will be. There is one thing though… it causes a lack of snacking that is better for the waistline than any diet pill. I have lost around fourteen pounds!

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My family just spent two weeks without electricity. For the first week and a half, we also had no phone service. And, if you wanted to go anywhere but to the barn and back, you needed a horse, because there were enough downed trees and power lines that cars and trucks weren’t going anywhere. All of this was due to an ice storm that, to hear the media tell it, was worse than any since the Wooly Mammoth was our friend. It was rather like living a few scenes of Little House on the Prairie, to tell the truth. And learning to live life without electronics was a real eye opener. I’ll be going into all of this in more detail in a little while… for this moment in time, I am just glad to be back.

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