Suddenly, it looked like hundreds of thousands of fireflies were right outside my front window. The reflection off of the wind chimes that David's father made us almost 30 years ago confused me....what exactly was it that I was seeing? As I got up to open the front door, I saw out of the corner of my eye that the "fireflies" were moving down the side of the house.
It was about 10:50 p.m.; it had already been a long night filled with high winds, lots of rainfall and interrupted t.v. programing that served to warn of possible tornadoes....I looked out the front door trying to see what was going on. Suddenly, I realized that I might be opening the door to the winds of a small tornado, so I closed it quickly and began to move through the dining room to the kitchen. As I did so, I could see that the sparks were now at the back and side of the house.
As I neared the foot of the stairs, I heard David and the dogs moving and called up to him asking him if he knew what it was....he knew. As an electrician, he knew very well what had happened....something had touched two of the electrical wires that run up the driveway and had caused it to short and spark...it followed the wires up the side of the house in what was almost slow motion or felt like it anyway....as David answered my question, the power flickered and went out.
No power means no phones (since the rabbit chewed the old fashioned one that doesn't require electric to power up and since I've neglected to replace it~) so I reached for the cell phone with shaking hands...only to find that it was dead. So out in the pouring rain goes David (my hero) to start up the car, plug in the car charger and place a call to the power company....who said they'd be here shortly and we'd be up and running again by 3 a.m.....yeah right I thought. We've been here before with this company.
I played solitaire by candle light to await Nikki's arrival home from her night shift at the emergency vet.....she'd need light to find her way across the flooded back yard and into the dark house......she arrived just after 1 a.m.....before the power company.
I then went on up to bed only to be awakened at 3:20 a.m. to see those firefly's racing up the side of the house again....and to the sight of the power company down at the end of the driveway...seems he threw a switch or replaced the fuse without checking to see what had caused the power to go out in the first place....you'd think the dispatcher would give a detailed report but they never do that it seems. Each time the power guys show up all they know is that our power is out and each time it is something to do with the cypress trees they repeatedly tell us "are no danger" to our power lines....we watched as he trudged up the muddy and puddled driveway with a little flashlight, and we watched him make his way back to his truck and drive off....no power yet.
About an hour and a half later, we awake to the noise of the tree guys in our driveway cutting the branch (or branches) out of our power lines and we get to see the fire show one more time as this time, it appears it bllows out our farmer's power....and about 9 a.m. the truck arrived to replace the fuses again and finally give us power.....coffee has never smelled so good I can assure you of that (no power means no water!).
David missed a day of work and Hunter a day of school.....and we all got about 2 hours of sleep....like I said, a long scary night. But, the gardens are enjoying the drenching and our 100 year old farmhouse still stands.
It was about 10:50 p.m.; it had already been a long night filled with high winds, lots of rainfall and interrupted t.v. programing that served to warn of possible tornadoes....I looked out the front door trying to see what was going on. Suddenly, I realized that I might be opening the door to the winds of a small tornado, so I closed it quickly and began to move through the dining room to the kitchen. As I did so, I could see that the sparks were now at the back and side of the house.
As I neared the foot of the stairs, I heard David and the dogs moving and called up to him asking him if he knew what it was....he knew. As an electrician, he knew very well what had happened....something had touched two of the electrical wires that run up the driveway and had caused it to short and spark...it followed the wires up the side of the house in what was almost slow motion or felt like it anyway....as David answered my question, the power flickered and went out.
No power means no phones (since the rabbit chewed the old fashioned one that doesn't require electric to power up and since I've neglected to replace it~) so I reached for the cell phone with shaking hands...only to find that it was dead. So out in the pouring rain goes David (my hero) to start up the car, plug in the car charger and place a call to the power company....who said they'd be here shortly and we'd be up and running again by 3 a.m.....yeah right I thought. We've been here before with this company.
I played solitaire by candle light to await Nikki's arrival home from her night shift at the emergency vet.....she'd need light to find her way across the flooded back yard and into the dark house......she arrived just after 1 a.m.....before the power company.
I then went on up to bed only to be awakened at 3:20 a.m. to see those firefly's racing up the side of the house again....and to the sight of the power company down at the end of the driveway...seems he threw a switch or replaced the fuse without checking to see what had caused the power to go out in the first place....you'd think the dispatcher would give a detailed report but they never do that it seems. Each time the power guys show up all they know is that our power is out and each time it is something to do with the cypress trees they repeatedly tell us "are no danger" to our power lines....we watched as he trudged up the muddy and puddled driveway with a little flashlight, and we watched him make his way back to his truck and drive off....no power yet.
About an hour and a half later, we awake to the noise of the tree guys in our driveway cutting the branch (or branches) out of our power lines and we get to see the fire show one more time as this time, it appears it bllows out our farmer's power....and about 9 a.m. the truck arrived to replace the fuses again and finally give us power.....coffee has never smelled so good I can assure you of that (no power means no water!).
David missed a day of work and Hunter a day of school.....and we all got about 2 hours of sleep....like I said, a long scary night. But, the gardens are enjoying the drenching and our 100 year old farmhouse still stands.
Isn't country living a joy sometimes? I know this is insignificant compared to no power, but I've been having terrible phone problems for two months! They can't get it fixed for some reason and I'm still faithfully paying my bill! ARGH! I'm glad you all are okay and survived without a housefire or worse!
ReplyDeleteXOXO
Joni
Scare! Glad you're OK...and the house is, too. That's the sort of thing that can start fires.
ReplyDeleteThanks Gene....it was a very very long night.
ReplyDeleteJoni....we do the phone thing out here too.....for months our phone would lose its dial tone and send callers straight to voice mail...it took 6 visits from the phone company to realize that it was the "card" in the box....they kept replacing it with used ones and no one associated those used cards with the issue we were having. They all kept saying it was an issue at or in the house cuz it was "old".....nope...it was THIER old thing, not ours...: )