Improvising Through Simplifying

For the last 3 days, our house has been without electricity, due to an October 30th storm that downed power lines all over the state of Maine.

Just down the way on High Street

I heard that the owner just bought this truck last week.

We’re back into a simpler life style – out to camp.

Hobbs Pond

Its in Hope, one town over, and just 9 miles from our house. Heck, if we lack anything here, it is no problem to stop by the house and get it tomorrow, or even right now!

At its peak, some 494,000 customers were without electricity, surpassing the number of households that were cold and dark in the Great Ice Storm of 1998. Over 300 power crews are still at it. Back in 1998, it was almost two weeks before our power was restored.
I bought a small 3500 watt Honda generator right after that, and while it helps with lights and keeping the refrigerator and chest freezer going, we can’t use the well pump, electric hot water heater, or our kitchen stove freely and have to improvise and shuttle usage to keep things together. It was stressful, but it gets us through the times when we lose power.

A number of our aging neighbors have taken up the final solution and have installed mega-watt propane-fueled generators that automatically fire up when the grid fails. That route allows one to run the whole house without compromise. That’s out of my league.

On the other hand, it is no problem for me to get fresh drinking water at the house. We’re blessed with a shallow well, serviced by a pump and water tank in the basement. Unfortunately, the well pump overwhelms the generator and trips the circuit when I try to get it to run. Yesterday, I lifted the well cover, tied a bucket onto a galvanized pail and threw it down into the well, and drew out as much water as we needed to flush the toilet, wash up, and drink water. What is making this all possible is that it has been unseasonably warm, to the point of zero killing frost outside.
With no freeze, we still have water at our Hobbs Pond camp, which we draw from the spring fed pond by another shallow well pump.

There is power here! The camp’s power was restored at 5:15 PM, the night the storm passed through. We have the outhouse out back and the 380 square footprint of this little (now insulated) camp makes it easy to heat with a wood stove.

Camp – main room.

There is no cell reception at this location, however we have a land phone line and now internet here as well.

Life is good. Embracing improvisation helps once again, and so does the fact that both Marcia and I have each spent months, and even years living outdoors, hiking through the countryside, and living out of the few items that we carry on our backs. At our little camp, we have more than ancient kings could ever dream of.