Living Off the Grid - Part One

 First of all, we did not leave the grid, the grid left us.  Y'all may have heard about the big ice storm that we had up here in God's Country, but I don't know how many details your local news media provided.  It started on Saturday, March 29 and went on for.....way too long.  Our power went out at 1:00 AM Sunday and stayed out for nine days and 19 hours.  This shattered our previous record of 30 and 1/2 hours, which was set at least 20 years ago.  Our power outages normally last about five hours and occur two or three times a year.  They usually happen in the summer when the trees are all leafed out and catch the wind like a sail.  This time the ice built up on the lines so much that thousands of utility poles snapped off like matchsticks.  It's hard to imagine how this could happen, but I guess the ice made the poles top heavy, which made them vulnerable to the wind.  

My daughter was driving up from a road trip Down Below and figured something must be up when she saw convoys of National Guard trucks and equipment from multiple power companies heading north.  She tried to call us, but our land line phone was also down, so she called her boyfriend Will in Charlevoix and told him to check up on us.  (I also have a cell phone, but I keep it turned off, saving it for emergencies.)  Not realizing how serious this was, I was headed for town to refill the five-gallon water jug that we keep for flushing toilets during times like these.  Will showed up on Monday with a chain saw just as I was trying to figure out how I was going to get past the tree that had fallen across our driveway.  (I have a chain saw, but I have become too old and infirm to operate it.)  Will brought us some supplies, including extra drinking water, which we were also almost out of.  We normally keep about a gallon of drinking water on hand and the five gallons of flushing water, and both have been more than adequate in the past.  Will told me that it was useless to go into Cheboygan, since their power was also out, which almost never happens.  He suggested that I get my flushing water from the crick that flows intermittently past out house. Two days later, my daughter brought more supplies and a device that I could use to charge my cell phone in my truck.  And so it began.