Dry "Hurricane" puts homesteaders to the test

OK, I describe myself as an urban homesteader. Courtesy of Ike, I get to walk the talk. It has been 41 hours without electricity at my house and we are all still alive! Truth be told there have been many perks come out of this whole situation. But let me start at the beginning.

Sunday at around 4:00, the wind rolled in and the power went out. What a wind it was, we apparently had gusts up to 70+ mph. The really strange part was that due to an odd happenstance, a cold front mixed with Ike or some such thing, we got no rain and it was sunny. So we got to watch the destruction. Trees were coming down everywhere. My neighbor had many large branches coming out of his very old silver maple. One perk: neighbors coming together his next door neighbor (not me) had not been the most friendly fellow and now was actually charitable and new folk across the street cam over as together we all cleared the branches away from the power lines.

Darkness set in. For those of you unfamiliar with where I live, it is called the Hilltop (though the signs leading into it are often altered to read "Killtop", that should give you an idea of the area we are talking about) The local pizza joint still had power and was doing a bristling business. They were of course broken into and cleaned out. The scum were out looking for easy targets. We could see the cars slowly driving looking for victims. We already know of one house that lost all its copper. I am quite sure that more reports will trickle in. But many neighbors got together and patrolled, not in a vigilante sense, but more of a "we are here and we are watching" attitude.
Another perk.

Dawn Monday. Walking to the large park nearby, remnants of an old Civil War camp, I surveyed the damage trees down everywhere. I also spied something else... black walnuts. The wind had knocked down tons of the things. I hurried home grabbed the girls, gloves and buckets and am now sitting on 150# pounds of unprocessed black walnuts. Processing should be fun. Details coming soon.

Afternoon Monday. Had to go to work. Couldn't believe the crowds of people waiting to get in to the Library. All of the computers were full instantly. People were very crabby. Not much fun.

Dusk Monday. Still no power. Time to transport the freezer items to a safe location. Friends had excess space and power, so off to their house. We are extremely grateful for their generosity to our family. Stopped at the store to pick up some bread and the next perk.

Monday evening. Inside the homestead propane lantern burning bright, I get out the Jiffy Pop popcorn. My kids had never seen it before. I lit the single propane burner and started shaking and swirling the pan. They watched questioningly as my wife and I stared with anticipation. We knew what was coming. As the pan made hissing noises the girls became a bit more interested, but were still of the "our parents are nuts" opinion (not sure if that changed). Then their expressions changed like the face of a child seeing a lit and loaded Christmas tree as the popping began in earnest and the foil began to expand. "Cool!" "Awesome!" "Popcorn!"

We sat on the porch lit only by a candle eating the best Jiffy Pop they had ever had. Together as a family we talked and enjoyed the dark, without any of the electric buzz that usually distracts us. Later my wife, my oldest and I sat in a room together around the propane lantern reading, enjoying the closeness of family as we enjoyed the separate worlds we explored as we read.

I am not sure when the power will be back on at my house, but it will be with a touch of melancholy as we return to the frenetic pace of the world in which we live. I just may have to flip the circuit break from time to time to power up the things that really matter.