McFarland Family Musings: Happy Thanksgiving!

It's been an exciting week for the McFarland Household, so we're relieved to be doing absolutely nothing interesting for Turkey day.

On Sunday, the snow started falling - and it was beautiful. I was busy congratulating myself on the wisdom of putting winter tires on the Prius the preceeding Friday, secretly thinking I'd blown some unnecessary coin to make myself feel better....but the snow kept coming. And the temperature kept dropping...to about 11 degrees. Driving home Monday afternoon, we counted about 4 cars in various ditches on our abnormally long 15 minute commute. We even had to stop once due to a white-out, where we couldn't see 5 feet in front of our car for about 20 seconds (an eternity when the last thing you saw is an F-150 in your rearview mirror that was traveling a bit close...when visibility returned, he was a foot from our back bumper...but no harm no foul.) Still feeling no pain, we get home, thank Alyssa and see her off safely after I cleared her car of snow....then the power goes out.

We were sure it'd last only a few minutes. An hour later, it's getting dark and the wind is really howling. Alyssa has called by this point, saying that she's been stuck in traffic for the past hour (traffic? It normally takes her 10 minutes to get home) and she's not home yet. She's counted almost a hundred cars in ditches or stalled out. We call 2 hotels, both full...and should we even be driving anyway? I call our next door neighbor, Oanh, who generously offers her home, saying they have a gas fireplace for heat and a generator running to supply their appliances. As our house temp is now in the 50's, we've already fed the kids cold meals in their highchairs in the dark, we take them up on their generous offer.

Which was a good move. About 60,000 people lost power, and our power was out for almost 2 DAYS! We hardly slept at all that night, between the wind howling and the generator roaring and the cold seeping in. The next morning, we realized a 300-foot tree from our property had fallen, taking out the powerlines in front of our house (see below) and blocking Seabeck Highway. Someone had already cut a few branches, allowing cars but not trucks to pass underneath. Of course, I still had to go to work, since "up to 2 hour delays were authorized" but the hospital was still open. So did Theresa, actually...doh! Alyssa saved the day, though, meeting us at the hospital and watching the kids for 3 hours until Theresa could escape her shockingly well-attended clinic.

After that rough night, we were really disheartened to see the power remain off...luckily, another of my partners, Dan, left town on Tuesday to visit family in Nevada...they generously offered their (still heated!) house on the other side of town, so finally we got some decent sleep. In a non-babyproofed house with slick hardwood stairs (note to self - the bruises on T's forearm and Isaac's face are why THAT's not a good idea for the McFuds!) and 2 delightful cats.

Finally, Wednesday early afternoon, we got word that our power was back, we made a trip to the commissary along with 2000 of our closest friends to get some badly-needed groceries, and arrived happily to our 55-degree house. Apparently, it takes the furnace a while to catch up...thank goodness for space heaters, wool hats, and fleece!

We're not out of the woods yet, though...or rather, I should stay, we're still in the woods, and now the happy renters of a new pond. The lone tree in our neighborhood that fell, the one on our property (interesting aside - the wind is normally from the south here, so the occasional Norther' finds lots of unprepared tree root systems and knocks over lots of giants) - smashed squarely into our pump house. The only reason I knew we had a pump house is that the landlord had called a few days before the storm to recommend turning on a lamp in the pump house to help prevent the pipes from freezing. Now, of course, the smashed pump house is sitting in a foot of actively bubbling water, much of which is collecting in the 20-foot hole created by the uprooted tree. I'll have to do some research to figure out what I can stock it with if it persists....

Anyway, the snow's already melting, the Kashi microwave lunch I just ate can't compare to the spread at Brenda Keen's, but we're thankful to have power, heat, water (at least for the moment), and mainly, our health!