Water and Wind

While Hurricane Sandy is slamming the Mid-Atlantic states, we are preparing to get a small taste of it here. And I do mean a small taste. Yes, we will get some high winds and enough rain to cause flooding in some areas, and schools are closed as a precaution, but we're not expecting anything like what they are getting further south.

Our preparations consist mainly of making sure that anything outside that might blow away—lawn chairs, trash cans, kayaks—is secured, and that we are ready for the nearly inevitable power outage. At our house, the power goes for almost any weather event, and sometimes for no event at all.

For us, no electricity means no running water, so we fill the bathtubs with water to use in the toilet tank, and we fill pots with drinkable water. We also freeze jugs of water to help keep food cold while the refrigerator and freezer are not working.

No electricity also means no phone, since we don't have a landline and depend on our Internet connection for telephone service. We can still call out by taking a short trip north to catch a cell tower, but incoming calls are not going to happen while the power is out.

We're preparing for a fairly lengthy outage, because the lines that feed out house don't feed very many houses, and the power companies will need to make the repairs that affect the largest number of customers first.

And, of course, with no power there's no Internet connection, and so I can't upload anything new until the power comes out. I have set up a few pictures to get us through Thursday. I think we'll have power by Thursday. And, if need be, I can email from my phone if I go far enough to get a data connection (or perhaps a wireless Internet connection in Wolfeboro, where they generally lose power later and get it back sooner than we do).

Meanwhile, we'll stay dry and relatively warm in our house, light some candles and play some games and keep ourselves fed and occupied until it's all over.