Whew!  Well, this last week has certainly been a wild adventure!

Last Saturday, our state got hit with an arctic blast that brought snow and freezing rain to the valley.  The ice quickly accumulated inches thick on every surface – trees, grass, fences… my sister in town had to use a hammer to get her car door open!  Not that she could go anywhere… all of the roads were ice rinks.  Slick, smooth, glassy ice rinks.  

It wasn’t long before power lines started dropping, either from trees falling on them or just from the weight of the ice itself.  Widespread power outages were reported across town.  Normally that would cause a run on the bottled water section at the grocery stores – but no one could get out of their houses because of the ice!

The freezing rain continued relentlessly throughout the afternoon, into the night, and all the next day.  My other sister and her husband (the ones who live out here with us) were stuck in town at a friend’s house overnight.  Friends and family sent us pictures of the ice accumulation, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it!

But here at the Compound (as we affectionately call our little multigenerational homestead), about 25 miles north of town in our own secluded little valley, the storm barely skirted our homestead.  We got some freezing rain Saturday night that turned our driveway into a fun little skating park, but by noon on Sunday the ground had thawed again.

Unfortunately, the trees to the south of us had taken enough of a beating to knock out all the power in our area as well.  On Sunday morning, my folks woke up to a cold house, no lights, and no running water.  

Not much changed at the yurt, aside from not being able to change the ice blocks for the cooler (so we just set it on the back porch in the cold air) and we had to draw water from the creek since our hand pump was frozen.  But we can’t fit the whole Compound in the yurt, so it was all hands on deck trying to get the generator started and the emergency camping gear set up next door! 

Getting the generator started was our top priority, in order the keep the big freezers in the shop cold.  Since we didn’t get hit with the full scope of the storm, the ambient temperature outside wasn’t cold enough to keep everything frozen for long (especially if we wanted to open the doors to get any of our food!).  

But the generator wasn’t interested in cooperating.  It ran for a few minutes… and then stopped working.  So we tried the back-up generator.  Same thing happened!  After some frustrated fiddling, Cody determined both generators had bad carburetors.  What terrible timing!  

We were desperate for a solution, so we decided to send one brave soul (my mom) into town to pick up some groceries and try to find a store open that might have a carburetor.

Mom very carefully made her way around town in the ol’ suburban and managed to get some gas and groceries, and well as pick up my stranded sister and her family (they couldn’t get anywhere in their rear-wheel-drive truck).  But a carburetor was not to be found.

Back at the homestead, we set up kettles on my folks’ wood stove to get hot water going, set up their propane griddle and their camp stove outside the front door, and put batteries in all the camping lanterns.  We took all of the perishable food out of the refrigerators and put it in coolers on the front porch.  Fortunately, they had figured we’d lose power at some point and had filled the bathtub with water the night before, so right away we were able to draw out of that to flush toilets and wash hands.  Cody set up a rudimentary filter (a towel in a colander) to strain creek water, which we could then put through the ProOne filter for drinking.

We found a portable inverter in the shop, and we hooked it up to the car and were able to temporarily power the Starlink wifi.  But the inverter couldn’t keep up with the power draw for long, so we could only use it once or twice a day to check the weather forecast and get the latest news from town.

Overall we had a pretty good thing going!  But we were still worried about all the meat in the freezers going bad without the generator.

Next morning, Cody got up extra early at 4am and attempted to get to work (he’s a paramedic in a neighboring city).  But after only making it eight miles in an hour and a half due to ice and fallen trees in the road, he had to turn around and come back.  So he called out of work for the next couple days and turned his attention to working on the generators again.

I cooked up a big ol’ fry-up of bacon and eggs and pancakes on the griddle for the fam, and Mom gave us the run down on what to expect as far as when we might get power back.  She reported that not only were lines down all over the county, but whole rows of power poles were knocked over, and transformers had blown on almost every block.  Due to the widespread infrastructure damage, she guessed that we’ll be without power for several weeks.

With this news in mind, after breakfast I hauled out my hand washing laundry supplies and set up to start washing socks and underwear so we’d all at least have clean necessities to start the week.

I was about half way through the load when Cody rushed in and declared that he had fixed the generator!!  Apparently the carburetor was clogged up with old gas and he and my dad were able to get it cleared and running again!  We plugged in the freezers and breathed a sigh of relief.

A half our later he had the second one going too (same issue!), and we hooked it up to the house and got the well running, which made laundry go much faster since I didn’t have to haul the cold water in from outside!  The socks and undies needed hot water, so I finished doing those by hand using boiling water from the stove.  Mom got a cold load going in the washing machine, and we hung everything up to dry on racks by the wood stove.  Felt good to get that done.

On Tuesday, Dad made another trip into town to try to find more gas for the generators and propane for the stoves.  Every station was completely out!  Apparently the roads had thawed enough for people to get out and about, and the whole city was in the same powerless predicament.  Shelves bare, gas gone, lines around the block for propane.  We made sure to ration our gas and generator usage after that.

That afternoon, Part 2 of the ice storm hit town and undid all the progress the linemen had made on the electrical infrastructure.  We officially got the news that this was the worst damage our local utility district had ever seen, and our place was one of the low priority areas that will definitely be without power for a few weeks.  Fortunately we can still play board games in the dark – let the chess tournaments begin!

Yesterday morning one of our neighbors dropped by and offered to fill up our gas cans and propane tanks in a neighboring town.  We should be good to go for a little while now, but we’re still rationing just in case.  I slow-cooked a roast and carrots on the wood stove all day, and boy let me tell you, it was the most tender meat I’ve ever had!

The weather got better over the course of the day, and it’s supposed to stay in the 40s for the rest of the week.

Today my brother-in-law is headed into town to check on his folks and see if groceries are back in stock.  My sister has power at her house in town, so we might head over there next time we need to do laundry. 

Now that we’ve all been officially off-grid for a few days now, we’re taking note of what systems we want to improve before the next event that knocks out the power!  Cody has been spending some time down by the creek trying to figure out where the best place would be to install a mini-hydro-electric system for the main house.  Mom and Dad and I have been brainstorming ways to remodel their house to make it more off-grid-friendly (I vote for a wood cookstove!).  And the kids could all do with some battery powered fairy lights in the bedrooms, especially for in the evenings when you want a little ambient light, but nothing too bright.

Speaking of the kids, since the twins’ school is closed all week due to the storm, my mom broke out our old homeschool kindergarten material last night and we started doing some basic early math by candlelight.  Pj joined in to (even though she’s only three lol) and they all had a blast!  Today’s lesson will be practicing letter recognition and phonics.  We’re planning on homeschooling all three of them next year, so this will be a great head-start for getting me familiar with the curriculum!

All the menfolk are heading back to work tomorrow (assuming the roads stay clear), and it’ll be up to us women to keep this off-grid homestead running all day on our own.  After the last few days getting the swing of things, I think we’re up for the challenge!  Hey and I’ll tell you what, it sure is a lot easier to stay focused and get things done without the phone and the computer calling for your attention all day!  No wonder people got so much more done in the old days… 

All in all, it’s been a busy but educational week!  We now know that we need to keep more fuel on hand for emergencies.  Cody learned how to fix generators (he got one working for a friend too!).  I remembered that doing laundry by hand is exhausting and shirts can definitely be worn a few times before really needing washed.  And once again, as our already minimal reliance on the utility company leaves us in a lurch, we are keenly reminded of one of the major reasons why we’re trying to live a self-sufficient lifestyle!  Might try canning more meat this year instead of freezing it…

And I think that about wraps it up for now.  I’ll get this uploaded later tonight when we turn on the wifi (edit: I wasn’t able to upload it until Friday morning).  I won’t be able to post a lot on social media for now, but I’ll try to write an update on how we’re doing sometime next week!

I’d love to hear your stories in the comments!  Did you get hit with an ice storm this week too?  What’s the longest you’ve gone without power?  What did you miss the most, and what did you find wasn’t as hard as you thought it would be?