s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

So the alpacas spent the night kushed up in front of the car. In the morning, the power was out & Takapu Stream was threatening to wash up over the bridge. We woke up about 7/7:30 and set about making fire and breakfast. Actually, Stephen set about making fire and breakfast. I’m not sure what I set about doing, although I’m sure it was very useful. Hmm. Probably it involved turning off all the outlets (did we ever mention that all of the power outlets here have their own little on/off switches ? Handy things.), which I should have done last night, but forgot, and trying to get ahold of people at work. The morning Stock Check revealed the alpaca still in situ, and the horses tucked up butts-to-the-wind under some gorse.

Turned out several of our neighbor’s gum trees had come down — on his driveway, through his fence, over the road, and onto the power lines. (Sadly, this means they’ll probably make him cut some or most of them down, which is a great pity, as they are beautiful.) There was flooding in some places, and probably some more trees and small slips. At one point during the evening (the point at which Stephen and I looked at each other and said, “What the heck was that?“), the sliding doors got sucked off the tack shed. Those got rehung, with tires braced against them. Another one of the elms came down in the front — a big one, roots and all, and it clipped some branches off one of the remaining ones. The farm is called “Elmwood” — if many more come down, we may have to get a new name for the place !

So that was yesterday. I’m at work today, which is the only reason I’m updating this. I got a call from Stephen around 2PM that the power was “starting” to come back. As in, we’re getting enough power to light the lightbulbs, but not very bright. Yikes. I think it’ll be a little while before I feel safe to turn the computer on, but at least the fidge and freezer are sort of limping along again, and the element can top up the temperature in the hot water cylinder. That’s the bugger of solar systems — if the weather is crap enough to knock out the power, chances are you don’t have sun, either. This is where having a “wetback” would be handy, so the woodstove would heat the water as well as the house.