Monthly Archives: September 2023

Fall, News

We’ve Got the Power, but…

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On Thursday, the electricians came, and after spending most of the day here, they replaced the damaged boxes and got the electricity back to the way it was before the lightning strike. Hello, washing machine, dryer, vacuum cleaner, oven. So nice to have you all back. Goodbye, microwave. Thank you for the many long years of service. Your replacement will be arriving soon, and I certainly hope the new one is as sturdy and reliable as you were.

In theory, all should be well. In reality, we discovered our water heater was another causality of the lightning strike and surge. For the past week, it had been heating erratically, and yesterday it stopped working entirely. This means no hot water unless we heat it on the stovetop. The water heater will soon be checked to see whether it can be repaired or needs to be replaced. Yet again, thank goodness for our homeowners insurance.

Despite being a bang of a month, September has brought some pleasures.

Item: Most evenings, the weather has been mild enough for drinks on the patio. This time is soon coming to an end, and we are trying to squeeze as much time on the patio as we can.

Item: Because of the excessive rain, most of the nasturtium seeds I planted didn’t germinate, but the ones that did are oh so pretty.

Item: There were enough tomatoes for a final harvest, which means more tomato sandwiches for lunch this week. Although the tomato yield was way down from previous years, Juliette—the variety I planted—performed valiantly in the face of too much rain and not enough sun. But, Juliette’s time is over, and after harvesting the tomatoes, I pulled the plants.

Item: Our new whole house power surge protector has the Whovian name “Bad Wolf.” Protect us from future power surges, Bad Wolf!

Odds and Ends: We found a new place to play trivia on Monday nights, which is a great way to start the week. On Saturday, we will be meeting friends at Absolem’s, and on Sunday, we’ll be heading to Freeport to a brewery to celebrate Clif’s birthday.

Will we have running hot water by then? Who knows? But we’ll be following Bill & Ted’s excellent advice: Party on, dudes.

Note: This is an old trailer. The movie didn’t play this summer. But the trailer was a short and snappy way to feature  the excellent Bill & Ted.

 

 

 

 

Celebrate, News

After the Hurricane

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As it turned out, Hurricane Lee only glanced the Winthrop area, with gusty winds that weren’t strong enough to knock out power on a large scale. (There were some power outages, of course, and the midcoast area got hit harder, with extensive outages.)

We were all very grateful to keep the limited power we have. The old adage “some is better than none” certainly applies in this case. Yes, we would love to be able to use our oven, our washer, our dryer, and our dishwasher. We would love to turn on our computers with no worries about using too much power, But, we have lights and water and a working refrigerator and freezer. We can use our stove top and toaster.

On Thursday, the electrician will be coming to set things right. We are counting the days.

This week, I am hoping to get back to reading blogs and commenting. I certainly have missed keeping up with all of you.

My birthday was on Friday, the eve of the hurricane. To celebrate, we went to Absolem Cider Company, one of my favorite places that I’ve written about in previous posts.

We had delicious drinks and Thai food. There were cupcakes for dessert. The place was packed, and we had so much fun.

At Absolem, the sky at dusk, before the storm, was glorious.

I am now 66, and I love being an age with repeating numbers. My birthday came on the eve of a hurricane whose winds proved to be mild. A week before, there was a lightning strike.

It seems that 66 has come in with a bang.

Onward, ho!

 

News

A Lightning Strike and a Hurricane

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Update

Lightning Strikes

September has been quite the month, so eventful that I had to postpone my return to blogging. Originally I had planned to return to blogging the second week of September. But Mother Nature intervened last Friday with a lightning strike on our road’s power line. The strike caused a huge surge, which in turn fried part of our breaker box down cellar. We still have electricity but only if we use it sparingly—no  dishwasher, oven, dryer, washing machine, or vacuum cleaner. Period. But, we have lights, computers, water, our stove top, refrigerator, and freezer. To borrow from my Yankee husband, things could be worse.

An electrician came in, assessed the damage, and presented us with a $3,500 estimate, which includes a whole-house surge protector. Gulp! Fortunately, our home owners insurance will cover much of the cost.

So onward ho with that.

And presenting…Hurricane Lee

We had more or less settled down from the lightning incident only to be faced with Hurricane Lee blasting up the East Coast, with the prediction for Maine and the Canadian Maritimes to get the brunt of the storm. Visions of power outages and no water danced before my eyes. Being completely without electricity is no small thing in a household that now includes five adults, two dogs, and one cat. However, the latest forecast indicates that Lee is turning west, and while coastal Maine will get hit with high winds, it shouldn’t be too bad for inland Maine, where we live.

Still, we are prepared with bread, peanut butter, and plenty of water stashed away in buckets in our cellar.

But, it wasn’t all doom and gloom

Last Friday, the evening of the lightning strike, Clif, our daughter Shannon, our son-in-law Mike, and I went to Van der Brews—a local brewery—for trivia night hosted by the fabulous Nick Perry of Androscoggin Trivia Company.

And readers, we won! With only four on our team, we were definitely the underdogs, surprising everyone with our victory, including ourselves.

But even though we are small team, we are mighty, with a good spread of knowledge among the four of us.

Here is a picture of us as we celebrated our victory. In the middle of our table are the winnings—a Van der Brew glass, a car blanket, and a sticker.

Be back soon, I hope

I probably won’t return to blogging until the breaker box is fixed. With Dee and Shannon both working from home, we are being very careful about electricity usage.

So until then…

Addendum: On Thursday, September 14 at around 4:00, “Governor Mills today declared a State of Emergency and requested that President Biden issue a preemptive Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration for Maine.” (Taken from Maine.gov)

We shall see!