I am sitting in front of the wood stove, blogging.

Let’s see, where did I leave off? We had spaghetti for dinner last night and treated ourselves to a few episodes of House Hunters International which were stored in the TiVo. It’s nice having the generator! We run it about 4 hours in the morning and then about 4-5 hours in late afternoon/evening. Otherwise it’s pretty darned quiet (and dark) around our house.

Here is a pic of our lifeline to the generator which is just outside of our basement.








Here is our iPad charging station.




And our cooking station!




It’s hard for anyone to imagine what being without power and water is like if you’ve never been through it. If not for last year’s five day power outage (at the very exact same time of the year, (see “On This Day” over in the blog’s margin if you don’t believe me) we would not have been as prepared as we are this time. One thing I wish I had thought of is handi-wipes. As conserving as we are of water it would help to be able to get our hands cleaner without soap or water.

Since we are not on any public utilities and are on a well we don’t have running water. Without water you can’t flush your toilet. You can’t wash your dishes, or your hands, or take a shower. We do have plenty of water reserves for flushing though since we filled up both bathtubs. And I heat water for washing in the kettle on top of the wood stove.

Pretty much you can’t do anything without power except light a fire in the fireplace.

Thank goodness Rick and I started out life together by doing a lot of camping so we kind of get it. But camping in your own house where you expect to have all the luxuries of our current century is no fun.

After a breakfast of a strip of bacon, a fried egg and a piece of whole wheat toast we went outside to pick up three limbs and branches that were littering our front yard. Lots of bending. Even though it was only 44 degrees F outside we were both working up a sweat.

After we cooled off from that activity we decided to take the dogs and drive into town to see if anything was open and how things had fared outside of our little community. What we saw did not raise our hopes any of getting our power back anytime soon. It looked like the only places open were McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts and they must have had generator power because Shop Rite and the whole strip mall associated with them was dark. You can see in this pic taken by Rick that the cart returns where all blown down.




We saw lots of downed trees, some affecting power lines. The West Milford side of town seemed to have gotten the brunt of the storm, while over on the Hewitt side the A & P was open and everything around it was open.
One gas station in town was open and selling gas but the line was longer than we could see the end of. They had two policemen routing traffic just for the gas station.

We passed one house that was consumed by a huge evergreen that had fallen and just missed crushing the entire house.




We tried to get further down the mountain but the road was closed, and several other roads in the are as well. Quite a mess.

We were supposed to go down our friends’ Andy & Linda’s house on the shore this coming weekend. I feel so badly for them. We heard this morning that although their house is still standing the damage is probably very bad. They were right in the area where Sandy came on shore and from what I understand their backyard basically backs up to the dunes.

October is definitely not New Jersey’s finest month if the past two October storms are anything to go by.

Just look how stressed the dogs are.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Powerless in NJ and camping in the house

This is a photo of our driveway on the other side. We have a circular drive and thankfully we don’t use this part very much.
I am blogging from Rick’s iPad since I guess I was a bad girl and have not been syncing my iPad with my computer so that my version of BlogPress is not working. Sigh.
We survived the night. The wind was ferocious last night. We started off by sleeping downstairs but woke up about an hour after going to bed and hearing that the wind had died down, we went back upstairs to our own bed for the remainder of the night.
If I had seen the sight I saw this morning of our neighbors’ (Kim and Mark) trees down across the road I might have stayed downstairs!




So far we got the generator running and right now the fridge is plugged in. It’s still raining outside and pretty gray, so not a lot of lighti is coming in to the house. I am typing by lantern light at the moment in the kitchen.
We have a fire going in the wood stove and I just put a tea kettle full of water on it to heat up for either washing a few dishes or a little sponge bath.
We walked down our street and saw lots of trees down.




But the worst thing we saw was the major road and all the trees and power lines down on it. This was the same exact spot where our power problem was last year in the October snowstorm!!

Last time it looked like this it took us five days to get our power back. Not looking good!!
In the meantime we are safe and warm. We plan on reading around the wood stove and maybe we’ll put a puzzle together.
Rick’s company is closed again today and we know that they don’t have power, so until power is restored down in Wayne he won’t be going to work.
We got coffee perked on our butane burner and ate biscuits that Rick baked yesterday. Not sure what lunch will be. Grilled cheese sandwiches? Soup?
Apologies in advance for any typos!


UPDATE @ 2:30 p.m.
We walked over to neighbor Aileen’s house (with the chickens) and chatted with them. All their animals are good but they lost a huge oak tree in the front yard that thankfully fell away from the house instead of on it. They were out with chains saws sawing it up, which is quite the task.

Throughout our little neighborhood the sound of generators and chains saws mingle with the smell of wood smoke from everyone’s fireplace and wood stoves. It kind of feel like we’re at a campground. Only camping in your own home it not ideal. Better than a tent, granted but at least in a tent you don’t walk around turning on lights that just won’t turn on.

We’d had rain on and off all day and the temperatures are now in the 40’s. We are basically living in our kitchen/sunroom area as that is the warmest (and brightest!) spot in the house.

We’re about to turn on the generator again to charge up the old iPads and give the fridge a cool down. At least that is one thing that is different than last year’s October power outage.

More later; stay tuned!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I’ve decided to keep a diary of events for myself and for anyone interested in reading the minutiae of my life. I’ll update as the day goes on.




Outside my front door this morning; taken standing on front step.


Monday Morning
Slept until just after seven o’clock. Dark. Breezy, but overnight was not too windy. Power still on.



9:30 a.m.:

Wind picking up and whooshing around the house like it does on any other very windy day. Luxuriated in a really long hot shower knowing it might be the last one I’ll take for several days. Used the dryer on my hair because it fares better the next day if I do in case I don’t get to wash it tomorrow. No makeup was applied. I am clothed in sweat pants, a long-sleeved gray t-shirt and my cozy men’s flannel shirt and house slippers.


Rick baked biscuits so the house smells really good now.


I laid a fire in the wood stove to light in a little while. Outside temp is around 51 degrees F.



Update @ 12:20 p.m.
Just had turkey sandwiches for lunch from our turkey yesterday. Here it was yesterday:





Raining now pretty hard. Wind has been fluctuating back and forth all morning long.


No fire in the wood stove yet, but I am seriously thinking about lighting it. After, all, we do have plenty of wood but not all of it split into smaller pieces for starting fires. Maybe we’ll go down and split a few more bigger logs.


Tonight for dinner we are planning on fondue. We planned fondue because even though I start the melting process of the cheese on a stove, it all ends up in the sterno-fueled fondue pot. Rick made bread yesterday for it and the crumb is going to be PERFECT for fondue. Yum. Can’t wait.





I feel like I am twiddling my thumbs waiting for something to happen. Under house arrest! The dogs can’t figure out why we are both just sitting around.


(In case I forget to mention it, Rick’s company decided yesterday that they would be closed today and I am assuming tomorrow too since Sandy is taking her time getting here.)




Update @ 3:54 p.m.
About to fix us an Autumn Evening! Not much happening for us. Some rain (almost half an inch) and very windy and picking up.


Sandy is supposed to reach land-ho! around six this evening. She got a burst of energy and is now moving fast. They are closing the Tappen Zee bridge at 4:00 p.m. New York City has turned into a ghost town with all city transportation has been shut down.


We’ve been watching the movie SeaBiscuit. Great movie, and you should catch it sometime if you haven’t seen it. Very uplifting!




Update @ 5:26 p.m.
The wind is really ripping. Lots of big gusts. The lights have flickered a few times. Rick (on my request) has blown up the air mattress so we can possibly sleep downstairs. My concern is two large trees close to the house. I feel safer on the ground floor just in case they decide to come down.




Update @ 7:08 p.m.

Lights keep flickering more and more. Just went out for a second but came back on. I think we are on the fringe. Soon power will be out for sure.


Update (and probably the last) at 8:21 p.m.
Sandy has arrived and she is not happy. I have never heard wind at our house like I am hearing tonight. The dogs are freaked out and especially Bella. She sits by our side and tilts her head this way and that when a big gust goes by. It sounds likes a train passing by our house. We’ve lost power about five times that have taken the internet offline, and TV as well, but so far it has popped back up, hence this post.


We are definitely sleeping downstairs tonight. The roar of the wind on the second floor in our bedroom is enough to keep an elephant awake.


We’ve seen the lights flicker about 20 times and total off times about five. We figure they are running out of switching options at this point.


I have never heard the winds this strong here. Very scary.


Signing off for tonight. Safe and sound.

Okay, power out now T 8:50 p.m.

Henny Penny-ism happening here. If you were to listen to the news, for sure you would think (like Henny Penny) that the sky is indeed falling.

All they can talk about is the “storm surge” and they don’t really care much beyond their own noses. No one is talking what it means for us in the higher places. How much rain? How much wind? Oh no. It’s all about STORM SURGE.

We have battened down the hatches in every way we can around home. Today found us taking a final swing through the grocery store for more canned dog food, olive oil, more bottled water, bird seed (the silly birds are eating us out of house and home) and more wine where the line was 15 people deep at the liquor store.

In addition to everything we did yesterday to prepare, today we filled both bathtubs full of water for flushing toilets and water for sponge baths and I filled seven large zip-lock bags with water and put them in the freezer in the garage fridge for help in keeping things in the fridge cool if need be.

We thawed out a turkey we had in the freezer and cooked it today, thinking it would just go to waste if the power goes out. It smelled like Thanksgiving all day long.

Right now outside you’d never know anything is coming. It’s been creepy outside all day but maybe that’s because we know something is coming.

Whatever happens, it can’t be a very pretty picture considering how big this storm is. I don’t know much, but I do know that Sandy is coming and she’s pretty pissed off.

Rick’s Jack-O-Lantern.

Geez. What is it with New Jersey and October storms? Last year’s “Snowtober” left us without power for five days. Not to mention Hurricane Irene a few months before that in August followed by tropical depression Lee. Now Sandy the Frankenstorm is bearing down on us and she definitely has New Jersey in her sights. Kind of scary! (No pun intended.)

With the news media harping on and on about Saturday being Prep Day we thought we’d get a jump on things.

Rick bought the last generator in stock that they had in Home Depot Thursday. I went to the grocery store bright and early yesterday morning to beat the crowds and before the store sold out of water. I got dog food, canned veggies, pasta, hamburger and things easy to cook on our propane burner camp stove. At that hour of the morning there was hardly anybody there.

Question is: do we have enough in case we are without power for 7 to 10 days like they are preparing us for?

We still have plenty of oil for the oil lamps and batteries for all the lanterns.

We’ll need to split some wood for the wood stove. Not only does it provide heat, but we can keep a kettle of hot water at the ready.

Rick stopped at the gas station (along with everybody else in NJ) yesterday and filled up the remaining gas cans and top off the Suburban. They were so busy that the attendant told Rick he’d have to pump his own gas (which is illegal to do here in NJ). No power = no gas so everyone was rushing to fill up their cars and gas cans for their generators.

I’ve started a list of all the things that still need to be done outside to prepare. Bring in canoe; bring in figgy; do something with the potted flowers on the front steps and on the deck; turn over steel lawn furniture; take down ghost flag, etc., etc.

Inside the list includes filling all the large water containers, collecting all the lanterns, oil lamps, flashlights, the percolator (got to have coffee!), the tea kettle, wash the remaining load of laundry, stock the wood stove wood bins with split wood. Whew, I know there’s more but it will come to us as we work along.

Also added to the list today is the person who is fixing our driveway pillar is supposed to be coming.

With all this prep work in place, Frankenstorm Sandy is sure to miss us! But I have a funny feeling she won’t. And we want to be prepared. Camping in your own home is not as romantic as it sounds, that much we know for certain!

Photos top to bottom:
Silly Halloween blow-up at a farm near the Warwick Valley Winery on Sunday.

Our witch sticker on the sun room door.

UPDATE AT NOON: Pillar is in place! Photos of that process coming. Kind of creepy that all morning long we’ve had small planes flying over the house as a result of people evacuating their aircraft to a safer place from the local airport. Makes it all seem real instead of the calm day we are having before the storm.