When the outage start approaching 3 hours, we had a decision do make – except it was already made for us, really. We could get the fire pit going and start cooking lunch, or go into town and get take out.

We’re still under a fire ban (plus, cooking outdoors in this heat would have been brutal), so off to town I went!

As I reached the end of the gravel road, I started seeing large vehicles on the side of the road near the highway. One of them had an empty trailer attached to it. When I got to the stop sign, I could see the equipment it was hauling. A lift on tracks was at one of the power poles, surrounded by several trucks and a crowd of people.

The electric company has been upgrading stuff all over the province for the past year or so, so seeing workers these days is not unusual. Seeing that many, with so many vehicles right in the ditch with the workers (the ditch on that side is wide and flat enough to drive in) suggested this was not part of the maintenance projects.

While driving through our little hamlet, I passed two places that have exterior signs that are lit up, and they were both on. So the power outage clearly didn’t affect things East of the highway.

When I got to town, I got some gas then stopped at a DQ. I ordered enough for the four of us for two meals, just in case.

On the way home, when I got to where I’d seen the workers, all the vehicles were now mustered on the gravel road side of the highway, and it looked like they were packing up. When I saw I would pass one of the guys, I stopped to ask him about it. He confirmed that they had just finished repairing the damage, and the power would soon be turned back on. I made sure to express my thanks for their work, then headed home. It was only two more miles, but the power was on again before I got there.

While I was in town, I took advantage of having a data signal and messaged with my brother while waiting for the food. When I told him I was in town and why, and he asked about using the BBQ they have us a couple of years back. I told him, the last time I checked, BBQs were also part of the fire ban.

Once home and the computer was back on, I checked the RM website. Our fire pit is not an “approved” fire pit, in that it doesn’t have a screen, but even if it did, we could only have used it between 8pm and 8am. As for the BBQ, it is a propane one, and BBQs and fire pits fueled with propane tanks were still allowed. Which is good to know, should we find ourselves in this situation again. They also just recently lifted a ban on ATVs and off road vehicles.

That explains why I was suddenly seeing so many of them on the trail cams lately!

That might also explain why we suddenly started seeing our vandal doing weird stuff in the driveway cam, too. We didn’t get a break because he was calming down. It was because his preferred method of transportation was temporarily banned.

Tomorrow, we have our planned outage from 9am to 2pm. They are upgrading the entire system so that it can handle more of a load and more people hooked into it. At the same time, they are replacing old poles, cutting away trees and branches from the power lines, and other general maintenance stuff.

I expect our power bills are going to be going up again next fiscal year. When we first got onto the equal payment plan, we were paying less than $300/month. Now, we’re creeping towards $400 a month. Without the equal payment plan, during our first winter here, the bill was over $600 for December and over $700 for January, so we really appreciated being able to get onto the equal payment plan after we lived here for a year! We’re still paying more for electricity every month than we are for our monthly truck payments. The bills have gone up even during years when our overall usage has gone down.

Anyhow.

This sort of thing is why I want to have an actual outdoor kitchen built. This is what we have planned for the structure.

The plan for the back of it is to have a brick or stone series of cooking areas, including an oven and a smoke house, that would be safe to use during dry years like this. It would also be built near the pump shack, so we would have access to the old well, and a simple extension cord from the pump shack can be set up to provide basic power, if we needed it. We originally thought to build it in a completely different area, until we realized it gets standing water during particularly wet springs.

Even if we just had the shelter built, we have old wood burning cook stoves we could set up temporarily. Between being under a roof and the fire being completely enclosed, it would not be included in any fire bans.

We’ll get there. Eventually.

For now, I’m just glad to have the power back on. It means my husband can sleep with his CPAP again.

The Re-Farmer