Pumpkin Hat

Happy Halloween

One of my friends asked me to make her a pumpkin cap...so I did. 

It's what every one needs on a frosty Halloween day.

Power and Fall Colors

The power has been restored ... hooray. I heard someone call our local power company Almighty PG&E and I had to agree. They turn off the power and turn it on in was seems to be capricious ways. There's no wind...the power goes off. There is wind, the power is on. There's wind in the cities around us...their power is ON, our power is OFF...what's the difference? The Almighty PG&E knows and just tells us that the power is being cut but not why. Tis puzzling and frustrating.

On the other hand, the trees are changing colors. Fall, in our "tree city" is beautiful...take a look.

City Mice and Country Mice

Guess what? The power is out yet again! We were given a lot of warning this time, and we were ready. We are living between the house and the RV and making do. Right now we are borrowing wifi from a nearby McDonald's. The power outages are strange. The folks in the city (city mice) are enjoying power, but the country mice are enjoying the "green new deal." The country mice are not all that happy with this "new normal" as our governor calls it.

In the meantime, there are 2 fires blazing in CA. One was started by the power company that shut down our power due to high fire danger. The origin of the second fire is unknown as I write.

I like being a country mouse. I like living in a first world country. I'm not living in a first world country right now. What happened?

Power

PG&E shut down the power yet again. This time we tried to get ready for it as we were given warning. Prior to every shutdown, PG&E sends me a text saying it's going to happen on a certain day but no details as to when it will happen on that certain day. Then the text says "be prepared." PG&E recommends people go to this website to get current information for your exact location. It has an excellent wind map for the west coast of the US too.

This time we decided to buy an inverter generator for the RV. Off to Home Depot where the last inverter generator was being wheeled out the door as we entered the store. Another generator was located about 20 miles away, so we went there and bought what we needed. Once home, our neighbor helped us get it "up and running." He pulled the starter cable and after a few pulls the generator "caught" but it sounded strange. Instead of the "putt-putt-putt" sound I was expecting, it cycled with a "putt-putt-whoom--putt-putt-whoom" sound. We wondered why it was not sounding smooth...only to discover it was leaking fuel too. We turned it off and took it back to the store. We were both thinking "so much for advance planning."

Then our neighbor called and said he had a friend who was selling an extra generator that had 4 hours on it. We called the friend, went to his house and bought an almost-new inverter generator. We hooked it up the RV and it "putt-putt-putted" away just as it should.

We were ready for the power outage. We removed food from the fridge and freezer and put it in the RV. We forgot to remove the ice...next time we won't make that mistake. We need to put all the ice in large bowls and put them on the freezer shelves...then we have water if we need it. This time we had a dripping mess. Live and learn! We brought in essentials for daily living and moved to the RV. So much nicer than moving to a hotel.

The power was off for 28 hours with the threat that it might be turned off again this weekend. We are learning to live with the situation but that does not mean we are liking it. The RV is ready for the next round of electric-free living as we boon dock in our own backyard.

Yet Another Blanket

The other day a friend asked me how many teddy bear blankets I had made. I don't know that answer. The pattern was shared with me in 2003 and since then, it has become my "go-to" blanket pattern. To the very large number of TBBs I've crocheted in the past sixteen years, add one more. The color is "aran" which is the traditional color for a fisherman's knit sweater. It looks good on a TBB too. In case you are wondering, I'm working on a pink TBB now. I started it during the power outage as it's easy to work on in the dark.

I Didn't Forget

Honest, I didn't forget to write in my blog, I just had nothing to say that was not nasty. I had a rant about PG&E but after thinking about it, the rant could not begin to tell what it's like to live without electricity for 5 days when the closest town had electricity. It made no sense. Life goes on. PG&E goes on.

It's time to enjoy the sunsets (and the electricity) while we can.

A Sunday Drive and Power Company Rant

We don't go on Sunday drives often, but today we did. We started early with breakfast in town, then we headed west toward the rice fields. We discovered some teeny tiny towns (one had a population of 75 souls). We looked at the huge rice elevators and enjoyed the warm sunshine. After lunch, we continued to drive toward the flat mesas by the dam.

The California hillsides are covered in dry, yellow grass. "They say" the fire danger is high. To add to the equation, the local power company figured it is wise to shut down the power for the whole area when the winds are blowing. Yesterday we had a 14 hour power outage in order to be safe. I believe in being safe, but we did not have any wind.  

So, we are enjoying the dryness--hating the power company--and wondering when the power company will come up with a better solution than cutting power to tens of thousands of people every time the wind blows. Maybe they should have a town hall where we can offer them some better solutions apart from the blanket order of killing our power. Maybe, the power company should put in safer equipment that does not spark and cause fires.