Frozen…

Ugh! It’s been a rough 48 hours! We live on the Southern Vermont and New York State border. Marty and I kept checking the forecast for the big snowstorm that was forecasted. 

At first, they predicted 5-8 or maybe 12 inches on Thursday night, then another 4 inches on Friday. We were prepared for snow. We were so prepared that we doubled up on production earlier in the week and made deliveries first to the Rutland, VT area, then to Saratoga, NY, after production the next day.  

Then wholesale orders started pouring in, which is what a business always wants, but we are a two-person team and felt like we were drowning in spätzle. Thank goodness we still had Friday to fill these orders.

I was following along on my friend Jon’s blog, Bedlam Farm Journal, his post on the storm’s track with a radar that seemed very accurate. Jon and his wife Maria, my friend and belly dance student, live right over the border in Cambridge, NY, only a few miles from us.

From what I could see on Jon’s radar, we were in for a big ice storm and not snow. Oh, shit! This is never good. 😖

Thursday, it rained all day with temps hovering around 44 degrees. As the day went on, the temperature began to fall. By 8 pm, the rain turned to ice. Everything was glazed over within half an hour. Dammit! The guys were on a rescue squad call, so I was nervous with them out there driving and walking.

Otto woke me up at 1 am on Friday. He is petrified when the power goes out and comes back on; along with fireworks and thunder. I feel terrible for him when he is so scared. Usually, I give him Thunder-wonders and wrap him up tight in a blanket.

Sam heard me up and filled us in on the scary situation. Power was out in the entire area. There was half an inch of ice on everything; trees were snapping and falling. No wonder Otto was so afraid. The sound was horrible and scary.

Somehow, after a couple of hours, we all fell back to sleep until morning. In the morning you could not walk or get into your car they were so encased in thick ice. Sam had a class at the hospital that he had to get to. He chipped his way into his truck and let it warm up. He came back inside while the truck warmed up, then walking back to the truck, fell on his butt, scraping up his arm and leaving his pants soaked. He left with wet pants because he had to. 

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Of course, we couldn’t work in the production kitchen as scheduled. The simple act of walking was impossible; the only thing that saved us was ice grippers for our boots. We walked around looking at the trees down and accessed the damage. 

I walked over to our neighbor’s house, who lives out of state, and took photos. A heavy tree limb ripped down the electric line from the street to their house. Definitely not good news to report to them on a Friday morning. 

By the time Sam got home from his class at the hospital, it was HORRIBLE! Bad, bad, bad out.! The roads were a blanket of ice, it was like a war zone with trees down, and things smashed everywhere.

Marty and Sam worked most of the day to get into our vehicles and work on the driveway. I stayed inside, trying to keep warm since we had no power. 

Marty hooked up a small generator to our brand new heated water lines that blew two weeks ago due to zero-degree weather. We couldn’t afford to have that happen again. Literally and figuratively.

For the rest of the day, we felt like sitting ducks. Sam went to the rescue squad and heard the severity of the power outage. It wasn’t good. Our town’s sub-station was down along with many wires from all of the trees that fell or lost their branches. Fuck was all I could think when he told us that. He said we might be days without power.

It began to snow which made matters worse. The already heavy ice-covered branches didn’t need heavy snow on top of it. The town set up a warming area located at the local high school. However, it was hard to get the word out to people because there was no cell service or internet.

Before Sam left for his overnight shift, he helped Marty hook up our larger generator. All we wanted to turn on was our refrigerator and mini-split heater. We unplugged almost everything else not to make the generator work so hard. Again, we had no idea how long we would be without power.

Initially, Marty and Sam hooked up our gas fireplace insert to a small backup battery but had to shut it down quickly when the carbon monoxide detector alarm started going crazy with the word “gas” flashing on the screen. Just before that happened, I began to feel weird and light-headed. No wonder why. 

I went out on the front porch with the dogs until the propane dissipated. That’s when the guys got the mini-split hooked up instead. At least we finally had a little heat which we were very grateful for.

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I could cook through all of this; I just needed to light the gas stove with a match: not that I would make anything real to eat anyway under the circumstances. I wanted biscuits and gravy, but I wasn’t going to attempt that in the dark.

Finally, the hard-working Green Mountain Power employees restored our power after 18 hours. I ran around the house like a fool, showering and blow drying my hair just in case the power went out again. Trees were still falling, and it was still snowing.

81% of our town was out of power for 18-24 hours. It was a miracle the Green Mountain Power crews got it fixed so quickly. Teams came down from the northern part of the state to help, working outside for 12 hours straight in single-digit temperatures. 

If it weren’t for all the road crews, who kept on top of the roads the best they could, the power company trucks wouldn’t have been able to maneuver around as easily. A big thanks to everyone who helped with the situation. 

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After my shower, I made us biscuits and gravy since it’s all I thought about all day. I used a new gluten-free biscuit recipe that worked brilliantly! I finally had flakey biscuits that rose. Yay! The meal hit the spot on such a cold, miserable night.

We lost power again during the night. I knew immediately because poor Otto started freaking out again. The power came back on again around 4 am. We fell back to sleep eventually after he calmed down.

We were now so far behind in production besides missing our farmer’s market; we still had those big wholesale orders to fill. We thought about going into production this morning, but something told us to hold off. 

We briefly lost power a couple more times in the morning and early afternoon. If the power went out during production, that would be disastrous, possibly ruining our equipment and wasting expensive ingredients. Thank goodness we listened to our gut instincts.

Sam and Marty figured out why the gas fireplace insert failed because the screen on the chimney top must have been covered in ice like the screens in the windows. Thank goodness for that carbon monoxide safety monitor. I kept thinking that the place could have blown up, or we could have been taking a dirt nap. 😵 We will be waiting until the ice melts before relighting the gas fireplace.

So, it’s been a stressful couple of days. Fingers crossed, the power stays on for good and poor Otto can finally relax meaning we can too! Enjoy the rest of your weekend! Cheers!