electricity is nice

elecricity is nice. For a time in my thirties I chose to live 10 miles from the nearest small town at 4000 feet elevation without electricity for up to 8 months a year (seven feet of snow at once common during winters). However, now I'm 60 almost and not home schooling kids and teaching them to survive in the wilderness with just a knife and cross country skis. That was fun then. Now that much cold isn't as much fun when my back hurts from the cold.Don't get me wrong, I still love to ski,I just like to have a warm bath to come back to that I don't have to personally heat over a fire or on a wood stove like I did in the early 1980's for fun.

So,now when my affluent pine treed community on the ocean loses power like it did around 6:30 am last friday,I start to seriously consider buying a gas powered electrical power generator after about 3 days when I have to throw out about 400 or more dollars worth of food from my freezer and refrigerator. When I walked up to the refrigerator my socks got wet so I wondered what was wrong.
I soon realized that all the ice in the automatic ice maker was melting down onto the floor. It was hard for my mind to comprehend this because the temperature in ou large house was then about
55 degrees farenheit.(It had started at 62 degrees at 6:30 am last friday when the power went off.

So, since I was used to 60 to 68 degrees in my house 55 was very cold for me. I took what was left of the ice and put it in pots and then put it in fridge to keep the milk, butter and cheese cool. Except for bread most of the perishables in the ice box and fridge were already in the trash.

It took us about 24 hours to initially adjust to the power outage with my 11 year old being the most upset. Because of choosing to live off the grid during the early 1980's with my family and because my wife had spent a year on a yacht in the Medeterranean ocean in between her junior and senior year in college, both of us were used to living without alternating current, both 110 and 220.

Sensory deprivation. I had forgotten how altered being without television, computers,the internet makes one feel after living around electrical appliances except for camping trips for years now. And when I camp I choose where and when. It's not like being forced to live without electricity unexpectedly. It made me realize how very strange these kinds of weather accidents are and how very hard they can be on people who never thought living without electricity was fun.

By the way, the power went on one hour ago around 6 pm Tuesday after being off since 6:30 am last
Friday.