March 2009 – Finding Refuge

Sunday morning we woke up to 5 inches of snow and it was still snowing!! I walked out the front door at 6:00AM to go cook breakfast, but quickly went back inside and woke up Paul to make him go outside and look. He quickly went back to bed.

I drove down to the kitchen (spinning out my tires a couple of times on the snow) and started to cook breakfast. I put a big breakfast casserole in the oven about 6:20AM. I made coffee around 7:00AM. At 7:10AM the electricity went off throughout all of camp. (Turns out the electricity went off all throughout Lacon and Chillicothe). We had 26 ladies (all scrapbookers) at camp when this happened. They were all OK, except they couldn’t use their Cricuts (a printer-thing for scrapbookers)

Anyway, here’s where it gets fun! Because our water runs out of a well when the electricity goes out the pumps do not work…a.k.a…no water. So no electricity, no heat, no water for 26 scrapbookers, 6 adults (those of us who live here), and 4 kids (that belong to Jim and Ember and Tyler and Shannon).

Luckily, the casserole continued to cook in the oven so it was done by 8:00AM. By 7:30 Jim had snowplowed most of the roads and parking lots. About 8:30AM he started pulling 2 cars out with the tractor that had gotten stuck in the mud. About 9:00AM I started thinking that lunch may become very interesting still with no electricity (the kitchen also has no windows so I’m doing everything with a flashlight). I was going to do meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and rolls. Well, I went to plan B. We had a salad bar, tuna on lettuce, and cream of potato soup that I could heat on the gas stove. Try cracking open boiled eggs in the dark, hoping you get all the shell pieces off the egg.

Remember that we still no water. So, Paul and I took 6 buckets, filled them with snow, melted the snow over the gas stove and used the water to fill up the back of the toilets so you could flush. We did this a few times until we discovered gallons of water in the walk-in cooler. All this time…no lights!

I finished cooking everything for lunch (and even had time to make a card with the help of the Scrapbook ladies) and then finally the electrcity came back on about 11:15AM!!!

So, we had a very exciting day yesterday!! Here are pictures for your enjoyment! Most of the snow has melted now but don’t worry. Tomorrow there is a 90 percent chance of rain, so it’ll be nice and muddy tomorrow!