December 26th Dinner Post

[livetobake]

Good Morning!

It will be partly sunny with the high of 40 and the low of 30. It was a foggy, dark day yesterday with rain off and on so hopefully today will not be as interesting.

Dinner tonight will be stuffed pork chops, gravy, scalloped corn, applesauce from the freezer and more Christmas cookies.

What will you be having this evening?

[muzette7]

Having Christmas leftovers for the next few days. I made a lasagna so the leftovers will last for at least today.

[MommaBear]

I’m starving now….no breakfast or lunch and too lazy to cook.

[CharleneG]

We are snowed in! Steady snowfall all over the region and the temperature is in the low 20’s so the snow is very icy. Fortunately we are well stocked with food, we’re warm and comfy inside the house. Abby is not happy about the snow, she slipped a couple of times on the porch steps and she’s afraid to go down them. She’s getting kind of blind so I’m sure it’s scary for her when she can’t see well.

We’re going to have more of Christmas dinner, herb stuffed pork loin, make ahead mashed potatoes and peas. It was so good yesterday!

[Vera]

Charlene - I read in the paper and heard on TV that the West Coast up and down was getting really bad weather from rain to snow. Here on the east coast, it has almost been summer like. On Christmas it was in the 60s. A little cooler today but the roads are dry. Glad you are safe and warm. I wonder if you put an old rug on the steps for Abby, if she would do better on the stairs because she wouldn't slip. Worth a try if you have something like that.

[CharleneG]

We have a door mat out there, this morning she walked to the edge of the step, said NOPE! and peed on the mat. I took pictures of her path, it told the whole story . We shoveled off the steps and cleared a path to the lawn. If worse comes to worse we’ll put a piddle pad out for her next time she goes out.

There’s snow well down into Oregon, maybe even further south. There is also snow all the way down down to the ocean. I was just out in the garage for a minute to get something out of the spare fridge…the canned food on the storage rack was colder than what was in the fridge!

[Sabine]

Charlene , I hope you don't lose electricity. We had that happened to us here in San Antonio , basically all of Texas last February ( 2021 ) and it was a nightmare . 3 days of no electric power, would come on for a few minutes and then go off again. It was 9 degrees below zero, we are not prepared for that, town has no snow plows, no equipment to remove snow or ice, pipes froze, which meant no water. Absolute nightmare.

[CharleneG]

So far we’re OK on electricity and heat. Our utilities in our neighborhood are all underground and unless a transformer blows we’re pretty safe. Whidbey Island and Camano Island have a lot of power outage problems. Sooooo glad we didn’t move there like we’d originally planned!

[Sabine]

All our utilities are also under ground

[Vera]

At some point, the utilities have to come out of the ground and that may be the case with Sabine where the power is lost. We have to be self-efficient in our case as we are on well water. No power, no water, no pumps. We have a standby generator (propane) that
exercises automatically every Sunday morning. It does this as you don't want to find out it's not working when you really need it. When we do lose power, it comes in in about 10 seconds and I am up and running.

[muzette7]

Vera, what brand generator do you have? We are shopping for one currently.

[Vera]

Muzette - We have an Onan 15KW. It doesn't power everything in the house, but most. When you get a standby generator, you have to also put in a circuit just for the generator and wire what you want powered when the generator has to come on. We do not have our AC wired because that is a big power draw, but we have ceiling fans that will suffice. Our furnaces are both propane and heat pump (dual fuel). If power goes out, we switch to propane because you only need power for the ignitors which doesn't draw much power. The heat pumps would be a big draw. You have to pick and choose what is important to you. Of course, we could have ordered a bigger generator but bigger means more money. As long as we have power to our pumps, electricity in the important parts of the house we are good. When Hurricane Isabel hit us in 2003, we were without power for 8 days. We had just moved into our house 6 weeks before and had ordered our Onan generator, but it wasn't delivered yet. Had to buy a portable from Lowes two hours away because none were available in our area due to the hurricane. At least we could power our pumps so the water couldn't back up into the house. Glad those days are over.

[Sabine]

At some point, the utilities have to come out of the ground and that may be the case with Sabine where the power is lost. We have to be self-efficient in our case as we are on well water. No power, no water, no pumps. We have a standby generator (propane) that
exercises automatically every Sunday morning. It does this as you don't want to find out it's not working when you really need it. When we do lose power, it comes in in about 10 seconds and I am up and running.

Vera, my daughter and son in law are living on a ranch ( raising long horn cattle ) and they have a well , and yes, just like you posted, " no power, no water, no pumps " . After the disastrous last winter they are also buying a generator . Our neighbor is also checking into buying a generator should we have loss of power again, very, very expensive. We are kidding him , should we lose power again we move in with them. LOL
I have lived in San Antonio since 1972 and last year was the first time that we have lost power for 3 days , and had snow. I don't ever want to see snow again.

[Vera]

Sabine - We do have power lines that go through a heavily wooded area. Of course, we would like them underground, but the lines were here before anyone built on the ten lots. There was an original farmhouse at the end of our road so that is why the poles are here. If we wanted underground utilities, the homeowners would have to pay for it and that isn't going to happen. When we have a big storm, we usually have some sort of outage due to a tree falling on the lines or a branch. I think everyone has some sort of generator, either portable or standby. In your case, because you really never lose power, then spending the big bucks isn't worth it.

[Sabine]

Not every part of SA has underground power lines , the older parts of town don't. We are lucky that we do , and when we have a loss of power it doesn't last long, just a few hours and everything is running again.
Our big freeze , almost a year ago now., was a double blow for us, because one of our outdoor faucets froze and broke. Yes, we had everything wrapped, double wrapped . but it is almost impossible to wrap outdoor faucets when it is that cold for 3 days. Anyway when that faucet broke , the plumber , we were lucky to have a plumber come out right away, had to turn the water off for half a day, after that the plumber found a crack in the flow back pipe for the sprinkler system, again water had to be turned off to get repaired. By that time I had called a hotel close by to reserve a room for us, so we could take a shower !! Nightmare.