What did we do on our January "vacation"?

The Pacific Northwest has been in the news over the last week with the first big storms of the season. First we got hit with snow - less than predicted, but enough to paralyze the area. Then, instead of the warming and melt that was forecast, we had an unprecedented 12+ hours of freezing rain! Heavily laden trees came down everywhere, along with many, many branches big and small - and many power lines. Over 300,000 homes and businesses in our area were left without power, and roads were impassible with all the trees and wires down.

Our pasture looks like a war zone with branches littered everywhere and fences crushed. Fortunately, the fences keeping our sheep in are still intact. We lost power on Wednesday evening and regained it yesterday (Saturday) evening. For us, that means loss of water, as our well operates on electricity. There was enough snow and ice, that we could keep water buckets filled and somewhat thawed. Inside water was harder, but we filled gallon jugs before our system lost all pressure, and filled them up again at a nearby gas station.

It was cold outside, so no immediate danger to our freezers (thank goodness!), but for us... it got cold. We cooked on the gas stove, and the bed is piled with fleeces on top of the down quilt, so we had hot meals and were warm at night. Staying occupied and warm during the day was a challenge.

We ended up in my rather small wool room, powering a space heater and a couple of lights with the little gas generator, and were quite comfortable, if rather cozy.

Here's the setup: Dave brought in a little table for modeling and several books, I had my spinning wheel and knitting, the dogs had their rug/bed. Of course, the wool and fabric around the perimeter was very useful for thermal storage...

I spun - some Cormo and Cormo/Pygora blend for the Ravelry group - Knitters Book of Yarn woolalong. Cormo is the February breed - and knitted on my boucle shawlette.

The dogs slept. Dogs are good at sleeping when nothing else interests them.

Clifford could skinny into places the Labradors couldn't, so sometimes he slept with them, and sometimes he slept in the "cave" under my table.

Dave mostly read, and worked on his models.


Kat wanted in...


...and Kat wanted out.

Then, Saturday evening, while we were quietly knitting, reading, sleeping and (Kat) staying out with brother, Toby, the room light came on! Light! Heat! Water! Hot showers! Facebook...