I’ll apologize before I even get started because I’m going to do a little whining here. We lost power again on 12/11 and didn’t get it back until 12/14. This has been happening more regularly lately and its getting very old. We have a small generator that we use to keep the fridge cold and we cook on the gas grill and lobster burner but flushing, showering, washing dishes — anything that requires water — is not happening without a big ordeal. And then there’s the trying to stay warm thing… The whole experience is just exhausting. The worst part, however, is getting the sheep taken care of. Jim goes down the road to a culvert where he can drop a bucket over the edge of the road to get water for them but this takes alot of backbreaking hauling of buckets on top of the snow removal that usually needs doing during a storm like this. The most frustrating part is that the power company doesn’t deal with our road until they’ve turned mostly everybody else back on. Everyone around us had power back in less than a day and here we were…powerless and powerless to do anything about it. When I called the power company, their rep told me that we’re not important because there are so few homes on this line and in order to check it, someone has to snowshoe into the woods and actually climb a pole. In other spots, repairs can be made from a bucket truck. It wasn’t much fun to hear that we’re not important. Apparently we’re important when the bill is due. Well, the holiday baking I’d planned for this weekend didn’t happen but I’ll try to get some stuff done now.