Out Of Power...

We ran out of power early this morning. 12:30 am to be exact. I woke up to Number One turning the heat down to which I was grateful for and did not put much thought into it. I just went back to sleep. Well, he wasn't turning it down he was turning it off, so the propane fireplace would not run without the fan also running.

I did not realize this until I woke up freezing wondering what he had turned the heat down to. I was too cold and sleepy to get out of bed and check, so I just went back to sleep until I woke up even colder and figured out we had lost power. At this point, we were both awake and decided to wait until at least daylight to do something about it. I got out of bed way later than daylight and it was 42* inside the house and 20* outside. I'm sure that it was much colder throughout the night, but had somewhat warmed up when the sun came up not out. It was still cloudy. Normally we wouldn't have to run the generator at all we would just wait for the sun to rise. 

I looked sillier than this...

Thank God for hot tea...

We keep the thermostat at 57* at night, since we have a two-sided fireplace and it gets too hot in our bedroom to sleep comfortably. I used to open the window and have a fan pointed at me, I still do it in the Summer and Fall, but it is a little silly in the Winter months when we can just turn down the heat as Number One pointed out.

I put fleece pajamas on over my pajamas, my robe, socks, shoes, Number One's coat, a hat and gloves. I'm sure I looked ridiculous. Even the cows ran away at the sight of me or It could have been the noise I was making starting the generator. 

Once the generator was running the house and charging the batteries I turned the heater back on, started a hot pot of tea and reset the timers for the refrigerator and freezer. 

The cause was obvious once I gave it some thought. It was somewhat cloudy yesterday and I had baked bread and pizza the evening before using up a lot of our stored energy. Neither one of us thought about checking to see how much power we made yesterday. So, we ran out. 

We do run out of power on occasion, but for the most part everything runs smooth. The greatest thing about solar power is not having to pay a monthly electric bill...

Mrs. Smith