Thar She Blows!

 Those are the words of the week. Like much of the country, we had a significant wind event this week. Wednesday night into Thursday morning she started blowing. We were up most of the night, hoping, praying that everything would be intact when the sun rose in the morning. 

You may think I am exaggerating, but believe me, I am not. The house creaked and moaned as it withstood 90 mph winds. Having built everything on our property ourselves we feel like we did a good job, but would it withstand hurricane force winds?

The house is pretty well protected from winds from the west by trees, these winds were from the Northwest. My biggest concerns were the new garage which is out in the open and not protected from any direction. And the gazebo, it is also protected from the west, but it is totally open on one side, and the right wind (or wrong) will pick it up like a kite. 

The power went out about 2:00am as we sat in the dark and just listened. When the sun finally rose, I was afraid to go look at the new garage, afraid it would be a pile of broken lumber and twisted steel. I had braced the hell out of it just for this reason and when we peeked out there, we were thrilled to see it was indeed still there!

The next thing we noticed was a tree at the corner of our RV spot was leaning significantly to the east.

 Those of you that have visited us with an RV will recognize this tree as it is sometimes in the way of bigger rigs trying to pull into the RV spot. 

If that is all the damage we had I will count that as a win! That morning, with no TV to entertain me, I started texting neighbors and friends to see how they fared. Neighbor Jim lost his flagpole and a section of his cross-buck fence and neighbor Doug received some minor roof damage. 

Neighbor Jim's

Kevin and Cheryl had a huge tree drop and brush their house as well as numerous trees down on their fenceline. The worst hit of our friends were Dan and Bonnie who lost numerous trees including one that had its sights on their garage.

Kevin and Cheryl's

Dan and Bonnie's

Later that morning we took a walk around the property to see what other damage there was.  Dozens of trees broken or pushed over with rootballs exposed and one deer blind blown away and destroyed.  Looks like we will have enough firewood to last us for years!

Nothing we can do about that now. I offered to go to both Kevin & Cheryl's and Dan & Bonnie's, but there were so many trees down we could not get to Kevin's house. Dan & Bonnie wanted to wait for the adjuster before he started cleaning up, so we just worked around home. This video is of Dan and Bonnie's house as he drove into work that morning. Ended up the entire town of Custer was without power, so he went back home. 

When the winds died down we took the girls for a walk. Zoey found a turkey wing, I sure hope it is not hop-a-long, but I have not seen her for over a week when we got our first snowfall. She probably just found a better place to find food, at least that is what I am saying to myself!

Not knowing the extent of the damage in the area, we thought that the power would be on in the next few hours, but that was not the case. That night, Dan/Bonnie, Kevin/Cheryl and Barb/I, all without power, met in Hot Springs at the Bowling Alley for supper and a couple rounds of bowling. Why not? We had nothing else to do!

Oh my gosh, just what we needed on such a stressful day! The first round we played normally (as normally as we play), but the second round got a little silly. Someone declared the next frame had to be played with your other hand, then someone declared the next one had to be backwards between your legs, then a dance move as you do your approach. You get the idea... I am sure the other bowlers were looking at the 60/70-year-olds in the next lane thinking we were nuts. But we were having fun!

When we got home about 9pm, still no power and we just went to bed. The next morning, still no power, we jumped in the Jeep and headed to the Rapid City Hospital to visit Alana. She had been in there 8 days at this point. She is doing soooo much better! We had a great visit with her, Ryan, my sister and our nephew Marshall.  We got home about 3:30, just before we pulled onto our road, we noticed the power line serving our road was still on the ground! 😭 

Okay, this is getting old. I started working on a cord that I could hook up to our generators and power up the house. My biggest concerns were the fridge, freezer and hot tub. With below freezing temps, I knew the residual heat would keep the hot tub pipes from freezing for a while. but not for much longer at these temps!

We only have Honda 2000 generators, and I was able to power up the fridge, freezer, internet as well as some lights and the TV, but not the hot tub and water pump. Cross fingers that the residual heat keeps everything from freezing. We went to bed that night hoping that we would wake up to lights. Nope. Now, as I write this, we have been without power for over 48 hours. My goal for the day was to get some heat on that hot tub. We went to Hot Spring and bought a small DeWalt propane torpedo heater and created a tent with a tarp, it seems to be working well. 

By 4pm Saturday afternoon we had given up on any hope of the power being restored that day. Both Dan and Bonnie as well as Kevin and Cheryl are both up and running, but not us! Then, at 10pm that night as we were tucked in for bed, after almost 72 hours, the lights turned on! Hallelujah!

Sunday was the best day of the week; We had power, we got to see Alana who came home the day before, the Vikings won, and we got to use the hot tub for the first time in 4 days!  We traveled up to Spearfish to see Alana of course, but also my sister and her two other kids; Tess and Marshall. I cannot of course forget Ryan, Loki and Sophie. 

Alana, (in the foreground) was happy to be home and sleeping in her own bed. Tess is behind Alana and of course Barb is on the right. 

We watched the Vikings beat the Giants, a pretty boring game but at least they won! I got to see my sister Becky one last time before she leaves. I only get to see her every couple of years, so it was great to spend time with her. Marshall, who lives in Paris, I see even less. 

 

Zoey, as usual, was obsessed with Ollie the cat. 

So, after a week that really sucked, this one is off to a great start! But wait, there is more! We received a text from Dylan at the farm, no words, just a picture. A picture that brought joy to my heart. We could not be happier for Sydnie and Dylan!

 Just a few more days until Christmas, I need to get to wrapping presents. Hope everyone out there has a great Christmas and a wonderful week!