Friday, December 11, 2009

powerless

Late Wednesday, during the craziest storm ever (since when is it possible for there to be lightning while it's snowing?), the power went out just as the temperature started to plummet.
(remember how I complained about how unwintery the weather has been? I was a fool.)

Since no power means no heat, after taking our neighbors tropical pets (a parakeet, a fish and 2 geckos) to the studio where the power was still on, and finding out online that the power was expected to be out "until the weekend", I went home, piled the doggies in the bed with all the blankets I could find and worried that the pipes would burst and all my houseplants would die. (Steven was out of town :( which made the black out even less fun.)

Luckily the power came back on by morning and the citrus was saved, but I woke up not liking how powerless (pun intended) I felt.

I can live without electricity- for a little while- reading by candlelight isn't so bad and board games are way more fun than looking at stuff online- but in the middle of winter we can't live without heat, literally.

Maybe growing and canning all that food this summer gave me some new, weird survivalist tendancies, but I really hated feeling so helpless. So, since we've lost power in winter before, I'm looking into getting a wood stove insert for our fireplace.

I asked Rick for advice because he and Toni have wood stoves and because he knows a lot about them. At his reccomendation I checked out Morso, and I think I have fallen in love with this one.

They say it can heat our entire house, is fossil fuel free (even 80% of the energy used to make it comes from renewable resources), carbon neutral (as long as the trees used for wood are replanted), and burns so efficiently that it creates no smoke and minimal particulates. Plus it's really romantic.

What do you think?

5 comments:

Christina said...

A blackout by yourself? :( That sounds so horrible. But that fireplace makes me warm just by looking at it!

Tanya (a Taste of T) said...

I love you and the animals braving the odds! I hear you about feeling attached to power. I've been looking into solar power charges for my laptop. Now that I'm on the road, I feel like a power hog. I'm definitely buying carbon offsets for the destruction my travels are creating. Stay powerful :)

MAB from OtterCatHaus said...

Oh, man, I had an eight day blackout last year, and almost lost my mind! I did lose all of my food and a great deal of money. Thank goodness, it was in September, and the weather was perfect. Hopefully, we'll have a peaceful rest of our winter.

erin said...

We were cold and helpless without power on Wednesday too. What a crazy night! We had our fireplace going but it really doesn't give off any heat. I had no idea you could put a wood stove insert into an already existing fireplace structure - what a great idea!

Courtney said...

Oh, a blackout alone! That would certainly be no fun, but I love that you took your neighbors tropical pets to the studio to keep them warm, and I'm glad that the power was back on by morning! And I love the looks/sounds of that wood stove!