Something else to check on

jCarroll · Jan 3, 2016

Our electric power has been very reliable- no outages in 3 years.
Was off for 90 minutes last night.

We had candles, good flashlights, lots of water, a half pint of kerosene in the lamp

Our camping lamp had no juice in the rechargeable battery,
No battery powered radio except the car.
Couldn't find the weather radio,
No extra gas to run the PTO generator.

At least with 29 degrees we didn't worry about food spoilage.

gab · Jan 3, 2016

A week ago around N Illinois the weather folks pretty much guaranteed the power would be off, high wind, rain sleet and snow so I gased up the generator and filled my cans and the lights didn't flicker, did have 4 inches of sleet though. Seems like the power is off at least once a year, about 5 years ago it was off for about 40 hours when the wind took down around 5 poles in a row.

tim s · Jan 3, 2016

Years ago when I was a lot ornerier and younger, we had a big ice storm in the area, my friends place was on a lonely road a couple miles from our farm and the power company was slow to get there,,they were out for a week or so longer than the rest of the area. His Mother was having a fit about it,,, so one day (before caller ID) ,while her power was still off, we called her and said that we were from the power company, and the weather was too bad to get out to read her meter, would you go out and read it so we can send your bill,,,OOh my goodness did she ever unload,, we never owed up to that prank for a long time ,,,all in Fun...but she would have whooped our rear ends..

4020 electrician · Jan 3, 2016

That's a good one!😜 Wonder why you were beat???

Goose · Jan 3, 2016

You could get away with that before caller ID. When we were teenagers, a buddy of mine called one of his neighbors and asked if he had any dry cows.

The neighbor replied, "Well, yes".

My buddy asked, "Why the he!! don't you water them?" and hung up.

Determined · Jan 3, 2016

(quoted from post at 13:02:36 01/03/16) You could get away with that before caller ID. When we were teenagers, a buddy of mine called one of his neighbors and asked if he had any dry cows.

The neighbor replied, "Well, yes".

My buddy asked, "Why the he!! don't you water them?" and hung up.

When our oldest son was 3-4 years old we picked up a mare from the sister in law, she wasn't positive but figured there was a good chance she was bred.
As the months went by one day while out in the corrals our son asked when the mare was going to have her baby.
My wife explained to him that was not going to happen as she was not bred.
He looked at her as innocent as could be and said;
"Well then why don't we go to the house and get her a slice"

4520BW · Jan 3, 2016

We had a bad ice storm but 20 years ago and all the power lines were sagging. I had just going feed and the doves around for an easy meal. So i got the 1100 12 ga. Out and went to town on them. One landed on the power line and I shot it the ice busted and the power line went sailing but never broke. I shot all the lines between road and farm and we never lost power.

showcrop · Jan 3, 2016

I got to thinking that when I was kid I don't think we ever lost power. There were no trees along the roads to have limbs fall off and take the wire down. Pretty much all the farmers kept their ground mowed right to the road. Now there is so much land that has grown up and "gone back to the Indians" as my mother used to say, that there are branches hanging over the wires everywhere.

Mike M · Jan 4, 2016

Funny how you prepare , but then after all the years of good power I still find myself not prepared. Dead batteries ,no extra gas etc. etc.

T in NE · Jan 4, 2016

I've heard out to Michigan, Consumer's Energy spent millions on clearing right of ways and still can't get through a major snow storm without a couple ten thousand losing power.

farmboy48 · Jan 4, 2016

reading 4520bw's post reminded me of incident about 20 years ago when I was an REC lineman. We had really heavy frost on miles and miles of line, and hundreds of broken poles and wires. We asked local farmers to volunteer to come and help knock frost off the lines with extendo sticks. Had one BIG native American helping, and when he whacked the line with the stick, the frost came off that span, and the recoil of the wire caused the next half mile of poles to snap off. He hollered "I ain't paying for that" and walked off.

Something else to check on

jCarroll

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gab

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tim s

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4020 electrician

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Goose

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Determined

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4520BW

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showcrop

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Mike M

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T in NE

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farmboy48

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