Monday, March 22, 2010

Rain, Rain, Rain

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As I mentioned yesterday, it was very overcast and finally by mid-afternoon (around 3PM) we had a rainstorm.  When it rains here it is different than in Colorado or Nevada.  Here it rains hard and continues to rain hard for hours!  At home it rains hard and is done.  Well, last night about 5 PM the thunder and lightening started and about half an hour later the lights started to flicker.  It was still kind of light out--as light as overcast can be.  So I wasn't too worried about power going off but finally the lights gave a final flicker and we lost all power.  I then realized I needed to scout out where candles were.  Fortunately Lynn and I are our mother's daughters and tend to put away things where Mom did.  I quickly found candles and a flashlight but then I was at a loss to find matches.  Mom always had matches everywhere but none of us smoke so don't need matches that much.  I went through many drawers and even found a bunch more candles but no matches!  Well, finally I got to the kitchen utility (junk-type) drawer and there they were!  I gathered up some of the best smelling and most substantial looking candles and lit them.  Nice ambiance for the darkened kitchen.  It still was light enough to read out in the Florida room and the rain had actually let up to just a drizzle.  I went out there and read my Kindle for about 2 chapters, looked up and the lights were back on!  A nice adventure for us in somebody else's house!

 Here is Egar Junior.  he is not quite sure what to eat or how to eat so I guess he thinks he needs to try the banana nut muffins!

This got me to thinking about other times when the power had a habit of going out on Friday's, weekends and many times during the school day up in Owyhee.  School was either out or they had to close down after so long without power and we were free!  It always took a long time to find where the break was because the power came from somewhere beyond Jarbidge (maybe Twin Falls).  The power guys had to follow the lines through all this remote area and sometimes it was 2 or 3 days before they found the problem!  Most of the time everyone headed up to Boise for a few days of shopping, eating and sleeping in a warm room.  On several occasions, though, the road was closed so we had to stay put at the teacher compound.  Our duplexes were heated by electric heat so we would all get together in one apartment and pool our food and play games.  The most popular one was How to Host a Murder.  I had brought a bunch of them with me when we moved up there so they were new to everyone but me.  That was OK because I never could remember "who dun it"!  We had some Coleman Lanterns that actually put out some heat with their light and we had a Coleman Stove too, so we could cook.  Those were some great times!  It really was a bonding experience.  The people we worked with up there will always be near and dear to me even if we haven't seen each other in a long time!

The rain continued here all night and until about 8 AM this morning.  Then it just quit and now the sun is out and it looks like a lovely afternoon is in store for us!  As I was sitting out in the Florida Room when it first started raining yesterday I considered making a video of how hard it was raining and how the palms were kind of looking like the hurricane pictures we see on TV, but I didn't do it.  Now I don't have a picture for this segment of my blog.  Oh well........  So I decided to take pictures of the banana nut muffins I'm making to use up some ingredients before we leave.

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 Here are the muffins ready to eat out at the Gazebo


Here is Egar eyeing the muffins on the railing.                                                

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