Thursday 9 March 2017

The tale of the powercut

Last night, when I was hoping for a full night sleep due to being up with my son the previous night, my daughter came in at 1:30am to tell me she couldn't get the bathroom light on so she didn't dare go to the loo.  I said the bulb must have gone, so use mine.  She said that's not working either.  In a part sleep, part awake state, I realised we were having a power cut.  No big deal right?  Wrong.  We have 15 duck eggs with 6 days left in the incubator that's reliant on the power.  The piglets are under heat in the barn and the greenhouse bench is on to look after my tender seedlings. 
The saw me on the phone to the power company to find out what's wrong.  It will be back on by 4:30 they say.  Feeling rather sad and acutely aware that we're relying on someone to supply our energy, I sat and waited with Ste.  At 2:30 I had dozed off and he woke me to say it's back on.  He checked the incubator and it had gone down to 25 for 37+. 
Please keep your fingers crossed that the ducklings make it.
The piglets were fine when I went out to feed, blearly eyed and with a stinking headache (unrelated to the night's events) and I just hope the seeds/seedlings that are reliant on the heat were unaffected.  It wasn't too cold last night, no where near freezing so may be a lucky escape.
It has started me thinking about producing our own energy though.
Incidentally, we would still be able to cool and heat the kitchen off the Aga, so that is a bonus.

10 comments:

  1. Oh love, hope the ducklings come through the other side and those cutesy piggies, too!x

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  2. when I have eggs in the incubator and the power goes off I put some towels over it to conserve the heat, even having a space survival blanket to hand would do, we have looked at alternative power solar panels that feed surplus to the grid is out, it takes about 12 years to get your initial investment back and the pay out out you get is pennies, we have been looking into a wind turbine, but in the short term a generator is on the cards. I have a couple of small solar panels that I can charge leisure batteries with that we use for electric fencing.

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    1. I read about the towel option today after it'd all happened of course. I maybe need to get Ste on a pedal bike that powers us 😉

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  3. Fingers and toes crossed for the ducklings! Pigs are quite hardy, they probably buried themselves and cuddled up.

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    1. Thank you. I don't think I would have been allowed to bring them in bed with me instead! Luckily it wasn't a colday night.

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  4. We had two power cuts yesterday. Hope the eggs are still viable. What did you mean about being to cool and heat the kitchen with the Aga...I understand the heat bit! Though what gets me is needing an electric pump to pump water around a heating system as well as oil or gas...looking at Everhot cookers...we already have a generator..,though it's very noisy! x

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    1. It was a typo lol. Meant to say cook. I like the everhot ones. I have looked at those before though we won't be replacing ours, it's good to know. At least we don't plan to 😁

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  5. We lost power yesterday from a wind storm and were woefully unprepared. Will do better next time though. Like you I was very unhappy.to realize how dependant we were on outside power. I was just very grateful we weren't brooding chicks.
    Glad to hear the piggies are ok. I'm sure the ducklings will be fine too, maybe hatch a day later is all. Can you candle the eggs to check on them?

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  6. The duck eggs should be okay, after all mummy ducks (and hens) do have a spell off the eggs every now and then, sometimes for longer than an hour. As you say fingers crossed :-)

    We didn't even realise that we were having a power cut the other day until I came to use the shower (which is always run off the mains due to the large surge of power it takes) as we have solar panels and battery back up. I found out off the neighbours that our hillside had been without power for hours. Luckily the Aga (which also runs of the mains at night) came back to full heat within a couple of hours, and breakfast although being slower to cook was still cooked.

    Solar power is a brilliant investment for anyone wanting a degree of self sufficiency although expensive to install it is worth every penny.

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