It was a dark and stormy night, and I was in heaven!
So, last weekend...the weekend of the storm, Marti went down to Boston to visit a friend. So it was just going to be me, the cats and dogs for the weekend, and I was going to be left to my own devices. I anticipated getting some art and perhaps some reading done. Friday evening after work I spent getting ready for the weather... bringing in lots of wood, setting out candles, making sure all the flashlights worked and such. One thing about being Paganish... you are very rarely, if ever, lacking in candles!
Saturday started out great. I got my Dremel tool and materials all layed out, put the movie The 300 in the DVD player as “pretty background splatter', and was just starting to work on my next bone project... when the power went out.
Fine, this was annoying but no real problem. We lose power here every now and then, but we live near a major trunk line, and repair crews usually start working at major trunk lines and work outwards from them, so usually when we lose power, it comes on again pretty quickly.
It was Saturday evening, and the power had not come back on after several hours, so I was reading by candle light... when I remembered the mushroom. You see, Autumn is the time when I try to take lots of walks in the woods looking for materials for my artwork, as it is a lot easier to see things such as shelf mushrooms and wasp or hornets nests or interesting bits of rock or wood when there are no leaves on the trees. And already this Autumn I have taken several long walks and seen several things like mushrooms and wasp nests, marked their location in my head with the intent of coming back to get them at a later date.
Well, not knowing how much snow we were going to get, other than “a lot”, I realized that the snow may damage, or at the very least hide until Spring the things I had marked to “come back for later”. So, having nothing better to do, I donned my jacket and hat, grabbed a large knife and a flashlight and went out into the snowy night. I love storms; most any type of storm... wind storms, snow storms, electrical storms... I love them! Not sure about sand or dust storms, as I have never been in one, but I imagine I wouldn't be as keen on them as I am on other types of storms. And so, since I love the woods, and storms, being in the woods at night in a storm is for me, a really wonderful thing.
The snow was falling at a pretty good rate... you could hear the hissing sounds it made as it landed on the leaves of the trees and such. Also, it was Thunder-snow, so there were frequent flashes of lightning that lit up the woods, but did so without sound, because the snow muffles the sound of the thunder. So, I walked through the dark woods, hearing the hiss of the falling snow and the crunch of the snow and dried leaves beneath my feet and every now and then a sharp crack and loud crash as a tree or tree limb gave way under the weight of the heavy wet snow and crashed to the ground, and what with the whole area lit by silent flashes every now and then... it was magical!
Of course, I had to be careful, because getting lost in the woods in that kind of weather can be fatal. But, the mushroom and wasp nest I were after weren't too far from trails. But even this early in the storm, the woods looked very different, because the thinner trees were bent double under the weight of the snow making them look like bushes, and the actual bushes were by now just snow covered mounds, making them look a lot like snow covered rocks, so it was a very easy place to get turned around in. As I traipsed through the dark woods, I imagined what the local headlines would read if I did manage to die out here... LEFT TO OWN DEVICES, LOCAL ECCENTRIC DIES WHILE HUNTING MUSHROOMS IN SNOWSTORM.
A fitting epitaph... as it would make people wonder, and perhaps even think.
But, I know the woods around here pretty well, and eventually found the tree stump that was sprouting the large shelf mushroom I was after. I even managed to find the wasp nest I had remembered seeing, and all without having to even use the flashlight.
So, very tired, very wet and exhilarated, I returned home with my prizes. As I walked out of the woods, I was passed by a couple of people on ATVs, no doubt heading off into the woods to enjoy the storm in whatever fashion they had chosen. I did get more than a second glance from them tho, as I imagined they did not quite know what to make of a man dressed in a long black leather coat and black hat walking through the woods during a snow storm carrying a large knife in one hand and a large mushroom in the other. Happy Halloween folks!! The shelf shroom I gathered is of the same species, but slightly larger and flatter that the first one I found.. which I made into This shelf which now supports my computers speakers and other various odds and ends. So, yeah, not for just any shroom will I venture out into a thunder-snow storm. Of course however, I would do it just for fun.
After storing my prizes and warming myself by the fire, I realized this outage was going to last a bit, so I put some stuff from the refrigerator out on the back porch. And after that, I did very little for the rest of our 3-4 days without power. Now, I realize that many of my friends were without power for longer, and did not have an easy time of it... but for me, the several days without power were idyllic! I pretty much fell into a routine of reading, napping, animal care, doing some art, tending the wood-stove and replacing candles. It was a real blessing to be able to just sit and read for hours on end! During the daytime, enough light came in the windows that I could do artwork if I wanted Also, once the storm passed, the nights were crystal clear, and without all the light pollution one could easily see the Milky Way, as well as some of the dimmer stars like Alcor and such... so I did a bit of stargazing, and just standing in the night enjoying the darkness and silence of our town without power.
And the electronic pollution was absent as well. When our house has power, it is awash in electronic media and entertainment options, and while I do like having access to my e-mail or being able to put Pandora on my wide-screen TV as background music... I was heavenly to not have some yelling, flashing add trying to sell me something vital like toenail hardener, turnip twaddlers or medicine whose list of side effects sounds like it comes out of the DOD bio-weapons division every time I turned on an electronic device.
Of the several books I read during the power outage was Angles & Demons by Dan Brown, and seriously... I don't see what all the fuss was about, it's not that good of a book. The characters ( with one or two exceptions) are fairly cardboard and shallow, with The Assassin character being so ill-defined as to make my teeth hurt! And things like the security at the CERN institute are so laughable as to yank me right out of the story. Reading that book, led me to put The DaVinci Code dangerously near the pamphlets from the Jehovah's witnesses in my “to read” pile... I.E, in the kindling bin.
Another of the books I read was Black Wind by F. Paul Wilson, and that was a very enjoyable read, and easily good enough to take the bad taste of Angles and Demons out of my head. Of course, now my 'too read” pile is seriously depleted. Also, I shall have to start another batch or two of mead soon as well, because while many people near me were grumbling about having to drive several towns away to get beer or wine, I had several bottles of my orange-pepper mead left in the cellar. Orange-pepper mead goes excellent with cold cuts and cheese and books by candle light BTW.
Actually, the only disadvantage to not having power really, was the whole showering thing. I could heat water on the wood stove to wash my hair, but I doubt I could have managed to get a hot bath that way. Oh, and we did lose some of the meat in our freezer.
But now that we have power again, I can shop the internet to stock up on more books, candles, mead yeast and other essentials of life up here. Of course, having power again means I have many more decisions to make... like should I finish playing Deus Ex; Human revolution on my Ex-Box, so that when Skyrim comes out in less than a week, I can get through at least one play of that before the next time we lose power? Ah, such weighty decisions our modern world can impose on us!
And sure, I know I could just shut off the power if I wanted and go back to living and reading by candle light, and I would love to, except that the rest of the world, or even the tiny village I live in, would not follow, so there would still be the light, electronic and noise pollution that come with people having electricity. So, I guess I will just have to wait till we get another 2 feet of wet snow and our antiquated and crumbling infrastructure leads me to again be without power for days on end... and I can hardly wait!
Saturday started out great. I got my Dremel tool and materials all layed out, put the movie The 300 in the DVD player as “pretty background splatter', and was just starting to work on my next bone project... when the power went out.
Fine, this was annoying but no real problem. We lose power here every now and then, but we live near a major trunk line, and repair crews usually start working at major trunk lines and work outwards from them, so usually when we lose power, it comes on again pretty quickly.
It was Saturday evening, and the power had not come back on after several hours, so I was reading by candle light... when I remembered the mushroom. You see, Autumn is the time when I try to take lots of walks in the woods looking for materials for my artwork, as it is a lot easier to see things such as shelf mushrooms and wasp or hornets nests or interesting bits of rock or wood when there are no leaves on the trees. And already this Autumn I have taken several long walks and seen several things like mushrooms and wasp nests, marked their location in my head with the intent of coming back to get them at a later date.
Well, not knowing how much snow we were going to get, other than “a lot”, I realized that the snow may damage, or at the very least hide until Spring the things I had marked to “come back for later”. So, having nothing better to do, I donned my jacket and hat, grabbed a large knife and a flashlight and went out into the snowy night. I love storms; most any type of storm... wind storms, snow storms, electrical storms... I love them! Not sure about sand or dust storms, as I have never been in one, but I imagine I wouldn't be as keen on them as I am on other types of storms. And so, since I love the woods, and storms, being in the woods at night in a storm is for me, a really wonderful thing.
The snow was falling at a pretty good rate... you could hear the hissing sounds it made as it landed on the leaves of the trees and such. Also, it was Thunder-snow, so there were frequent flashes of lightning that lit up the woods, but did so without sound, because the snow muffles the sound of the thunder. So, I walked through the dark woods, hearing the hiss of the falling snow and the crunch of the snow and dried leaves beneath my feet and every now and then a sharp crack and loud crash as a tree or tree limb gave way under the weight of the heavy wet snow and crashed to the ground, and what with the whole area lit by silent flashes every now and then... it was magical!
Of course, I had to be careful, because getting lost in the woods in that kind of weather can be fatal. But, the mushroom and wasp nest I were after weren't too far from trails. But even this early in the storm, the woods looked very different, because the thinner trees were bent double under the weight of the snow making them look like bushes, and the actual bushes were by now just snow covered mounds, making them look a lot like snow covered rocks, so it was a very easy place to get turned around in. As I traipsed through the dark woods, I imagined what the local headlines would read if I did manage to die out here... LEFT TO OWN DEVICES, LOCAL ECCENTRIC DIES WHILE HUNTING MUSHROOMS IN SNOWSTORM.
A fitting epitaph... as it would make people wonder, and perhaps even think.
But, I know the woods around here pretty well, and eventually found the tree stump that was sprouting the large shelf mushroom I was after. I even managed to find the wasp nest I had remembered seeing, and all without having to even use the flashlight.
So, very tired, very wet and exhilarated, I returned home with my prizes. As I walked out of the woods, I was passed by a couple of people on ATVs, no doubt heading off into the woods to enjoy the storm in whatever fashion they had chosen. I did get more than a second glance from them tho, as I imagined they did not quite know what to make of a man dressed in a long black leather coat and black hat walking through the woods during a snow storm carrying a large knife in one hand and a large mushroom in the other. Happy Halloween folks!! The shelf shroom I gathered is of the same species, but slightly larger and flatter that the first one I found.. which I made into This shelf which now supports my computers speakers and other various odds and ends. So, yeah, not for just any shroom will I venture out into a thunder-snow storm. Of course however, I would do it just for fun.
After storing my prizes and warming myself by the fire, I realized this outage was going to last a bit, so I put some stuff from the refrigerator out on the back porch. And after that, I did very little for the rest of our 3-4 days without power. Now, I realize that many of my friends were without power for longer, and did not have an easy time of it... but for me, the several days without power were idyllic! I pretty much fell into a routine of reading, napping, animal care, doing some art, tending the wood-stove and replacing candles. It was a real blessing to be able to just sit and read for hours on end! During the daytime, enough light came in the windows that I could do artwork if I wanted Also, once the storm passed, the nights were crystal clear, and without all the light pollution one could easily see the Milky Way, as well as some of the dimmer stars like Alcor and such... so I did a bit of stargazing, and just standing in the night enjoying the darkness and silence of our town without power.
And the electronic pollution was absent as well. When our house has power, it is awash in electronic media and entertainment options, and while I do like having access to my e-mail or being able to put Pandora on my wide-screen TV as background music... I was heavenly to not have some yelling, flashing add trying to sell me something vital like toenail hardener, turnip twaddlers or medicine whose list of side effects sounds like it comes out of the DOD bio-weapons division every time I turned on an electronic device.
Of the several books I read during the power outage was Angles & Demons by Dan Brown, and seriously... I don't see what all the fuss was about, it's not that good of a book. The characters ( with one or two exceptions) are fairly cardboard and shallow, with The Assassin character being so ill-defined as to make my teeth hurt! And things like the security at the CERN institute are so laughable as to yank me right out of the story. Reading that book, led me to put The DaVinci Code dangerously near the pamphlets from the Jehovah's witnesses in my “to read” pile... I.E, in the kindling bin.
Another of the books I read was Black Wind by F. Paul Wilson, and that was a very enjoyable read, and easily good enough to take the bad taste of Angles and Demons out of my head. Of course, now my 'too read” pile is seriously depleted. Also, I shall have to start another batch or two of mead soon as well, because while many people near me were grumbling about having to drive several towns away to get beer or wine, I had several bottles of my orange-pepper mead left in the cellar. Orange-pepper mead goes excellent with cold cuts and cheese and books by candle light BTW.
Actually, the only disadvantage to not having power really, was the whole showering thing. I could heat water on the wood stove to wash my hair, but I doubt I could have managed to get a hot bath that way. Oh, and we did lose some of the meat in our freezer.
But now that we have power again, I can shop the internet to stock up on more books, candles, mead yeast and other essentials of life up here. Of course, having power again means I have many more decisions to make... like should I finish playing Deus Ex; Human revolution on my Ex-Box, so that when Skyrim comes out in less than a week, I can get through at least one play of that before the next time we lose power? Ah, such weighty decisions our modern world can impose on us!
And sure, I know I could just shut off the power if I wanted and go back to living and reading by candle light, and I would love to, except that the rest of the world, or even the tiny village I live in, would not follow, so there would still be the light, electronic and noise pollution that come with people having electricity. So, I guess I will just have to wait till we get another 2 feet of wet snow and our antiquated and crumbling infrastructure leads me to again be without power for days on end... and I can hardly wait!