Gardening as the winter snows hit

[gwendally]

It is snowing heavily outside and apparently we're supposed to get up to a foot of heavy wet snow.  That means we'll lose power.  Welcome to winter.  It seems early, but whatever.  It's not like I didn't know winter is coming.

We had a few hours this morning to get things buttoned up.  B. and Small Boy raked leaves and took a load to the dump.  I

Comments

[fullauto]

Have you had any problems with diseases in your tomato plants? We rotate our hybrid tomatoes among our raised beds and we still had problems with fungus this year due to the really wet spring. I am hoping to kill out the fungus with a 3 year rotation-- time will tell.

Did you see that Louisiana passed a state law that prohibits using cash for second hand transactions? I immediately wondered what you thought about it: http://www.klfy.com/story/15717759/second-hand-dealer-law

[abz6598]

Make sure you're ready for the upcoming power outage...you know, the essentials....flashlight, batteries, candles, radio, etc, etc. Oh..and the Swiss army knife and song in your heart! Don't forget those!

[gwendally]

There are tens of thousands of people without power in my area right now. This storm hit HARD. Neighbors on all sides have branches down. A fire truck was parked outside my house for a couple of hours last night - I assume from a downed wire. The road right there is blocked off with barriers and yellow tape and everyone who lives up that street is stuck inside as it's a dead-end street.

But I'm fine. The power flickered once. We have heat, we have water, we have internet.

The irony of this is that I have redundant systems for ALL of those and could easily handle a power outage... sort of indefinitely. It always seems fickle of fate to leave me alone.

[gwendally]

LOL, moments after I posted that I had power, I lost it. Still have my 3kwH from the solar panel/battery inverter, but need to rely on solar gain and woodstove for heat now. :-)

(The internet and chest freezer and my computer all run off the solar power.)

B. had to go into work for their emergency response there. Meanwhile, the news I just got:

***AS OF 11AM, ACCORDING TO MEMA 671,594 CUSTOMERS ARE WITHOUT POWER***

My daughter calls this Snowlaweenageddon.

I called a family I particularly like and offered them refuge if they want it. One of them cannot live without internet so I expect her here shortly. This assuaged my liberal guilt.

[kittles]

Sometimes I wish you were my neighbor. :) We would have such a grand time!

[gwendally]

I know you're right, because it turns out that someone on my flist, froggoddess IS my neighbor. We met through Livejournal and talked about sustainable living and gardening and putting food by and one day we realized we lived near each other. Then we realized we lived VERY near each other. Then we realized that we live in the SAME NEIGHBORHOOD. Now we share plants and equipment. She's the only person I've loaned my pickup truck to. She came and helped out part-time at my front desk last year for a while. It was incredibly lucky for me, and cut down on the bitching you had to hear about my front desk staff. (You only ever hear when I have a bad person, I almost never blog about helpful people!)