Last Saturday, May 21, started off so pleasantly. The sun was shining and there was no sign of what was to come. But then I looked down at the aquilegia ( columbine) . All their little heads were turned down.
At around 1pm our phones began to shriek an alert. Severe weather Take shelter immediately! What seemed like only a few minutes later, the heavens opened, and rain was lashing against the windows. Then the power went out. From our kitchen we could see a tree had come down across the road. The rain and wind were certainly very severe and lasted about 20 minutes. Then we saw the farmer next door to us had come out with his tractor and cleared the fallen tree so cars could still get down the road. As we looked down the road we could see that more trees were down.
Later we learned a tornado had ripped through the town that is about 20 minutes away from us. Roofs had been ripped off and cars flipped over! We considered ourselves lucky that our house was not damaged, our trees were not damaged, and neither were we!
Next day I drove up to the barn. They did not have power either. But there is a generator that runs the well pump so the horses have water. This is what I saw on the road to the barn.
If you look closely you can see this tree is laying on two power lines.
On the way home I found this on the road.
At the bottom of the road we live on there was this!
The crews from Ontario Hydro, who are the providers of electricity in Ontario ,were working overtime to get the power back on. But big trees have to be cleared by arborists or tree removal workers. We thought the power might come back on before too long. But once we learned there were some 5,000 people in our area without power we realized it would be much longer. So we set about living a non electric life.
We have an old two burner camp stove. It still works and we cooked meals on it and heated water for tea or coffee and washing up dishes.We are in the country and get our water from a well. No power, no water from the well, as it cannot be pumped up. What to do? We bucketed water from our pool . The pool is not opened up yet but has lots of “green” water from rain and snow so there was lots to use. Not for drinking! For flushing the toilet.
By day five the non electric life had worn pretty thin. But I reminded myself that if I lived in Ukraine a lack of electricity would be the least of my worries . And we had our house undamaged and my horse, Biasini, was just fine too. And those aquilegias?They also survived the rain and wind . They are indeed the Flowers of the Day.
Today, May 25 , power came back on. Here is a photo my husband took with his phone of the power workers doing the last bit to restore our electricity.
So there you have it. In years to come people here will say :” Where were you in the storm of 2022?”
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