The Chairman sent one of the Interns down to the Fire Ring this morning to say we were advancing up the list of those without power due to Winter Storm “Frida.” We think that is the name, but after the new back-up generator failed around sundown last night- that would be Monday, for many of you- we have been flickering around the bounds of electrons stored on lithium-based battery powered devices. “Residual power,” as they say.

We were pretty smug at Refuge Farm yesterday when the grid failed yesterday shortly after breakfast. despite the widespread outage that affected some 70,000 grid customers, the new Generex back-up battery powered up with a chug, restored power after a flicker or two, and enabled us to have a pleasant day watching old films and catching up on the sprawling nature of the disaster.

We mentioned how proud we were for the advance planning, which probably should have included getting the snow shovel out from under the porch or walking down the steps and across the fallow grass to check the amount of propane in the tank. But Frida’s fury was pretty cool while it was pummeling us with most of a foot of white flakey stuff, the fire was blazing in the fireplace and the news was varied and fairly interesting.

That is, fairly interesting until shortly after nightfall. The generator’s noise suddenly shifted an octave or so higher, the lights flickered and the TV died. There was another spurt of power, almost enough to enable us to re-set the various clocks, and then the sound and power died. Our smug assurance that we had dodged another disaster faded quickly as candles were located, light ignited, and the warm glow filtered red through the wax cast a cheery glow on our growing realization that our trouble call to the electric co-op was probably about 43,000th in line, and that it would be a dark and chilly night.

It was. Nice morning, all things considered. The phones still have a residual charge, the generator and propane companies have been contacted, and clear skies may enable the utilities to get some trucks on the road and see what the weight of the white stuff has done.

Accordingly, this is short and sweet. We may see some improvement later today. If we do, the Writer’s Section is committed to provide an update if any of the devices has enough charge left. First big snow in about four years, and a caution to update the emergency plans.

Entertaining moment? Cooking on the stove. The wood-burning stove. The one in the Great Room at the big house. The one where you have to get a glove to raise the pot to open the top access panel of cast iron and feed more wood into the burning maw inside.

More news when there is some. The external sources of information are flickering and going out, one by one. More later, we are sure.

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