The Night the Lights Went Out

Today is Snack Sunday for us. We provided snacks about three weeks ago, and took pictures, but I never got a post made. Yesterday Kev made Pioneer Woman's Chex Party Mix, Pioneer Woman's The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever. and I made goat cheese.

We've been getting more milk lately, and it's not just because of the new baby goats, because we aren't even taking that mama's milk for two-leg consumption. Since the days are warmer, and daylight is increasing, the milk supply starts going back up. Plus, when I get extra tired, I don't tend to the milk as diligently as I should - meaning it sits in the fridge sometimes for so many days that we run out of milk jars. Not fun. When you milk, you want clean, air-dried milk jars to filter the day's milk into, you don't want to have to spend time cleaning jars. Okay, and "so many days" is 3 or 4 days worth of milk. Usually I'm on the ball, bagging and freezing yesterday's half gallon within 24 hours. I was surprised to find a jar from the 18th and I'm REAL picky about milk that's gone goaty-tasting and this jar tasted sweet and delicious. So into the pot it went.

Several days old milk is PERFECT for making cheese. And making cheese uses up a lot of milk at one time. And the whey is nutritious and can be fed to the chickens, who love it. No waste!

I made vinegar cheese. It is a soft, bland, white cheese which is best for crumbling onto salads, or eating with crackers. It doesn't melt.

I heated two gallons of milk slowly in a big pot, stirring constantly so it wouldn't scorch. I had to let the temperature rise to 185°F. It took over 30 minutes of constant stirring! After it reaches the correct temperature, I turned off the heat and slowly mixed in 1 cup of apple cider vinegar. The milk began to coagulate and curds started forming and floating to the top. I used the spider (a wide strainer) to skim off the curds and moved them into a strainer sitting over a big glass bowl.

I got the garlic and jalapeño made. Next I started mixing the kosher salt into the plain.

And then the lights went out. Complete darkness.

Now when the lights go out, people know they can't cook because there's no power to the microwave or range top. Unless they have a gas stove, then they're okay. And you can't watch television, or play on the computer. But you could wash your hands, or take a shower. That's all taken for granted.

But when you live in the country and you haul your own water, our family has learned that you don't turn on the water. If you do, you run the risk of emptying your water lines and then you'd have to prime everything. See, we haul our own water and bring it home to our underground tank. We have a pump that sucks the water from the underground tank into our pipes, pressurizing our water lines.

Don't flush the toilet, don't wash your hands, don't get a drink of water. Luckily we always bring our well water with us for drinking wherever we go, so we always have containers of water around.

So dh fumbled around in the dark to where he faithfully keeps the flashlights, and I found a candle. I finished up the plain cheese, and then made the basil and onion.

Kev got his geetar, oh wait, that's guitar, to entertain the family with his strumming. Soon Pa was singing a song about going to get water.

See that's what newbies do in our neighborhood. We live so close to the well we can see it from our porch, and when the electricity goes out, trucks with water tanks start coming to the well.

Apparently people are sitting around, bored out of their minds, and they start wondering what they could do, "Oh, I know, let's go get a load of water. That'll be something to do."

Because when you live in the city, water always works when the electricity goes out. But not in the country. The well also runs on electricity.

So truck after truck comes by the well, and they unlock the box, and put in their key and then they realize, no electricity, no water. Quite a few of them peel out in disgust and embarrassment.

So Pa was singing a rambling off-key song about getting water, "Let's take a shower, flush the toilet, go ahead wife, take a long bath by candlelight while we're out getting a load of water, see ya later, honey, oh no, the well doesn't work, we're total newbies, oh husband I couldn't take a bath, the water doesn't work, something's wrong, maybe the pump is broken, let's go to Home Depot and get a new one."

It wasn't storming out, and I'd called the electricity company already. They didn't know what was going on, but said they were getting a lot of calls. Our electric company shares the wires with a local company, so it can take them some time to figure out whose job it is to fix whatever is wrong. The representative pointed that out, and said it would be at least one hour.

It was stuffy in the house, so we went outside. While out there, we came up with a new home renovation, we're going to remove all the insulation from within the walls. We have never run the heater since we've lived here, and it was so nice outside, chilly almost. And it was hot and stuffy inside.

We stayed outside for a while, the stars were so bright. Kev counted them and said there were 215.

Actually it's so dark out here, we can see the Milky Way and millions upon millions of stars. That was one of the best things about moving out of the city, where you're lucky if you can see 215 stars in the dead of night.

Finally I started getting cold, so I got a flannel out of the car. It was close to 10pm and dh said he was going inside. Ds1 was relieved, as he had been standing on the porch the entire time as he doesn't like the dark.

We'd been inside for less than a minute, when the lights dimly came on. I've never seen anything like that in all my forty-four years. It was like they were working at half power. Even the fridge lights were dim. Dh said it's because they only had one "leg" hooked up at that point. Soon the lights blared up to full brightness, we turned them out and we all went to bed. I was so happy because I can't sleep without my fan blowing on me when it's so warm in the house. We're trying really hard to lower our electricity bill. It gets really high when you run the air conditioner all winter long. Not to mention it's hard on the unit to try to make cold air to cool down the house when it's sitting out in the freezing cold.

Home renovation, here we come!

Until next time.