Mother Nature

We Had a huge snowstorm in the North East last weekend. 17″ of snow fell at my house. Here’s some photos.  As you can see we managed to have some fun while our power was out (4 days). Halloween came and went without any notice in my little neighborhood. My neighbor made our dog Jane a costume which she graciously modeled for pictures.

I had many thoughts about our ancestors during the power outage. Its hard to get much done without lights, and candles work only so well. My first thoughts were things like no wonder they went to bed when the sun set and got up at the crack of dawn. We heat with wood and I noted how much more difficult it is to get wood in the house in the dark, make dinner in the dark, basically do anything in the dark. I did however catch up on my sleep, crawling into bed each night early with my little battery operated book light. We slept downstairs on the sofa which was quite wonderful when getting up in the middle of night to use the lieu. Our bedroom is on the second floor of our house and there isn’t a bathroom. Our house was built in 1870 there really isn’t even a place to build a bathroom on the second floor, very small spaces upstairs.

I began to noticed how I repeatedly reached to turn the lights on even though I new there wasn’t power. Its a habit, enter a room, turn on a light. After the first day I tired to take note—to stop and be grateful for the ease with which I live. I know there are many people living in difficult circumstances in this country and other countries, people who everyday go with out essentials like hot water, lights, heat, food. I think of myself as someone who conserves water and energy, we recycle, we compost, I try not to take more resources than I truly need… I quickly came to the realization that we could carry on with a little less. Now that the power has been restored I’m trying to conserve more. Happily I was reminded how beautiful candlelight is.