Another Fine Spring Day

At 5:00 am the wind blew so hard that it woke me up.  I lounged in bed thinking “wow, the wind doesn’t usually wake me up”.  Great Falls is typically on the top 10 list of most windy places and I guess I’ve acclimatized because it doesn’t wake me up.  But not today.  I tried going back to sleep, after all it really is too early to get up, at least this week.

Soon McGyver was up (he’s an early bird), he went to let the dogs out and was welcomed with this:

He came into the bedroom where I was starting to drift off back to sleep and announces, a tree has fallen on our house.  Let me tell you, that’ll wake you right up.  I hopped out of bed, looked out the bedroom window and what to my wandering eyes, should appear?  Wrong time of year for Santa, darn, no, I saw a tree hanging down over our house.  No surprises, we were also with out power.  No buried lines here as you can see from the photo.  More time without power, I wasn’t looking forward to it. 

We lost power the night before, it wasn’t too bad.  Just a side note here, our power loss wasn’t from the weather, evidently somebody decided to torch a power pole.  A cold dinner (left over manicotti) and a board game of Life by flashlight, then a few hours later the power was back on.  I made my post (which meant I was up a little late) and went to bed with no worries.  It’s amazing how life can change just that quick.

After a quick assessment/planning, McGyver and I both called off work (hello, no shower, no workie).  We woke up the baby boy by telling him a tree fell on the house.  Amazingly the teenager got right up to check it out.  If anyone has a teenager, they know how difficult it is to wake them up, but drama, it seemed to work.  I am trying to devise other “drama” I could announce in the morning to get him to rise.  I welcome any ideas. 

Lucky for us, our bosses were very understanding so we set out to do something about the crisis.  It started with McGyver calling the power company since the branches were hanging on the lines.  I acted fast and texted my next door neighbor to let her know what was going on, cause she didn’t seem to have power either.  She had to go to work so we assured her we would take care of everything.  I know, I know, what good Samaritans we are.  Actually we thought it might be one of her trees, there are so many in our neighborhood and they are close together and at 0’dark thirty it’s had to tell.  I was concerned about her, and it was just too exciting tragic not too share.

The power company said they would be right out.  Baby boy took a shower (the water wasn’t cold yet) and McGyver took him to school, no fallen tree day off for him.  Not that he would want to stick around with no power and the possibility of having to shovel the walk way and do damage control.  For once school seemed like the fun choice for the day.

McGyver is getting ready to clean off the snow.

Believe it or not, the power company came out and our power was right back up.  But then they saw the branches and took our power line down until it was fixed.

So, no power until it’s fixed.

Meanwhile coffee was desperately needed.  Sure we could have gone out and bought some but no shower no leave the house!

Time to do some house camping.

A sterno stove and water to boil.  We have a French Press so we were set. Well  we were set because your truly was smart enough to grind coffee beans the 5 minutes we had power.

We surveyed the damage…

The power line, my power.  No lights, no computer, no TV, worse yet, no hair dryer or curling iron.

These are tough times my friend.

McGyver is a consummate Boy Scout, he is the epitome of “Be Prepared”.

This comes in handy (it is also how he got his nick-name).

Awhile back unbeknownst to me, he had purchased a branch trimmer attachment for our Ryobi.

He read the instructions, fueled the Ryobi and set out to be my hero.

He worked and worked.

Mostly I stayed close by to make sure he was okay, well mostly I stayed around to take pictures.

I also made breakfast because that’s my job.  He works the manly job and I make sure he gets enough calories to keep him going so I don’t have to take over.

House camping meal: toast and cheese.

Look at me, little McGyverette.

All in all, not a bad spread.

Back to work for McGyver.

I have a secret to tell you, shhhh, don’t let McGyver know. 

Ready….McGyver is afraid of heights.  That’s right folks, he’s an Air Force retired helicopter pilot and he’s afraid of heights.

Guess what my poor hero had to do?

Yep, climb on a snowy, slippery slope of a roof to take care of what turned out not to be an actual tree but a bunch of branches.

We’re trying to clear the lines honey!

Actually, I am so proud of McGyver.  He’s really never ever done this before and he just stepped up and took care of business.

It’s so hot when a man is doing manly work. I’m just saying…

Can’t wait to warm him up….

While we, er, I mean Mcgyver was clearing the place up, my bosses husband stopped by to see if we needed anything. 

Really? How great is that, other then I nearly slipped and fell on my ass trying to walk up to the back gate to great him, it was such a nice gesture.  Ha, he also got to see me do the little slip-n-slide dance on the snow.

Ready to provide entertainment at a moments notice!

I was also contacted by numerous co-workers to see if everything was okay.  Welcome to the last best place to live!

This is what we are left with:

By 2:00 pm all was cleared and the power company came back out, hooked up the power line and I got a HOT shower.

I would like to take up a line here and say that Northwestern Energy really came through for us.  They responding quickly, were helpful and friendly.

Those guys had been working all night trying to clear up issue just like this around the city.  Thank You power people for letting me have my hair dryer and curling iron back.

Just another fine winter spring day in Montana!