Skip to content

Help! We’re getting colder and colder!

Help! We’re getting colder and colder!

February 28, 2011 SVadmin Comments 3 comments

Writing from the Internet cafe at Flour Garden …

We’re into our fourth day without power, and without our HVAC, except when we’re running our backup generator. We have no secondary source of heat, such as a woodburning stove.

By our second day we were able to shovel enough snow from the driveway to get out for awhile. If it weren’t for our pets, we’d probably have headed for the valley and warm lodging days ago.

I went out to the garage this morning — which we often use in the winter as a spare “refrigerator” — and for the first time ever I felt no subjective difference in temperature there from the temperature inside the house! The upside of this, I suppose, is that now we can just use our house as a spare refrigerator.

The thermometer on the bookcase in our livingroom read 48 degrees when we got up at 7 AM today.

I heard on KVMR this morning that there are about 500 people remaining without power in Nevada City, and about 50 in Grass Valley (where we live). This means that we have the honor of being members of the last group here to get power restored, and as of this writing we have no idea when that may be. PG&E promises more “information” by midnight tonight.

A number of old-timers in this area have mentioned that there were big snowstorms in the 1970s, but not nearly as many outages as we have now. Isn’t PG&E doing enough tree work before winter to prevent many of these outages?

This is our third winter in Grass Valley since we moved into the house we built here twenty years ago. We learn something new about survival each winter. This winter our big lesson is … we need a secondary source of heat! Yesterday we went over to Sierra Timberline and started shopping for a fireplace insert.

Listening to chatter here at Flour Garden, I realize that we are surrounded by refugees from Nevada City and Grass Valley (some from our neighborhood), all waiting to hear from PG&E that their power is restored.

Looking toward our neighbor's vineyard

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Blog, Environment, Local
LocalJournalism

Post navigation

PREVIOUS
Could Income Inequality Become a Permanent Feature of the US?
NEXT
Republican War on Working Families (video)

Join Our Mailing List

3 thoughts on “Help! We’re getting colder and colder!”

  1. Anna Haynes says:
    March 2, 2011 at 12:18 pm

    Ouch. Hope you get power soon, if it’s not already back yet; otherwise, you can always move to Alaska, which I understand is balmy this winter.

  2. Don Pelton says:
    March 2, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    Actually, we got our power back late Monday afternoon.

    We learn something every winter. Our lesson this year is that we’ll definitely have a woodburning stove before next winter. We can’t be 100% dependent on electricity for heat, as we are now with our HVAC.

    But Alaska? I just checked Fairbanks, where our daughter’s inlaws live, and right now it’s a “balmy” and toasty -4 (that’s minus four) degrees!

    I’ll stay here, with all our problems.

  3. Anna Haynes says:
    March 4, 2011 at 4:15 pm

    > Fairbanks… -4 (that’s minus four) degrees

    OK, time travel back to early January 2010 might help.
    (“much of coastal Alaska warmer than Florida” (link))

    I think I read somewhere that once the Arctic sea ice finally freezes over, weather patterns seem to go back to normal.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

DONATE TO THE FOOD BANK OF NEVADA COUNTY

(CLICK IMAGE)

DONATE TO NEVADA COUNTY RELIEF FUND (click image below)

Jack Kornfield: A Steady Heart in Time of Corona Virus (Part I)

Subscribe to Sierra Voices Journal

Erika Lewis, Shaye Cohn, Craig Flory – Got A Mind To Ramble

Tara Brach: A Steady Heart in Time of Corona Virus (Part II)

Recent Posts

  • How worried should you be about coronavirus variants? A virologist explains his concerns
  • Stumbling into War?
  • A new force of nature? The inside story of fresh evidence from Cern that’s exciting physicists – podcast
  • The Covid Warning Signal We’re Ignoring Could Be Disastrous
  • “This Little Light of Mine” (Good Medicine!)

Recent Comments

  • STASIA KENNEDY on Have You Done the “Great Thing” You Dreamed of Doing With Your Life?
  • Board of Supervisors Tables COVID-19 Resolution Widely Misunderstood By Nevada County Residents on Comments by Eric Robins to Board of Supervisors Concerning “Open Nevada County” Resolution
  • Douglas Keachie on The Most Urgent Issue in U.S. Politics is Not Biden or Trump, Not Who is President This Time
  • The Most Important Issue in US Politics is Not Biden or Trump, or Even Who is President This Time on How to stop an Insurrection Caucus: These reforms could reduce GOP extremism and save our democracy
  • (Posted by) Don Pelton on GOP Warns Dems About Court Packing (Cartoon)

Archives

  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • January 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009

Categories

  • Aging
  • Anti-Depressant
  • Articles
  • Atlas Obscura
  • Authoritarianism
  • Black Lives
  • Black Lives Matter
  • Blog
  • Buddhism
  • Buskers
  • Capitalism
  • Cartoon
  • China
  • Climate Change
  • Constitution
  • Corona Virus
  • Corruption
  • Cosmology
  • COVID-19
  • Democracy
  • Depression
  • Disenfranchisement
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Election Fraud
  • Environment
  • Extinction
  • Farming
  • Fascism
  • Filibuster
  • Fire!
  • Food Insecurity
  • Foreign Policy
  • Forest Management
  • Fracking
  • Gardening
  • Gender
  • Health Care
  • High Country News
  • History
  • Humor
  • Hunger
  • Ignorance
  • Immigration
  • Insects
  • Labor
  • Local
  • Masks
  • Medical Care
  • Men
  • Mental Health
  • Middle Class
  • Mining
  • MMT
  • Modern Monetary Theory
  • Music
  • Native Americans
  • New Cold War
  • Nutrition
  • Oligarchy
  • Pandemic
  • Parenting
  • Physics
  • Poetry
  • Police
  • Politics
  • Populism
  • Press
  • Race
  • Reviews
  • Revolution
  • Right-wing terrorism
  • Rise Gold
  • Rivers
  • Romance
  • Russiagate
  • Science
  • Summer
  • Technology
  • Trump Virus
  • Tuba Skinny
  • Tyranny
  • Uncategorized
  • Vaccine Refusal
  • Vaccine Safety
  • Voting
  • War
  • War on Government
  • Water
  • Watersheds
  • Wildfires
  • Winter
  • Work

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
© 2021   All Rights Reserved.