. 

Yes, that is great news. 

Very happy to hear you, your family and your home are alright, Lady K. 

Cheers, Terry 

LadyK- Glad you're safe & sound. Seems as if you were very well prepared!

Thank you, Karla, Terry and SirDave!  We knew this was going to be a big one similar to the one that covered the barrier islands in 1962, so we were ready.  

I was worried about my friends in the Northeast. They seem to be okay. The towns where they live took damage, but all my friends are still here to talk about it, which is good.

Good to hear from you Lady K., and also that things are getting back to normal for you! (And that today's storm apparently didn't cause trouble for you either.)

Welcome back Lady K.  Now here comes the tricky question.  Did your stockpile of chocolate last you the whole nine days? 

Nine days without power. I somehow managed eight days with last years storm but then it was still summer and the temperatures were in accordance with the season, guess I have to pass the Survivor Trophy to you Lady K.

Originally Posted By Caroline (7 NOV 2012 10:01pm)

Welcome back Lady K.  Now here comes the tricky question.  Did your stockpile of chocolate last you the whole nine days? 

Well, since Halloween was a complete washout this year, I couldn't let all those candy bars go to waste, now could I?  Besides, the shopping center behind my house got power within a few days, so we were able to restock on staples.

It was a long haul, CB, and there are still people without power.  My sister-in-law and her husband live on a lagoon lot off of Barnegat Bay.  The water rose 4 feet and stopped about 6 inches below their doorsill.  Many people on her block were flooded out, and that included a power relay station at the end of their street, so it'll be a while before those repairs are made.  Fortunately, they have a generator and don't have any damage except for a few easily replaceable things stored in the crawl space. 

Originally Posted By Lady Kestrel (8 NOV 2012 1:57am)

Originally Posted By Caroline (7 NOV 2012 10:01pm)

Welcome back Lady K. [...] Did your stockpile of chocolate last you the whole nine days?

Well, since Halloween was a complete washout this year, I couldn't let all those candy bars go to waste, now could I?

Originally Posted By Lady Kestrel (8 NOV 2012 1:57am)
Besides, the shopping center behind my house got power within a few days, so we were able to restock on staples.

Reese's Cups, Almond Joys, Mounds, Kit Kats, M & M's, Butterfingers, Hershey's, Cadbury, Godiva... American Halloween chocolate ammunition against goblins. And massive storms.

So good to know our Nor'easter forum members are alive and for the most part, have regained the basic life amenities we all take for granted.

Our hearts are with you all.

Glad to hear you're safe and sound Lady-K! Jersey sure got nailed. It was interesting how quickly one adapted to the sun-down/sun-up cycle. I actually slept more than I ususally do. Did go out for drinks with the locals quite often, but after it got darkl it felt as if it was 2 oclock in the morning - like being in the country.

I'm actually missing the candles now, but I've always enjoyed subdued lighting and I love turning lights off when not using them. I relied on a couple of old school oil lamps in a cottage/getaway shack I rented for years.

Almost everyone I met who lost water, especially hot water, would have gladly traded electricity for it. Running water = not having to carry buckets of water up stairs just to use the toilet, that grows old fast. A hot shower or bath makes up for so many of the days travails too.

Originally Posted By Mark (8 NOV 2012 3:34am)

Reese's Cups, Almond Joys, Mounds, Kit Kats, M & M's, Butterfingers, Hershey's, Cadbury, Godiva... American Halloween chocolate ammunition against goblins. And massive storms.

You got that right, Mark.  I'm munching on a Nestle Crunch bar as I'm typing this.

We just cleaned out our freezer and bought new food, but I was really surprised how long our fridge kept things usable for us.  After 5 days, the frozen ground beef was still hard as a rock, so I made a nice meat spaghetti sauce.  This wouldn't have been the case in the summer, but the outside temps were cool enough to keep things fresh with a little help from some bags of ice. 

Tincup,

The hot water was a blessing.  The little propane stoves brought the indoor temperature up from 50 to 60 degrees F., but that was still chilly when we weren't moving around.  Being able to soak my cold bones under the shower and then tuck myself under my down comforter for the night was delicious.  

Most of our neighbors have well water with electric pumps, so we just left one of our hoses on so they could fill their buckets whenever they needed to.  The lady across the street has 5 growing boys, so they were constantly filling up.

We now have a generator that will keep the fridge and the electric parts of our gas furnace working if (when) we lose power again.  My husband bought it on the day our power was restored, of course.

Good.. My mom is out on the end of Long Island and has well water too. A power outage mean no running water, so the prudent fill their bathtub in advance of the storm!

Originally Posted By Lady Kestrel (8 NOV 2012 4:29pm)

We now have a generator that will keep the fridge and the electric parts of our gas furnace working if (when) we lose power again.  My husband bought it on the day our power was restored, of course.

Good move! I went out and bought a generator earlier this fall. Nothing spectacular, just enough (3500W) to keep the fridge and cellar freezer operational plus a few lights and maybe a laptop for entertainment purposes. No way was I ever going to lose all my veggies in the freezer that I had grown in the garden, especially all the tomatoes par-cooked and frozen and ready to make a years supply of spaghetti sause on the wood stove during the cold months ever again. What I remember most though is the young woman at the checkout when I bought the thing. While discussing last years storm at some point she looked at me and said you know I hope you never have to use this. I said I hope so too. Both storms including the latest kept us in the light. Knock on wood ...

Glad to hear you saved your produce CB. I hope you had a "strategic gasloline reserve" so you could avoid the choas of getting gas!

I'm interested in a bare bones photovoltaic system for apartment use in the event of another sever blackout. For instance, a PV mat that hangs off the firescape or lays on the roof that would be enough to power bare essentials during daylight hours. The size required to run a fridge and a few outlets is surprisingly small but a slighly larger system with a battery permits night time use. Nautical use of PV is quite common and I've seen PV packages for cabins that work off only 50 square feet. For emmergency purposes half that area might suffice. PV doesn't need gasoline - an obvious benefit given how scare and troublesome procuring the stuff has become.

We have odd/even gas rationing in the city as of last night and I'm hearing the system is working very well. They will not wait a week to impose it if/when we have another one of these.

Shore communities still struggling and this is far from over. 

CB, why don't you go the whole hog with those tomatoes and bottle them.    What other produce do you grow?

When you say bottle them are you referring to tomatoe juice? Interesting though as this was a topic of interest that we were planning to look into next year.

As for other produce harvested this year ...let me think. 

blueberries, rasberries, strawberries, peaches, potatoes, melons, asparagus, rhubarb, leaf lettuce, acorn squash, broccoli, sweet corn, carrots, beets, string beans, cukes, summer squash, zucchini, onions, peppers.

Even though I love eating them straight out of the pod I've given up on peas as they don't seem to thrive very well anymore.

Fortunately I have easy access to all the 'organic' fertilizer that is needed.   

No, I meant process the tomatoes into pasta sauce and bottle it.  You might call it preserving.  You can use pre-used glass bottles and jars, sterilised and with bought lids to seal.  Or you can buy special wide mouth glass jars - we call them Fowler's preserving jars and their lids have clips.  I know women who bottle their peaches and they use them instead of buying canned fruit.

We used to grow green peas and we were told never to grow them two years running in the same spot.  Plant sweet peas in their spot (you need to put nitrates back into the soil and this is the natural way to do that).  Of course, that was 30 years ago so there may be a better way now.   Besides, you'll probably enjoy the crop of sweetly scented flowers.

Your garden crop sounds terrific.  How big is your yard and do you have any bragging photos to share?

We call it "canning" over here. But I dont know why since its in jars just the way you described Caroline.

 I think the more appropriate term would be "Jarring"

 I've only ever canned Pickles.

I have a friend who requests her friends donate those large glass pasta sauce jars.  Then twice a year she and her man head off to the growers market and buy crates and crates of tomatoes which they turn into all sorts of things.  I love her tomato sauce, especially with a nice steak.  She makes a batch with the seed in because as we all know, they are the sweetest part.  Real food tastes so much nicer than the supermarket stuff.  I often wish I had the determination to do this but I don't have the cupboard space to store it anyway.   My mother used to make damson jam when I was little but I'm more interested in pickling onions - the bought variety are too sweet for my taste.

As a wee tyke I vaguely remember mom canning a few things (using those vacuum sealed glass jars - Ball canning jars?) and seeing them stored in the basement. Nowadays I go the easier route with ziplock freezer bags. A practical tip is to suck out as much air as possible before freezing. 

Gramp's garden on the farm is good sized, about 12,000 sq ft. Back when he was still alive he utilized every bit of it. Fond memories. 

I have a gadget that sucks the air out of zip lock bags that also have a small valve in them.  Mostly though I freeze soups.  Sweet potato and pear is a nice one.

Originally Posted By Helen (11 NOV 2012 8:55am)

We call it "canning" over here. But I dont know why since its in jars just the way you described Caroline.

 

 I think the more appropriate term would be "Jarring"

 

 I've only ever canned Pickles.

Originally, before 'tin cans', canning was done in glass 'canisters' from which came the term, 'canning', then came tin cans, but of course, since most people wouldn't be able to create tin cans, home canning continued in the form of glass mason-type jars that were an improvement over the original glass canisters. Thought you would deperately want to know.

Originally Posted By SirDave (12 NOV 2012 4:34pm)

Originally Posted By Helen (11 NOV 2012 8:55am)

We call it "canning" over here. But I dont know why since its in jars just the way you described Caroline.

 

 I think the more appropriate term would be "Jarring"

 

 I've only ever canned Pickles.

 

Originally, before 'tin cans', canning was done in glass 'canisters' from which came the term, 'canning', then came tin cans, but of course, since most people wouldn't be able to create tin cans, home canning continued in the form of glass mason-type jars that were an improvement over the original glass canisters. Thought you would deperately want to know.

Well, actually I have to admit I wondered why it was called canning, and now I know.

Thanks for the info.