Project-Life-2021-February-page-3-4

By scrapgarden

February 22, 2021
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was 40 degrees. Her phone had died and no way to charge it. She said she tried to call to us earlier from her front porch, but we did not hear her. Brought her and the puppies to our house where they stayed until the power came back on four days later. First thing she wanted was a cup of coffee! We have a land line and still had phone service. Until the birch tree laid on it too hard and pulled the line off the house. It hung there still connected and worked for awhile and then went dead. We do have a cell phone so not a diaster. We were able to keep the phones charged by taking them out to our little RV van where we could use the turn the cigarette lighter into a usb port. Had to leave the van running for a long time, but it did charge them up if very slowly. The ice was up to 3 inches thick in some places. The trees just couldn't handle that much weight. The locust in the front yard lost two really large branches and numerous small ones. A veryt large branch came incredidble close to taking our our neighbors car. There was so much ice on her car and the smaller branches that they didn't even scratch the side of the car. Most of the birch in the backyard is laying on the roof of the garage. It straightened up and is fine. One trunk was really arched and the top was touching the ground. It didn't break and raised back up, although not as straight, but it will survive. The pergola under the birch didn't survive so well. It did't like a heavy birch tree laying on it and it broke. Will have to be taken down and the honeysuckle on it cut back severely. The service berry, the crabapple, and the glorybowers lost some branches but nothing significant. Now the snowbell is another story. The trunk split down to the ground into four pieces. Nothing to save. The sharp crack when it went was deafening. It brushed the corner of the porch, but fortunately didn't do any damage.

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On Monday morning the thaw started. When we got up at 6:30 it was 33 degrees. It is now 10:30 and almost 46. Ice is falling everywhere. Izzie was investigating along the sidewalk when there was a dump from the locust. She didn't get a direct hit, fortunately, but a chunk of ice bounced and hit her. She was doing a sidestepping dance for sure. After that she was still interested in the falling ice sheets but much more leary of investigating too closely. It was suppose to start raining about noon. Not sure if there wil be flooding around or not. Disaster. The basement is flooding. We have a sump pump for the basement. Usually it runs on electricity, but not now. We have a battery sump pump we can use, but it has to replace the electric one. And we didn't have a battery for it. Had not been a problem until the thaw started. With everything frozen there was nothing to pump. Mike stole the battery from the El Camino and spent hours trying to hook it up and get the pump running. Had been many years since it had been used. Finally, success. Lasted until Tuesday late morning, 18 hours. Car batteries are not meant to run almost constantly. Basement is flooding again. Off to the garage again where he took the battery out of the hot rod and got the pump to working again. By this time the roads were melted enough to drive so he went to Les Schwabs and got two RV deep cycle batteries to hook up. Cost a fortune, but we will have no more flooding in the basement and we can use them in the RV also. Wednesday rolled around and we still don't have power. PGE doesn't know specifically why our area is out or where. There are thousands of lines down from trees and branches. Won't give any estimate is to when we