Babs Young writes: We’ve had a rather mild winter until Friday night. Then it started to snow and it snowed and snowed until we had any where from 10 or 18 inches depending on where you were located. That’s all a good thing, we love snow up here, but this time the snow was very wet and heavy and so by midnight on Friday, my power was gone. It didn’t come back for good or at least I think it is for good, until 2:30 this afternoon. I will not vote to live next to a wood stove and see at night by candles any time soon. I’m spoiled by electricity. I want to keep it.
However the snow is beautiful and I took about 100 pictures yesterday and today. So I put some more up on Flickr. Below are pine trees in Blue Heaven.
My power came back on, too, and you may be sure I’ll show you my side of US-31 tomorrow. Assuming my power remains on. Blessed power.
Torch Lake Views 
Martha
March 4, 2012
BEAUTIFUL PHOTO. I’m less inspired by the stuff. Lost power for 1 1/2 hours over here hanging out over the big water. Looking in on Mrs. UHDD’s green and pleasant land makes me nauseous. I’m done with the winter. It may not be done with me, but I’m done with it.
Martha
March 4, 2012
HEY! Where’d you get that blue sky?
Gerry
March 4, 2012
Hi Martha – we specialize in blue skies over here. We import them from Wisconsin.
Today was beautiful on this side of Big Blue–particularly after the power came back on. Blessed power.
Thom Hayes
March 4, 2012
Hi Babs- can’t recall how I stumbled upon your site many months ago, but have loved it since I did. I live In lower Michigan. Very familiar with your area. My dad and we built a home on Traverse Bay beginning on 72. I was a teen then (now 53). My dad passed last July, but the plan is to keep the place in the family forever. Are you familiar with Eden Shore?
Gerry
March 5, 2012
I’m sorry for your loss, Thom. What a wonderful legacy your dad left your family. Not just the house itself–the connection with a special place, and a commitment to it. I know Eden Shores well–it’s home to Miss Sadie, the Cowboy, Miss Puss and me all year round. Our Babs lives over in Blue Heaven, on That Other Lake . . . the one full of rainbows. She gets out and about a good deal. When you come up during the summer you should drop by Chris and Sonny’s Torch Lake Market for breakfast. You will almost certainly find one or the other or both of us there.
lynnekovan
March 5, 2012
Lovely shot. Boy it looks cold. I thought it was cold here in England until I saw your picture! wrap up warm!
Gerry
March 5, 2012
It was and we did – and we are very, very glad to have the power back.
Dawn
March 5, 2012
I figured you were without electricity this weekend. Takes a person back doesn’t it, to realize how much we depend on it for almost everything! Glad things are moving back toward normal for you.
Gerry
March 5, 2012
The experience reinforced my determination to be better prepared for this sort of thing. I know perfectly well how to manage without electricity–I just get used to having it, and grow lazy about replacing needful things. Like the chimney to my favorite oil lamp. Inexcusable.
Sybil
March 5, 2012
That is one very big snow dump Babs & Gerry.
I vote for spring.
Glad you got your power back … eventually
Gerry
March 5, 2012
Heck, we voted for spring too – this is spring. This is the sort of thing Mama Nature always dishes out Around Here in spring. What a brat. Bless the people who spent back-to-back 16-hour days getting us back on the grid.
Margie
March 5, 2012
Power went off here about 9:30 Friday and didn’t come back on until 9:30 Sunday. I was so happy, if I’d had any beers, I’d have taken them down to the crew on the corner (Scott Rd. & Old Dixie) and kissed their boots!!!!!
Gerry
March 5, 2012
I know exactly what you mean. I managed to make it to the Eastport Market on Sunday afternoon. A whole lot of people wearing Carhartts and weary expressions were in the deli fueling up. A whole lot of other customers who’d straggled in from our frozen castles were telling them over and over again how glad we were to see them. I believe we may have wept a little. Didn’t see any actual boot-kissing but it wouldn’t have been outside the realm of possibility.
Pat
March 5, 2012
SOOO glad it was the weather that kept your posting quiet. 🙂 Really missed it! And I’m glad it was just the snow you got, not the tornadoes we had! 3 withing 5 miles of us!. We even got a visit by Jim Cantori! Sure didn’t want to see that man before the storms. 🙂 Next winter color me “south”.
Gerry
March 5, 2012
Pat, you have warmed the cockles of my heart. I am very glad that the tornadoes did not carry you off.
Judy Jones
March 5, 2012
On the “other side” of Torch (near the Dockside), we were out of power from Friday – Monday morning. For us, that means, no heat or water. On the plus side, I knew enough to fill the bathtub with water (so we could flush). 🙂 Now I have to bring in the boxes of food from the freezer that have been outside before it warms up and I lose it all.
Gerry
March 5, 2012
Glad you made it through OK, Judy. Also glad you reminded me about the cooler I stuck in the snow on the deck.
And now an update — I believe that Central Lake is still without power. And it’s snowing again. Hard. I understand that there’s a warming center over at the High School, so if anyone who can read this can reach someone over there, please pass the word. The whole trouble with digital news updates is that a person needs an electronic device to read them.
Giiid
March 5, 2012
This heavy snow sounds like perfect for making snowmen and “tealights” snow lamps. I have been waiting for an opportunity to fill my garden with little lamps, but the perfect snow never came. It seems like you got it all, hopefully you are busy with playing and building now. Barbs photos are beautiful.
Gerry
March 5, 2012
Now why didn’t I think of that on Saturday night? The snow lamps mean. I could have managed some of those. I didn’t have nearly enough energy left to make a whole snow figure of any sort, except possibly a Nisse. I should have thought of that, too.
Wendi
March 5, 2012
Glad you are back on line…of course I didn’t know since I too was off Friday through Sunday. And I just got plowed out today. So happy, happy!! We plan to look for a generator since being without electric is not as much fun as we remember. Unfortunately my joy is tempered by guilt over so many other people still without electricty.
Gerry
March 5, 2012
I look forward to having some serious analytical conversations about generators. I suspect we could get together a whole Antrim County Generator Interest Group after all this.
I feel bad that other folks are still out, too – I wonder whether Central Lake needs anything for their warming center? And also whether trying to get over there would constitute help or getting-in-the-way. Let me know if you have any good ideas on the subject.
I am glad you are plowed out. You could always get out of course – just flatten a piece of cardboard box, grab the corners and slide all the way down to 31. Getting back home again, that would be the problem.
See, I think we need horses.
P.j. grath
March 5, 2012
We are voting for it, too, though we did pretty well without. Ours came back on after being out for about 60 hours. (Isn’t it funny how we say ON and OUT instead of ON and OFF or IN and OUT? Just occurred to me. Not that funny? I am giddy with electric light and Internet access!) But as I say, we did fine without, thanks to candles, kerosene lamps, propane for heat and cooking, and melted snow to flush the toilet. I would like to be even better equipped to live without electricity, as I like the feeling of independence and self-sufficiency, so #1 on my wish list now is a hand-cranked coffee grinder!
Beautiful photograph! I’m betting that this ill wind that knocked out power provided more than the usual number of photography opportunities for camera hounds. It sure did around my home grounds.
Gerry
March 5, 2012
Sixty hours without power is an annoyance in warm weather – a fearful thing in cold. (That’s Michigan’s idea of warm weather I’m talking about here – not the kind of warm that visits the south.)
I’m annoyed with myself for not being better prepared. It’s not as if I don’t know this stuff for crying out loud. Everyone I’ve talked to, though, has at least one “I can’t believe I didn’t have” or “I knew I should have done . . . ” Maybe we should all get together and make a big list.
. . . Katherine just came by to check on me. She has power but no internet yet, so she decided to make a personal inspection tour to see how everyone is. Isn’t that nice? It is.
Louan Lechler
March 5, 2012
I’m so glad to hear that you all are back, to what passes for normal around here. I just talked with a gal at the Village Market in Elk Rapids. She said that Cherry Ave., beyond the Oasis, is still out and probably will be through tomorrow. I wonder how it is, over by Alden and around Torch Lake.
Gerry
March 5, 2012
I can report that some folks on the lake near Alden had power on Sunday morning. Farther north along the eastern shore Kathy Windiate and Lois and Gary Dawson and their neighbors are all back on. The Central Lake Post Office is up and running, but a lot of people in that area are still out.
Karma
March 5, 2012
I sure understand how you must have been feeling after the crazy October snowstorm we had around here; some folks were without power for a week. We were lucky getting it back in 3 days. One of those things you forget to appreciate til its gone.
Gerry
March 5, 2012
This is true. We may have another opportunity to appreciate in the very near future. We are “supposed” to get more snow tonight. Then it is supposed to warm up and start melting all the mess. Then it is supposed to get all the way up into the 50s and rain on the mess. Then it is supposed to cool off again and bring us just what we need – more snow. All of this over the next four days. Ah well. Maybe I can find a replacement chimney for the oil lamp tomorrow.
Carsten
March 5, 2012
It’s good you’ve got power again. What’s broadband Internet without electricity? I do hope it wasn’t too cold.
Few years ago we had a power loss in a winter storm. It lasted from Saturday evening until Wednesday evening. We had a gas Stowe and a (closed) fireplace. So with lots of candles, hot chocolate and playing cards we had some good evenings.
Gerry
March 5, 2012
Hi Carsten. It wasn’t too cold at first . . . but on Saturday night it got down to 10 degrees F., and that is pretty cold if all you have for heat is a little woodburning fireplace insert without its blower. I was really, really glad to have the furnace come back on. So were the dogs. On the other hand, we took some astonishing walks through what might have been Jotunheim.
chris
March 5, 2012
thanks for sharing the photos of the big white out.
Babs does a great job of making us feel like we are not missing much.
I understand we have a few trees down in our yard and the power is now on as of today.
Not much we can do tho while we are sitting on the beach in FL!
Gerry
March 5, 2012
Believe me, you are missing a lot, but most of it isn’t something you’d want to experience anyway. Enjoy the beach.
Belinda
March 5, 2012
Wow! You all had quite the snow storm. My father who lives in Cheboygan was without power too. I’m glad I live down south.
Gerry
March 5, 2012
Ah well, Mama Nature knows how to make life Interesting down south, too. And she’s on a tear.
shoreacres
March 6, 2012
It isn’t funny at all, but how I’m laughing. Reading through the conversations, if you substitute “heat” for “cold”, and take out the air conditioning and such, you have life, post-hurricane. The big difference, I suspect, is that cold is more dangerous than heat, except maybe for babies and the elderly.
After Ike, my mother was completely put out with me for toting her up to Kansas City to stay for three months while the rebuilding began.At 88, she didn’t need to be living in such a place.
We lose our electricity in winter sometimes, but it’s ice that does it. In The Great Freeze of ’83, we were without for a week. The pipes at my apartment complex froze and burst, and flooded the concrete courtyard around the pool. Some of us had ice skates, and had a right fine time. We’d go down and skate for a bit, and then tote water up from the pool to flush our toilets.
Gerry
March 6, 2012
That’s exactly right. There are all kinds of disasters, and we are not prone to more than our share. I always figure I can find a way to protect myself from the cold – but how to shelter from extreme heat? The thought of losing power in Phoenix in the summertime, for example, fills me with sheer terror. I had a lot of time to think about these things on Saturday night, when we went to bed early under a pile of comforters. We know that people lived without electricity for a very long time in this selfsame place. How did they manage it? Can I learn those skills? I remembered this poem, too, and this morning I found it on Bartleby.com (and established that it is out of copyright!)
Fire and Ice – Robert Frost (1874–1963)
(From Harper’s Magazine, December 1920.)
SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.