Power to the People

Especially us. Our power is back!

Yesterday we spent another full day in the yard cleaning up downed trees. Here is Don turning downed trees into firewood and piles of branches. These are basswood trees, flattened by a larger ash tree when it fell.


Mid-afternoon, the power company showed up to figure out how they would restore our power. They needed to bring in big trucks to set a pole, and the power pole location was halfway up a hill and in the middle of a woods.

Hence, we needed a road. Happily, friend Jim and our son both showed up at about that time to help. Together with Sunshine and Sweet Pea, and with three chain saws, we chewed through a couple of hundred feet of woods and cleared a road of sorts to the pole location.


We took down trees, cut stumps to the ground, cleared brush, and sawed through the "top" of a giant white oak that had fallen across the power lines.


Three guys, happy because the project was now entirely in the hands of the power company, who were promising to stay until power was restored, regardless how long it took. And they did.


Linemen at the top of the newly-set pole, attaching the transformer and connecting wires. This was a crew from Minnesota Power Company in Eveleth, MN, brought down here by our power company to help handle the huge amount of work created by the storm.


Today, looking up the new road toward the new pole and power transformer, top center.


Today, looking back from the pole to the street.


I've spent three full days working on this storm damage. Work is done in the yard now, so today is a day off, but there is a lot more work to do in our little woods. Hopefully someone will want some firewood, and be willing to help cut it and haul it out.

All three days I wore my heaviest steel-toe work boots, with the orthotics in them. No plantar fasciitis pain. Plans for a 1.5-mile run last Saturday were interrupted by the storm, but maybe tomorrow.

For more on life without power, see Sunshine's blog.