When times are hard, the little extra things that come along can really add up and become overwhelming if you aren’t careful. Some days are just out of control. Actually…they all are lately. But yesterday was a winner. We had a great day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, it was warm enough to have the windows open to air out the house. Then, about 3:00 in the afternoon, the power went out. It was a really windy day and this often happens at this time of year in the country. A tree comes down on a power line, and depending on where it is, it may or may not be an easy fix.

Mr. FixIt decided to go out and mow since our binge-watching of West Wing was interrupted. I decided to gather up my laundry and head out to the farm. When I pulled off the main road onto our little country lane, I smelled smoke. Not half a mile in, there was a column of white smoke and several firefighters and local people were working on a brush fire. A tree had come down and knocked a live wire down into the fallen leaves. The entire hillside was in flames and my cousin’s wife had a generator in the back of her truck running a pump to get water up from the creek.

We’re really out in the boonies there. We don’t have city water out that road so there’s no fire hydrants. Most houses that catch fire just burn to the ground. While this fire wasn’t immediately threatening any structures, there were some not terribly far away. The farm is another two miles down the road so I’m certain there is no danger there. 

Needless to say, when I got to the farm, there was no electric. I called to check on an elderly neighbor down the road. I called my uncle to let him know about the fire but that I didn’t feel there was a threat to the house. And then I called Mr. FixIt to tell him I was just going to turn around and come home.

When I got back down the road to where the fire was, a fire truck was now parked across both lanes and I couldn’t get through. I don’t think they would have let me through anyway because now the fire was down at the edge of the road and the little valley was filled with thick, white smoke. I took a few pictures and headed back out the road to go the long way around.

I thought I would stop in the little town near the Ponderosa and pick up a gallon of milk but the power was still off and all three stores were closed. I got home and Mr. FixIt was almost finished with half the mowing. He asked if I wanted to take over and I jumped on the tractor for my first mow of the season. The weather was perfect and I got as much mowed as I could before dark. 

Mr. FixIt ran an extension cord from the generator into the house so I could have a lamp in the kitchen. I didn’t want to have the refrigerator door open very long so I grabbed half a kielbasa, an onion, and a can of sliced potatoes. I chopped the onion, sliced the sausage, and added the potatoes to a skillet with a little butter in it and fried it all together. In five minutes we had a quick meal from stuff we had on hand…and it was so yummy!

We moved the lamp to the living room and I headed to the bedroom to write. I can’t hear the frogs over the generator. Actually, there’s not a more annoying sound than a generator running as far as I’m concerned. But it was music to my ears when I think of so many who don’t have that luxury. I’ll wear my earplugs and call it good.

It’s just another thing. A small inconvenience. Maybe it was God’s way of saying…”Get outside and away from the television and the news!”

❤️

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;”

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 ESV