'Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind'

That’s what tonight promises us. We normally don’t get much snow in the winter, or very low temperatures, but we always get big wind. But tonight they are promising all three for our dining and dancing entertainment. The most immediate worry about a big wind storm is that we’ll lose the power and whether I’m in Roberts Creek in B.C., or in Point Roberts in WA, my locale will pretty much be the end of the list of places whose power needs to be and gets repaired. We have gas heat and cooking at both places, which is a very good feature, but we don’t have gas-powered internet or lighting.

No internet can be tolerated, I believe on principle, but the fact is I’m awfully used to just having it instantly and constantly available. No electric lights, on the other hand, is a little harder with the days being so short. But candles and propane lamps and flashlights are perfectly tolerable substitutes if it doesn’t go on for too long. I think the longest we’ve been without power in the past 16 years is about 3 days after one storm. Irritating, not desirable, but endurable. Some people seem very enthusiastic about generator backups (which are pretty pricey), but I’ve never found it necessary, probably because I don’t keep tons of food in the freezer.

The real thing to worry about is trees falling and big branches breaking off. The latter is particularly worrisome when the temperature is so low because the trees will have zero flexibility, will be very brittle. Both our houses are surrounded by many tall trees and the firs’ and maples’ branches, in particular, are prone to crashing down in big wind storms. Last winter, two of our neighbors had large branches come through their roofs. This is not good in a very big way, even if you are not in the room where it comes through to. Lots of people address this problem by cutting all the trees down on their property. They move up here because they love the trees, but they aren’t up to having them on their property. Good of us to keep them available for their scenery requirements. We can think of our place as a kind of tree zoo, I guess.

But at this moment, you just do what you can. I ground a container of coffee beans because we also don’t have a gas-powered coffee grinder. I put out the candles and matches and oil and propane lamps so they are readily available. Put my tiny flashlight in my pocket. And that’s about it. Ten o’clock tonight is the expected time of arrival. I’ll just go to bed then, anyway, and sleep through it, maybe. That would be good.

As Shakespeare reminded us, though, all those centuries ago:

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly. “

If I’m gone for a few days, you’ll know that life has just gotten very jolly.