Christmas Fish
6 hours ago
Sunday, July 21, 2013
God's leaf blower
The storm came in with a bang. A huge boom of thunder, like a cannon discharging close by, announced the storm. About ten minutes later, it hit with extremely strong winds and lightning. That happened just around nightfall.
Much of my house is always on solar electric powered. In the morning, the utility was still out, so I switched the remaining circuits over to the solar side. No problem there. However, my Internet was out, along with my phone connection. Cell phones don't work where I live, so we were a bit cut off.
My lovely wife and I decided to have breakfast in town at an Internet café. No idea when the net will be up, but I'm guessing soon, if it isn't right now.
The wind took down a lot of trees. I lost a good sized sugar maple. It blew away from the house, missed the road and my parked cars. Lucked out there. Everywhere there are branches and leaves strewn around. The tarp covering my boat project was damaged, but it's repairable. Glad I decided to hold off on more resin work until the risk of thunderstorms goes down.
All in all, it could have been worse.
I did discover my “high efficiency” washing machine is a huge phantom load. Never noticed it because it was on the grid side. When it was switched to my solar system, I noticed the extra power demand right off. Now that bad boy is going on a power switch to kill the phantom load.
-Sixbears
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Hope everything is back up soon. We all enjoy our conveniences.
ReplyDeleteA few people are still without power, but my 'net is up and all's good here.
DeleteHad one of those storms come through here this afternoon! It sure was loud!
ReplyDeleteHope everything is back to normal soon!
Fine here. Just need to get some help to clean up some trees.
DeleteGlad your damage wasn't too, too bad - sounds like one of those 'super cells' paid you a visit.
ReplyDeleteWe had dire warnings of storms, rain and high winds.
What did we get? Nada. Zip. We need rain!!!
If it wasn't a super cells, I don't what else it could have been. Wish I could send you some of my rain.
DeleteHad one of those storms go through here a few days ago and take out some big trees. Luckily they're away from the house. Called a wood carver and told him he was welcome to come get some of the wood. I'll keep some for the winter.
ReplyDeleteAt least that big maple will keep the house warm later. Still, hated to see it go.
DeleteGlad none of yours hit the house. My friends and family had some near misses with falling trees, but no serious damage done.
If the washing machine was not running, why was it pulling power? Does it have a clock in it? I know the old tube type TV's (which is all I have) pulls power when off to keep the tube heated for a fast boot up.
ReplyDeleteGood question. It's a electronic gizmo that must have some power draw for fast boot up. That's my guess. No telling what's happening in those circuit boards -at least with the equipment I have on hand.
DeleteJust put it on a power strip with a switch. I like off to be off.