We’re finally seeing winter here in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Last weekend, we had our first real snowfall. The totals really varied town to town and even within a few miles of each other. We saw about 18-20 inches on our decks. Friends not far away had their 2-foot measuring stick completely covered by snow. Yet, the official total for my town was 11 inches and their town was 16 inches. Still nothing to sneeze at, but there were some real disparities in the totals even in the same town.

It was a heavy, wet snow last week which meant it was slippery. Our plow guy actually ended up stuck in our driveway and didn’t get out until Wednesday. We lost power during the storm from Friday night until early Sunday afternoon for a total of about 36 hours without power. The cell signal from the tower on top of the mountain misses us completely, so that meant no cell service, no internet, and no communication with the outside world. I managed to read an entire book in that 36 hours because I had my iPad fully charged. Yes, I do have a few “real” books around if my power runs down as well.

This weekend we’re looking at warm temperatures for Friday which means most of what falls will likely be rain. That’s not necessarily a good thing. The road crew in our development has been going around trying to dig out the snow banks a bit to let any water that does fall drain off. It’s going to get cold on Friday night behind the storm, so any standing water will freeze and become ice. In addition, you can see the projected wind gusts. Our house faces west, so with the wind out of the southeast I think we’ll be a bit sheltered from the wind directly, but trees could still get blown over that will leave us without power once again. Our Christmas dinner could end up being a barbeque.

We have a wood stove, so we will stay warm during this time no matter what. The problem is the food in the fridge and freezer and cooking. We lost about $500 in food last week. It was mostly bags of frozen vegetables, ice cream, and a few Schwans items that had to be tossed.

So, if you don’t hear from me for a few days, you know why.

If there’s no immediate disaster, I’m planning to do some geocaching early on Christmas Eve, then come home to finish anything that needs to be done. I have a few things left to wrap, otherwise everything is ready. I have plans to make a pumpkin cheesecake and a cookies & cream cheesecake, but that obviously depends on the power situation. Christmas dinner is supposed to be a prime rib roast. It might end up being cooked on our outdoor grill, along with the potatoes I bought for baking.

Many people up here have generators. In the 17 years we’ve been up here, there have been very few times when we’ve been 24 hours or more without power. It’s usually been that we have power and other people don’t. This was the only time I can remember that loss of power resulted in food loss. A few years back we lost internet for 2 days but the power was on. I can remember going into town and hanging out at Starbucks for like 3-4 hours so I could work. I wasn’t the only one there doing that. I really can’t justify the expense of a generator when we have only had issues sporadically.

I’ll take this opportunity to wish all my readers a happy and SAFE holiday.