Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Merry Christmas to all and to all a thank you!

My best Christmas ever started out as the worst.

Two years ago we had a bad ice storm 3 days before Christmas. Over 100,000 people lost power from all the transmission lines down, some directly, some due to toppled trees. Some had no electric for 2 weeks. I woke up at first light and found we were included in this group.

The first day we had a glimmer of hope when an AEP truck showed up in our driveway. It turned out to be bad news - they wanted access through us to work the high-tension line that crosses the back corner of our property. We knew that if they were having to fix major lines like that one, it could be a long time before the electric came back on.

My parents, living in town, never lost power, so I took the kids in to stay with them while my wife and I hunkered down to keep everything fed, watered, and thawed. Fortunately our fireplace can handle heating our house. Even when it got cold (dropped to the teens the 2nd day and stayed there) it kept our house above 60 inside. Unfortunately, you need to feed it every hour or two, which meant nights with disturbed (at best) sleep.

Days we spent running our generator, first at the horse barn to pump the well there for the horses and heat everything there up for the day, then at the house to water the cows and thaw their watering trough out. The system is supposed to feed everything from one location, but due a combination of line loss and the pump at the house starting to go bad (didn't die until Spring, fortunately), we had to move the generator back and forth to get the pumps to work right. But the house pump was acting so flaky on the generator I didn't want to risk using it for much more than watering livestock and storing water for toilets. So no showers, laundry, or dishwashing.

We were just keeping up, while starting to get run down ourselves. I couldn't get an interest in eating, which is definitely a sign of depression with me. We missed the kids, and one of us going into town to see them at night (and to get a shower) just left the one remaining "on watch" feeling lonely. Then, on Christmas morning (4th day with no power), the generator stopped about 5 minutes after we fired it up and wouldn't restart.

Where do you go to get a generator fixed on Christmas morning? Or to even buy a new one, presuming every generator in the middle section of the state hadn't already been sold (which they had)? My wife had the brilliant idea of taking it to our oldest (horse) border's place, as her husband is a darn good mechanic, on top of which they are both Aces. We loaded the generator up and off she went, while I stayed behind and did what I could with no power at all.

My Christmas miracle occurred a couple hours later when she returned with the generator, working (low oil - my bad, but easy to miss the first time when befuddled) AND two covered plates stuffed full of Christmas dinner STILL WARM! We fired up the generator to start heating the hot water tank at the barn and I ate what is undoubtedly the most appreciated meal of my life (in the truck, with the heater running). Depression over.

We had decided to wait until the kids came home to open presents, but Christmas night my wife had me open one anyway. Pat Boone's Heavy Metal album! Kept the generator running long enough to listen to it.

The next day we brought the kids home, as they were getting a little stir crazy at the grandparents. We figured we'd get chores done and have our Christmas a day late, then make the best of things without electric but all together. Before we hooked up the generator at the house for the evening, I hooked us back up to the power grid for a test and the power crews (who seem converge on big outages from all over the country - we have had crews from as far away as Louisiana working here) had our electric back! Two miracles in two days, both due to good people working over the holidays.

God bless us all this Christmas, especially those who have to work providing essential services.