The devastating Aftermath

The devastating aftermath.  This isn’t my usual way of working in my sketchbook; I was watching Studio Bloknote on U-tube and smooshing paint around.  Not my usual colour palette either.  

So saddened by the loss of so many cedar trees out back from the recent ice storm earlier this month.  We lost a huge maple out back as well and some willows have fallen on to the farmers field at the side.  Our friendly neighbourhood arbourist is busy with many other customers in our township.   We will have to wait our turn.  Our township is still in a “state of emergency” until all roads have been cleared of fallen trees and debris. 

I’ll put a photo of our young deer that has come to visit the bird feeder with his mother.  You can see some of the mess in behind. 

Acrylic paint and inks, traditional gouache and markers. 

Day 8 and 9

The “no hydro” saga continues since we are living through the aftermath of no heat.  There are more pages but I’m so “over them”.  Here are my final two. 

We have signed a contract for a new furnace but it can’t be installed for several weeks.  Supply and demand and all that rot.  I hope the heater in the basement will help.  We have little space heaters on the main floor but they aren’t really sufficient when the temps are below 0C.  It was -5C when I woke up this morning which was warmer than it has been. 

You just can’t believe how excited I got when I saw a hydro truck pulling a green hydro pole pass by the laneway.  Thankful that we have a rain barrel so we could flush the toilet.  Especially good that we also had our ice chipper within easy reach. 

I’m so happy that so many regions in Canada came to our aid by sending their trucks and personnel.  Timmins, in northern Ontario, is a 6 hour drive.  I expect that Alberta and Manitoba is several days, New Brunswick a day at least; Quebec could be almost a day depending where they were sent from.  I’m probably missing some others but this is what I can recall. 

We had some branches on the hydro line, the crew stopped to cut them down.  The young fella I was talking to was from Orangeville, a smaller city bit over an hour’s drive southwest.  He said they were working 16 hour days! Yikes!  We told him a big thank you and told him we appreciated his/their work.  

I have a love/hate relationship with Hydro One, our only electricity provider in this rural area.  Our power is out-frequently, a few hours to a part day at a time, it is ridiculous.   Many years ago it was out for 4 days but it was in May when the spring thaw is over.  The last big outage goes back to August 2003 when it was out for what seemed like forever too.  

Today is my last day for the antibiotic eye drops.  Amazing that such a tiny bottle could hold enough meds for 14 days (X3).  Wearing the shield at night was no biggie really, just a minor annoyance.  Regardless, I’m happy that I don’t need it anymore! 

Day 4 and 5

Just so I won’t bore you all to tears about our “no hydro” saga, I’m posting two days pages.  They might be a bit entertaining.  

The Ever ready battery (bunny) company makes rechargeable batteries that I bought (boy they aren’t cheap) but I quickly learned that I need hydro to charge them back up! 

When Day 5 rolled around, I was still hopeful and hadn’t lost my sense of humour yet.  So what would a generator say to a gas can?!?

Cataract surgery

We had a horrible ice storm that took out our hydro the night before my cataract surgery.  I was surprised to be told that my surgery was still a go since the hospital was on auxiliary power supply.  Yippee for me! 

So I’ll be posting my sketchbook journal pages from the beginning of last week.  No hydro means no wifi.  I didn’t want to use up the power on my phone for social media.