Our world without electricity October 14, 2008
The Santa Ana winds have been blowing again for the last few days. Yesterday morning they were especially bad. Bad enough that they blew out a local cable line, and pulled down power to a good chunk of our neighborhood for seven hours yesterday. From 9:15 am to 4:30 pm we were down. No power. No electricity at our house is worse than it is for most people. Because of the way our house is built into the hill, all of our sewage collects in a tank at the bottom of the house. It’s periodically pumped up to the street. That pump uses electricity. So guess what—when there’s no power, we can’t let a single drop of water go down the drain anywhere in the house. No washing. No tooth brushing. No showers. And worst of all, no toilet flushing. If that tank overflows, it’s… awful. It’s definitely something to avoid. It really takes a lot of the fun out of having a power failure. I can handle the rest of it. Even at night I usually enjoy power failures. It’s a nice excuse to bring out the old lanterns, light candles, make a party out of it. But without flushing… Well. You can see what I mean. I’m sure you can.
I’m just glad the power came on in time for me to take a quick shower before heading out to knit night! That would have been horrid. Eek. 
While the power was out I took advantage of the computer downtime, and knit the majority of my first clog. 
I got the first one completely done—it was barely started on Saturday—including weaving in all the ends. This is Bev Galeskas’s pattern for Felted Clogs (on Ravelry). I’m seeing why so many people have knit these. They’re quite fun to knit, and come together easily. Huge thanks, once again, to dear Robin (sadly blogless) for giving me this pattern. Have you started yours yet, Robin? I’m using Knit Picks Wool of the Andes for mine. The yarn is lovely and soft, and is knitting up like a dream. It’s supposed to felt really nicely, too. I’m looking forward to that part. It’ll be fun to turn these huge things that are probably long enough that my father-in-law’s size 13 feet could fit into them, to something small that will fit my foot-stumps.
I have more pictures of things, and more stuff to talk about, but no time. I’m a whole day behind, because of that power failure, and need to get going on other stuff that needs to get done.
Angelika October 14
I’m yet to make my own pair of those slippers. Let me know how many skeins you used, because I still have some of that yarn in the house. I felted a bag with it once and it turned out nice.
~Kristie October 14
I’m glad to see your power is back up but boy oh boy would it suck if you lost power for more than a day. You’re welcome to use my toilet and shower anytime though. :-)
Jocelyn October 14
Yeurgh. That sounds like no fun at all — I’m glad the power came back on! Also, I love the clogs; I may have to make some of those for Christmas this year… ;)
KarenJoSeattle October 15
Ah, yes. We had a house with a tank down the hill from the drain field in a place where power went out regularly. Fortunately, it was a large tank and outside the house, so we never had a total ban on toilet use, etc. Then we put in a generator.
I made clogs like those for my beginning knitting class when I got back into knitting. They make a good first project if you’re ever teaching anyone to knit, especially if your pattern starts with a garter stitch sole. They cover all the basics in a small project. Then any learner issues get felted away.
KeanaLee October 15
Those clogs are great, love them — glad you have power again. Sometimes it’s nice to have no distractions though, and you can just knit!
charlie mcgee October 15
Glad all is well now. Hope you are far far from the fires. Be safe
Angela October 16
Yes I do know exactly what you mean! Except, with no power there’s no water coming in- which hardly matters as we can’t let any of it go down- and we get at most 5 flushes. With a family of four, that’s not a whole lot!
So glad you didn’t have to have that for too long. And I hope Knit night was awesome!
Robin October 18
No, I haven’t started mine yet. I’ve had the yarn forever. I should though, it was 23 degrees F this morning when I got up, could have used them! I enjoy power outages as well, except for the flushing thing. We don’t have a tank problem, our pump just doesn’t work without electricity (we have an old fashion septic system)