Riding the Storm Out

We did not fare too well as the remnants of Hurricane Phillipe blew through Sunday Night (it is Thursday as I type this) and we still do not have power, nor will we for awhile. I live on top of a big hill, not far from the ocean and yet looking westerly to Mt Washington 150 miles away...yeah a big hill. Our strongest gust lasted about 10 seconds and hit 80 mph. It blew two barn doors off, ripped the electric wire off the house to the pole, the telephone wire off from the house to the pole, the apple tree in the front yard, killed the power in all directions, and sent my trampoline sailing so far that I could not keep it from flying away and ended up parking the skidder on it to keep it anchored to the ground. Today the electric and phone company came, but while the rest of the street is lit up, having the wind rip the powerline down caused the transformer to blow to our home, so we are the only house on this road without power. Individual houses not being hooked up until last, they are estimating maybe next week sometime.

Sadly I had to go to the Dr today and got all bad news:

1) My recent surgery did cause a surgery site infection
2) I have cancer

Then I drive home to find out we will be in the dark for awhile...

All I can offer right now are hugs and prayers, but I offer those in profusion.

And to say I love reading your posts- you always strive to be useful and give the results of your experience to those with less.

so sorry Travis.....bad news but hopefully good prognosis?

Sorry to hear this mate .
Some days are just like that .

Travis, so sorry man, I'm at a loss for words. That's terrible news from the doctor. It's clear to me that you're smart and also a motivated & driven individual, and I know you can beat this.

Travis, I wish you well!    Hang in there.

Everybody stands on their own mountain. Rock stars, actors, carpenters. The defining moments in life is how a man/woman reacts as they start sliding down that mountain. In 2004 while on my mountain I had a bad accident and it was ruff finding a new peek. My thought are with you friend.

My thoughts are with you, man. I don't know what it's like to be in your position, but I can relate to that age old adage when it rains, it pours. If only the hardships would come one at a time…

We'll continue to pray for your healing. Have courage, man.

Sorry to hear about the infection and cancer diagnosis.  Stay strong and fight hard.  I wish you all the best.
That was a crazy storm for sure.  We lost a big old apple tree and we're still without power.  The last gust that blew through almost took the roof of my chicken coop.  It was wobbling but somehow stayed in place.  So many people fared far worse, so I'm being thankful in the silence.
Feel better Travis

Travis, I was gonna tell you a story about a guy that got caught in that storm while re arranging things in my small semi trailer,and just decided to stay.You are the second person I know in two weeks that I've found out about where the "C" word has been involved. Take care of yourself. Be up soon.  Larry

We are pulling for you Travis.

Thanks everyone; you are indeed friends!

Oh man, Travis, that stinks so much. Praying for you. You kick that cancer in it's derrière and then cut it into a million pieces with your chainsaw, okay?

Sending good thoughts your way Travis !

You will be in our prayers. I hope all goes well!

I believe your determined spirit, your unwaivering faith and your strength, along with the love of a close family will help you on this journey. You CAN "ride this storm out". Stay optimistic. You have so many friends/supporters here. We're behind you. My best wishes to you and your family. 💚

Again thanks everyone.

I have a bit of time so I thought I would divulge a bit more into this just so everyone knows what my experience has been. As most of you know after initial biopsies said my Thyroid did not have cancer, now it is showing it was all through it. How far it has spread must be determined.

This does not surprise me. I will not lie and said I always ate well; I didn't, but did not eat boxed up crap either. We used to be a potato farm, obviously always had livestock, so I have always been a meat, potatoes, vegetables and dairy kind of person. Most was from on-farm, but not always. I was also always active, still am, really a workaholic, and up until 6 months ago had no weight issues.(I am 209 at 5-11 now)

I believe my issue came, but cannot say with certainly, from my occupation. I have always been a welder by trade and started at age 15. I am now 43. It is hard to phrase the next part just right because I sound conceited saying it, but I tend to do things 100% and will completely redo things if it is not right. When talking about 15,000 ton locomotives traveling at 60 mph, or the hulls of ships where 300 sailors lives depend on your welds against 50 foot seas or battle, it has to be right. Because I was precise, I tended to weld the important stuff. That amounted to over 20 years of being around welds that were x-rayed.

In the old days precautions against radiation was non-existent, and in latter days (2016 when I retired) we stepped back a few feet while they took the picture. If the weld failed, and they do, you dove right back in, gouged and ground it out, and then rewelded it, sallied right up what had just been pounded with radiation. For some of the missile silos aboard ship, the armor plating is over 4 inches thick. It takes some serious gamma rays to penetrate that! So that is where I think my issue came from, just so everyone knows.

A really dear friend (a Permie too) suggested it came from Toxic Junk and I agree. She sent me a lot of other information, and one thing too I am considering is that it may have to do with PH levels. I like acidic stuff; coffee; broccoli with vinegar, mayonnaise on a hamburger, etc. You guys can beat me up about consuming that stuff, but it is what I did, and think it may have been a contributing factor. I am not sure.

Anyway I put this on Meaningless Drivel for a reason, this reply to my own post may be a whole lot of that!

I hear ya Travis, I am getting real close to 60 yrs. and have spent most of my life making a living in some of the most toxic industrial jobs imaginable. Let alone all of the garbage I have eaten, second hand smoke, and lawn and garden gick I have played in. I suppose it is only a matter of time before it catches up with us.  Might be why I try avoiding doctors, afraid of what they might find.
With all of my support...hang in there man.

Well we are at 7 days full days since the tropical storm struck and still have no electricity.

Katie and I have been thinking about this off and on now for a few years, and liked the idea of a whole-house generator, but never prioritized it. There is no question the Generac type generators that are on-demand and propane powered are better, but we can get a PTO driven generator for my tractor or bulldozer for 1/3 the cost for 16 KW. That is more than enough for our farm I think. We always have fuel kicking around for them anyway, and they are more efficient in gallons consumed per hour then Generac type generators, so we are thinking of buying one.

The downside is there is nothing automatic about them, and they put extra hours on your equipment, and of course you cannot use a bulldozer for cleanup work if it is powering up a farm, but then again my dozer has sat here all week and hardly turned a track so what is the point of having one if it cannot provide for the family now and then. So I think we are going in that direction.

Really sorry about the cancer diagnosis, Travis.  We're dealing with that stuff here in our household.  Kick that cancer's butt!  >:

Travis Johnson wrote: There is no question the Generac type generators that are on-demand and propane powered are better, but we can get a PTO driven generator for my tractor or bulldozer for 1/3 the cost for 16 KW. That is more than enough for our farm I think. We always have fuel kicking around for them anyway, and they are more efficient in gallons consumed per hour then Generac type generators, so we are thinking of buying one.

Sorry to hear about the diagnosis, Travis, and hope for the best on you recovery.  The power outage just adds to your stress right now and sorry to hear of that as well.  

As for powering the farm temporarily, we've been glad to have bought a 7 kW PTO generator some years back as it can be run on any of 3 tractors that we have.  I agree that if you have the tractor PTO horsepower to turn the unit, go a bit bigger....16 kW may be the ticket.  Even though these don't start up automatically, their need has been minimal over many years, yet fairly crucial when those times came.  It worked well to simply prioritize when they would be run and then use battery-driven lights and other-fueled (wood, gas) items when the generator was off.  Placing colored tape next to specific breakers in your home breaker box is an easy way to make sure unneeded loads can quickly be turned off and will not be demanding any of the power from the gennie.  One downside that maybe your wife is better with--if you are gone, can she get the generator up and running in your absence?  This is where the automatic versions excel, their downside being maintenance if they sit for too long.  The power coop was pretty good about installing the transfer switch and it ensures that there will be no way to have both the line feeds (when the power comes back on) and the generator competing to power the house at the same time.  Downside to our set up is you don't really know when the power is back on until you switch back over to the main power feed.

Long way to say 'thumbs up' on the PTO generator idea for your situation.... Hope your power returns soon!

Morning, spent the weekend working on my winter abode. Place was a mess.There was a ten foot fire pit in full swing and I helped roll some of the larger rounds into the fire pit in between doing my thing.  
 Went to town to pick up sheet rock screws. Came back with aluminum foil, six large russet potatoes, broccoli and block of Velveeta cheese. ( had four plastic forks, salt pepper in truck)Life hands you lemons? Make broccoli, cheese campfire baked potatoes. Lol
 This one simple/small thing, made some folks happy.  Larry

Well 8 full days without power now...

That's a bugger and how is the weather ?

David

For Maine, pretty darn nice. We had a wet warm front blow through last night so the winds kicked up, but only 35 mph or so. The temp though is in the 60's which is insane for Maine in November. We will take it though.

As for power, I swear I must have cut too many trees off the lines in power outages before, or shoved them off using my skidder and must have been black listed and put on the naughty list. Part of it though is where I live. There are only a few more poles up from my house and it is the end of the line for power. Not that its broken, there are just no more houses. I live in a very rural part of Maine.