Sunday, November 4, 2012

Cabin Life: Leaving Storm Worries Behind

There’s snow flying around in the air.  It’s been snowing on and off all day, with some sticking to my car this morning, but there’s none on the ground.  I noticed the slightly silvery coloring of the pines and hemlocks from snow sticking to the branches, though.  I’m glad it’s not sticking on the ground yet, but it won’t be long, and even though it’s been cold, we’ve been lucky that the snow didn’t start flying a week or two ago.

They say that this is the remnants of Hurricane Sandy, which at the cabin turned out to be a whole lot of nothing.  We had a wind storm last winter where I could hear trees coming down with a fair amount of regularity, but this past Monday night didn’t add up to much.  There was one branch down on my road, so it turned out I didn’t need to bring my chainsaw with me.  But I guess it’s good that I was prepared to cut my road clear to get to work.  Or maybe it’s not good.  I don’t know.

The one thing that struck me about Sandy was that everyone was preparing for the worst.  They were prepared to not have power for days or even weeks.  And I realized that the phrase “Oh no, the power might go out” really doesn’t enter my day-to-day conversations any more.  I bought some extra food just in case Sandy became another Ice Storm like in 1998.  That storm is my reference for everything now.  I always say to myself that I better be prepared for these storms just in case it’s another Ice Storm.

I have nothing but sympathy for those who were actually affected by the storm.  I can’t imagine being stuck in New York City with no power.  But for the northern Adirondacks, it was just another storm with lots of rain and not-so-bad winds.  I wasn’t that worried about it for the obvious reason that power outages don’t affect me.  Just one more way in which my life is simpler out here.

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Having grown up in the southern Adirondacks, Justin has always been at home in the mountains of New York. After graduating from Paul Smiths College, he began his career in the environmental field working for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. After a brief five year detour to Florida, Justin returned to the Adirondacks to live off the grid in a small cabin with no running water or electricity.

Justin continues to work and play in the outdoors, and maintains a blog about living off grid, hiking, and being outside in the Adirondacks called Middle of the Trail.







2 Responses

  1. joan streetman says:

    well my family said it was nothing too as they live in north creek and peru

  2. Mike Chevier says:

    I was disappointed that the storm amounted to a little wind storm here in Black river. I was also thankful we didn’t get hit like our neighbors down state.

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