Wood Done. Lawn mostly done. Broken. Chocolate. Shower when you can.

I can not believe all the wood is already stacked and the shed is full.

Roughly 8 cords.

This is a massive, colossal feat.

And now I’m broken.

Yesterday we stacked wood for 3.5 hours. I felt like a million bucks. Until I showered and stopped moving.

Then I felt like a stiff, chewed for a day, piece of gum.

And THANK GOODNESS I showered last night!

This morning, I was sound asleep, then suddenly POOF! wide awake, beeping….. then quiet. Power is off. 5:24am.

Uh oh.

Totally calm outside, no breeze, foggy, quiet.

Of course I can’t go back to sleep, SOMETHING IS HAPPENING! NO POWER! I pounce on my iPhone and using the spotty 3G network here that I can only get when I’m in bed, or pressed against one of the front windows, I find out that a huge swath of Nova Scotia is without power. From here to the ocean in both directions. And the town of Antigonish, over to the town of Guysborough, and Canso too. 12,000 customers, plus all the customers of Antigonish’s town power.

I bounced in between Twitter and the Nova Scotia Power Outages mobile page and a couple minutes of shut-eye.

Eventually, by 7’ish, it was apparent that we were not going to be able to shower before work and it was time to make ourselves look our best. Jeff luckily showered last night after the wood stacking too. We had enough water left in the pipes and water tank downstairs to wet our hair and give Monty some water in his bowl. I still wore a hat to work because water alone is not enough to subdue my bed head!

Power was restored after 8am. The official word is the planned maintenance overnight was taking down our main power distribution line. The backup line coming in the other direction obviously failed and there was no power to be had.

This afternoon, as soon as we got home from work, we were back at the wood. I knew my body was tired, but it wasn’t too sore. But after a few loads my back had enough. The pieces were getting heavier and bigger (it seemed) and I went from carrying one piece by the end in each hand, to using 2 hands per piece. (There is a bunch of oak in the wood this year and it is INCREDIBLY heavy – far heavier than the birch.)

Soon my back had enough and felt like it was going to snap in half. Jeff kept telling me to stop and take a break and I didn’t know how he knew I was hurting, but then I realized I was loudly groaning!

But I couldn’t let him do all the work, so I moved to the lawnmower.

We haven’t cut the grass in 2-3 weeks and it is thick and long!

So it was slow going, and hot outside, and I was already tired, but I kept going. Didn’t get it done, but did the backyard and most of the front. I just kept going until Jeff was finished all the rest of the wood.

Then I hurried into the shower, knowing my body would soon be seized up, you know, like a piece of gum chewed for a day, and then spit out and left to bake in the sun for 2 days.

Now I’m re-hydrating myself, and having a few squares of chocolate from the supply Jeff keeps hidden for me. I snapped at Jeff awhile ago for making me talk to much. I’m too broken to talk.

Tomorrow, I should be good as new.