Our Dependency on Electricity
26 Nov 2021 - Tyler
What would you do if your power was out for an extended period of time? Have you ever considered it?
It’s winter here on our farm in a remote area of Northern Alberta, Canada. We have snow on the ground outside, and today as I’m writing this we are fortunate that some wind has brought us warm weather. Currently it is about 2 degrees celsius outside. Of course, there are two sides to everything, and this same wind that brings us some enjoyable temperatures has also taken out a powerline somewhere that has taken out the power.
Things were fine when I went outside this morning to do chores. Feed the goats, feed the chickens, check on the cows and the horse, give our guardian dogs a pat on the head and a good morning. As I finished up and came into the house though, I noticed that the light in our entryway, which is never turned off, was out, and I thought to myself, “Huh what are the odds the bulb burned out while I was out doing chores.”
As I came in though, taking off my boots and my coat, I went to rinse out the bottle I use to feed our bottle-fed calf, and as I turned the faucet expecting water to come out, nothing did. That’s when I realised that the bulb hadn’t burned out, our power was out.
This isn’t an entirely odd occurrence here. Living in an area that has lots of trees when its windy we often lose our power here or there for hours at a time, or in the worst case (as happened to us many years ago) a few days. Although this morning for some reason it bothered me and got me thinking.
Usually after chores I will have breakfast. Some oatmeal, or perhaps a few eggs fried on our electric stove. Using the stove or the microwave wasn’t an option today. We are lucky in the sense that we heat our house with a wood burning stove, and have a good supply of wood. So, for breakfast after chores I at least was able to put a pot of water on top of our wood stove and heat it up for oatmeal. I’m sure we could cook eggs and fry meat on it. We are okay there. Its not as convenient, sure, but its doable. How many people in cities have a wood burning stove and a supply of wood though? Would you be able to cook food without electricity if you needed to? Most people have a grill of some sort – charcoal or propane – but how long would your supply of fuel last if for some reason you needed it to?
Water of course is another issue. For ourselves, as well as for all of our animals. We have a fairly robust system here with insulated and heated waterers that gets water to the animals. With electricity they can keep the water flowing easily down to 20 or 30 degrees celsius below zero. When we start getting down to 40 below, you have to make sure to go out and break the ice that forms, but they will still work. As long as there is electricity. Without it though, we would have to return to primitive methods. Literally going out to our dugout (a reservoir of water something like a pond that is common in our area where there isn’t access to well water) chop a hole in the ice – which at times could be a foot or more thick – and use a bucket to haul water to and fro for all of the animals and ourselves. Have you ever seen how much a thirsty cow can drink? They’ll drink a whole 5 gallon bucket of water and then look at you with eyes that say “Is that all? Wheres the rest?” So then off you’d go again, to fill another bucket, and again, and again, and again…
Now of course this exact case isn’t an issue to those who live in town and aren’t worried about watering large animals, but it still raises the issue of what you would do if you didn’t have access to readily available water.
We rely on electricity. We also tend to take it for granted. Electricity does so much of the hard work for us. Pumping water, heating food, not to mention the entertainment and basic life conveniences it grants us as well. Lets just hope we never have to deal with a situation where we don’t have it for an extended period of time.