I'm writing this Christmas morning, trying to stay quiet while my husband sleeps. We are warm and safe but the winds we've experienced for the last several days have made these past days ones to remember.
In town there has been a lot of damage to businesses with some losing their roofs. Power has been out for a large part of the county for up to 21 hours. Winds have been clocked at 74 mph. Many trees have been blown down all over.
Until last night, other than the one tree blocking our driveway a couple of days ago, we've not had any problems that couldn't be fixed with snowplow or shovel and lots of really warm clothing.
Last night before Papa Pea stoked the wood stove in the kitchen for the overnight fire, we started experiencing large puffs of gray smoke billowing out of the stove. Ugh, it quickly got really smoky in the house. At first we thought it was the incessant wind creating a bad down draft. It continued to get worse before it occurred to us that, uh-oh, the chimney must have blown down.
Upstairs to Papa Pea's office we went to shine lights out the window where we could see the whole 4' length of heavy insulated chimney pipe lying off to the side in a drift of snow on the roof. Nothing to do but try to get it back up or continue to let the house fill with more smoke from the two pieces of wood and bed of red-hot coals in the stove.
We changed from our pajamas into outdoor duds. Papa Pea thought he could get the chimney back in place temporarily at least for the night. Then we heard a loud "thunk." The whole section of chimney had blown off the roof and landed on the deck.
Now he'd have to climb the ladder carrying the insulated chimney section back up to the roof. He insisted he could do it himself so I stayed inside shining a light through the window onto the chimney area. The wind was still howling while blowing snow. And my stomach did not feel so good.
Long story short, he got the chimney (and tool box) up the ladder (two trips), crawled between two huge snow drifts on the roof (which was possibly a good thing) to the artificially created snow valley where the chimney was. Or used to be.
Turns out when the chimney took the header off the roof it was dented and damaged enough that he couldn't reattach it properly, but it did hold for the rest of the night as I checked first thing this morning.
Bedtime came well after midnight. We looked but never spotted Santa and his sleigh sailing overhead. With the winds, he most likely had to make his rounds on the ground. As we crawled into bed, we may have heard a deep voice off in the distance calling, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night."
14 comments:
So glad to know you are safe, and hopefully still warm. Blessings to all for a less eventful Christmas Day and a Happy (and more quiet) New Year's Eve. Hugs from Texas to Minnesota.
Oh my! What an unexpected adventure! Wishing you both a merry Christmas, nonetheless!
Blame Santa for his bad driving..knocking the chimney off!
Seriously..glad you are both still in one piece
Wow. That was a revolting development. ...that moment when you realize the evening is going to be an adventure. Merry Christmas!
holy smokes (literally) .. grateful you are safe .. the gales of December need to blow on thru and soon
Oh no! My stove chimney comes out of the steepest north facing roof of my house. I wouldn't be able to fix that even on a calm day.
Emergency emptying of the stove: probably dump the metal bucket that holds kindling, use poker and shovel to move the logs and haul ass outside into a snowdrift.
Good thing we both have a furnace for backup heat when needed and so glad you are both alright.
Wow!!!!
Hope things to progress get better and getting better as time goes on scary stuff you guys did a great job! Merry Christmas. Goatldi
First, the title, then "Papa Pea still in bed," then the prospect of another ladder/roof accident, and you had me very worried about how this story was going to end! So glad no one was injured, and a temporary fix held. PLEASE be careful – both of you!
Agent X - Oh, thanks for your kind words. Yesterday the wind finally quit and what a good feeling that was. It made for a good Christmas day. Now back to a more comfortable weather pattern!
Leigh - All is well and we're more than ready for no more "adventures" for a good long time.
gz - So THAT'S what happened to the chimney! ;o)
SmartAlex - Haha, revolting is a good word for it! :o) Now I'm putting "wash kitchen ceiling" on the spring list. You can't see any smoke residue but I have a feeling it's up there!
Marie - Yep, we're safe and sound (with a question as to the "sound" part). As mentioned above, supposedly those dratted winds have left the area . . . which makes the actual temp of 5° seem so much warmer!
tpals - No work yet on making the chimney right so we're not chancing using that stove at all right now. The gas wall heater on the opposite wall from the stove has been put into service so we're not suffering. Hooray for back-ups! :o)
Goatldi - The only one of us "scared" during the midnight process was me. Papa Pea was confident he could do what had to be done otherwise he wouldn't have attempted it. At least that's what he told me. (We won't bring up the incident a couple of winter's ago and when he fell off the ladder trying to access the solar panels up on the rotating pole! No sirree, don't wanna go back there.)
Michelle - Sorry, to have given you a momentary fright. All went well. 'Course, I can say that when it's all over with. Hubby was just a little bit stiff yesterday. I think from trying to hang onto the snow covered roof with his knee caps while crawling to the chimney area and back! Not sure when he's thinking of making the necessary repairs but with the back-up L.P. gas wall heater in the kitchen we're staying warm while avoiding using the wood stove and unreliable chimney, so all is well. The bumpy ride title was more about the past days of that horrible wind that everyone in the area has had to go through. So, so glad it finally stopped yesterday!
Oh my goodness. Glad you got it fixed. I felt like we lived in MN with this last storm we got. Terrible wind, but 50-60mph vs. you 70. Worst cold weather, and some days -27 degree wind chill. There were several accidents on our highway the day after Christmas. Icy roads and no salt truck until after the accidents.
Oh my. I know you didn't want Papa Pea to have to go on the roof in those conditions. Sometimes it's good to have a husband that CAN DO. Glad all turned out well & you have backup heat.
Kristina - Yes, this past Christmas storm was fairly widespread. We're supposed to warm up to a few degrees above freezing tomorrow with rain/sleet/snow. Now that I'm not going to be happy about! :o(
DFW - Yes, I'm not sure what we would have done late Christmas Eve about that smoke pouring into the house if he hadn't been able to get the chimney pipe back into place. Made me a nervous wreck, but all he suffered was a few aches the next day from being so tense working up there under those conditions. He was VERY careful, you can be sure.
Mama Pea, Yikes! Another adventure in homesteading!'Glad you both are safe and everything was well managed during a difficult situation. You both are smart, capable, hands-on people who are prepared with contingencies, such as a backup heater. I always worry about things like that happening around here, especially during an unusually hard storm. And we've had our share of adventures in the past 34 years here. But this time and thankfully, we only got strewn branches on top of cement-like snow drifts. We were lucky this time but we might not be next time! At least the house is well built! ;-) -M
Anonymous M - Daughter and Papa Pea went "up on the roof top" yesterday and did a darn good job of fixing the chimney situation until some nice spring day when the roof is clear of ice and snow when it will all be redone complete with wire supports to insure this little surprise doesn't occur again! I talked with a friend yesterday who said she had so many twigs and branches strewn all over her front lawn area that she considered going out on the packed hard snow to rake it all up!
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