Well, I'm back and have power.
Headed north to madisonville to stay with on my parents farm, I left the wednesday (12-9/08) before the storm hit and was there until the 22nd when I came down to start work again on the 23rd. All our animals and major structures on the property came through just fine. IDK how strong Ike was when it hit our property but seeing a healthy tree with a 2 foot-and-a-half thick trunk split in half is an impressive sight.
Now my parents just moved into this poperty not even 2 weeks ago so we had NO time to gather resources whatsoever (what fun). Thankfully we still had lots of turkey and goat meat (ones we slaughtered and packaged before moving) to barbecue and not much in our fridge went bad because we were still in the process of painting the kitchen and therefore living on takeout or canned food (unstocked fridge). However, my mother wanted electricity, but more than that we needed to be able to pump enough water for the animals to drink.
So my dad and I bought a generator, which developed a gas leak so we had to chase down the salesmen for almost 3 days playing phone tag and not-show-up-for-the-exchange-after-I-waited-two-*******ING-HOURS-for-them. So when my dad and I had to travel all the way to Beaumont to exchange it they upgraded us to a better generator worth about $300 more than the one we paid for (which was $1,600....damn sharks). Buth the exchange ocurred after we had gotten power again so at least we have it in case of future power failure or powerful storm.
Back to the story....
The first and only essential thing we ran out was water for both us and the animals about the 16th or 17th (right afterwards was tolerance for the nagging). We took care of the animals by drawing streamwater (must've tasted bad since thirsty as they were they didn't drink much of it). I have newfound respect for people who lived before the advent of hand/electrical water pumps and who have to fetch multiple buckets of water to do ANYTHING they wanted that involved water. Altogether 120 some-odd gallons of water was alot of damn water to haul in buckets for those animals AND us.
And guys, let me tell you that when you read about ancient cultures and how girls of the family were usually the ones who had to fetch water all the time? I would bet my money that those girls were NOT wimps when it comes to brute strength.
We rationed drinking water between me and my parents (only 20 oz. a day to drink) until we got some water supplies from Bryan/College station about 30 miles away from us. About 3 days later we got some extra water supplies from a FEMA distribution center and then the power was turned on (my mother was ecstatic).
Anyway, I enjoyed the camping trip on our 18 acres of brushland and creek, the swimming was fun and the dogs probably enjoyed it more than I did. And I am now eternally reminded of why our family went on so few camping trips, as I have rediscovered that my mother is a city-girl to the core and cannot stand the concept of life without electricity, sleeping on the ground, and/or washing oneself in a cool stream even if you can't see through to the bottom. (the nagging, the NAGGING!!!
). That's about all I have to share for my part.