The Night The Lights Went Out

Friday ended up with an odd twist!

After going with Colette to Mankato to drop off Alex to see his Dad, I came home to a black out. Colette and I had done some window shopping and some other sister things, so I didn't get home till about 11 p.m.

When arriving home, I noticed some vehicles sitting on the road just south of our place. I chose to go up to the yard, rather than investigate at that time. When getting up into the yard, I noticed the yard light was out. I found that to be odd. Also, Russ's pickup wasn't in the yard. Since we were planning to move Justin on Saturday, I found that odd too, since I thought he'd be home in bed getting rest for the upcoming busy day.

Just as I headed into the house and found the electricity out throughout, Russ called. He explained that Hotovec's tractor driver had wrapped the hose from the hose-dragging system (see previous entries for more details re: hose-dragging system) around one of the power poles in the field and pulled it out, stretching the electric wires to breakage. OOPS.

I was told this happened about 10 p.m. Russ had been in another field working it up for spring planting when he got a phone call from Ronny. After Ronny received the news, he called the R.E.A. notifying them of the occurrence and then called Russ.

After I was told about this, I thought I might as well go on down by the people just south of the yard and listen in to what they were saying. Ronny, Russ, Joel H., our neighbor Pat W. and another guy were standing around waiting for the R.E.A. to show up. While I was there, I asked who was all affected by this. They figured the following were without power: Us (of course), Pat W., Paul W., the hog set-up (just across the road from our place), and Charlie K.

After a bit, Russ and I decided that I should go home and try to get some rest since Saturday's planned activity was to move Justin. So, I went home and attempted to get some rest.

I went to bed around Midnight and the R.E.A had not arrived yet. But, I couldn't sleep very good. So I'd get up now and again and check out our South window to try to see what might be happening. I think it was around 1 a.m. when the R.E.A. arrived the first time. Russ told me later that when they arrived the first time, they assessed the situation, and fixed it so that there was power for the neighbors. Russ was frustrated with them because he was told by Ronny that Ronny told the R.E.A. that the power pole had been pulled out of the ground - and the R.E.A. hadn't brought the right equipment to reset the pole.

Since they didn't have the right equipment for that task, they had to return to Danube (about an hour drive from our place) to get the right equipment. Somewhere around 3 a.m. they returned. Once back, apparently the setting of the pole and fixing the wires didn't take very long. Russ said we had power on again around 3:15 a.m.

A Comment made regarding the incident:...The fieldwork in that particular field should have been done in the daylight. Working around those poles is hard enough to do in the day light.

I had planned on sharing photos regarding how the work is done. I'd taken a short video clip of the hose-dragging outfit (on the tractor) in action. BUT, I forgot my camera at Justin's new apartment. So, that will have to wait.

Justin and Nicky will be coming to our neck of the woods next weekend for Dad's birthday. Hopefully they will remember to bring the camera then. After which, I will share those photos that will hopefully help explain how this drama could have happened.





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I added the pictures 5/8/2007. The post that was pulled out was the 2nd one from the road (left picture), the 1st one in the field (right picture).

The above video shows how Hotovec's unrolled the hoses for using them in the hose dragging operation.



This video (above) shows how the manure was injected into the fields, using the hose-dragging system.