19:59 – Our power failed at about 3:48 p.m. yesterday when a strong windstorm popped up. It lasted all of ten minutes, but by the time it had blown through power was down all across the northwestern part of the county and some other areas as well. Our power just came back on about 7:00 this evening.
This morning, Barbara and I hauled out the generator. For some reason, the last time we used it (some years ago) I hadn’t run it dry, so there was gunky fuel in it. We siphoned out the bad gas and put in fresh gas and then tried using ether-based starting fluid to get it running. No deal. Fortunately, our neighbor Steve, who’s a master mechanic, was available. He ended up having to tear down the carburetor and clean it out, but he did get the generator running around noon. We connected just our upstairs refrigerator and the big freezer downstairs, both of which ran for several hours. I just went down and shut off the fuel to let the generator die. Tomorrow, I’ll siphon out what’s left in the tank and let it dry out completely.