April 10, 2025 • 22 mins
A devastating ice storm transforms into a profound lesson about resilience, community, and finding comfort in the chaos when nature unleashes its fury. What began as routine storm preparations quickly evolved into a harrowing ordeal filled with falling trees, powerless nights, and unexpected moments of connection.
Living with my 93-year-old father during this crisis revealed both vulnerability and strength. Unable to use his usual entertainment sources and restlessly wanting to help despite physical limitations, he showed me how isolation affects our elders – especially when he admitted having no nearby friends to turn to. Yet together we found unexpected joy in adversity: heating pizza on the propane fireplace, wearing toques indoors, and sharing stories by flashlight while rationing my precious cannabis supply.
The storm illuminated humanity's dual nature. While some frustrated citizens berated exhausted hydro workers, others exemplified extraordinary kindness. Team Rubicon – veterans volunteering for disaster response – cleared massive debris from my father's property without charge. Neighbors we'd never met checked on each other, friends opened their homes for showers and phone charging, and workers from multiple provinces labored tirelessly to restore power.
This experience reinforced why I created the Bite Me Cannabis Club – because community matters profoundly, especially during life's storms. Like cannabis itself, human connection provides essential comfort in challenging times. Join our community at JoinBiteMe.com and share your own stories of finding light in unexpected places.
Visit the website for full show notes, free dosing calculator, recipes and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome, friends, to episode 294.
Today's a little bit different.
Today we're talking ice, icebaby and community.
Stay tuned.
Welcome to Bite Me, the showabout edibles, where I help you
take control of your high life.
I'm your host and certifiedgonger, margaret, and I love
helping cooks make safe andeffective edibles at home.
(00:26):
I'm so glad you're here,friends.
Welcome to the podcast thatexplores the intersection of
food culture and cannabis, whereI help home cooks make great
edibles in their own homekitchens.
I'm so glad they're here withme today.
It has been a wild week.
Yeah, this is a little bit of adifferent episode today, and the
last few days have been reallyodd.
(00:46):
They have been really odd.
But why am I talking about thistoday?
I think it's in large partbecause it's given me a chance
to really think about people andcommunity and the two things
that really keep us going whatthe world would be like if we
didn't have that.
And it just became so obviousduring this latest crazy ice
storm that ended up affectingmyself and my father in ways we
(01:11):
couldn't have imagined.
I'm glad you're here listeningwith me today, even though it's
a little bit of a differentformat.
So happy you're here If you'rejust joining for the first time.
I would love to know whereyou're listening from If you've
been here for a while.
Thank you so much for tuning inonce again to another fantastic
episode.
Can you believe 294 episodes?
Sometimes it kind of boggles mymind a little bit.
(01:33):
I never thought when I firststarted out almost six years ago
I'm coming up on six years Inever thought that I would still
be doing this all these yearslater.
But unlike most of the jobsI've had for my adult life, I
actually like this one.
So that's one of the reasonswhy I keep doing it and in large
part, one of the reasons whythis is such a great vocation is
(01:55):
because of you listeners.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
I really appreciate you.
So maybe I was going to do atrivia question, but you know
what I think today.
I'll skip it.
I'm not really in the mood.
We had a major ice storm roll up.
It turned out to be a lot moreserious than people were
probably really predicting itwould have been Now.
(02:16):
It was serious enough that Ihad gone out.
The storm was supposed to comeon a weekend and I had gone out
and done a bunch of groceryshopping.
I even made a stop at Costco topick up some things because I
was anticipating not wanting toleave the house because it was
calling for freezing rain, whichmakes driving conditions
dangerous.
I had books to read, I hadpodcasts to listen to, I had
edibles to eat, edibles to make,I had plenty of things to keep
(02:38):
me busy for the weekend and, ofcourse, what transpired was much
worse than anybody probablyanticipated.
But this episode is not justabout weather chaos, but about
community gratitude andconnection, plus a few
cannabis-fueled survival tips,of course.
(02:58):
So let's get into it.
Let's get into it.
So you may be wondering well,why are we talking about this
and you're not doing yourregular programming, margaret?
And I'll tell you, because Ihave not been super ahead of the
game.
A lot of the times I like tohave several episodes in the can
, as we like to say in the biz,which is actually a reference to
(03:21):
movies and nothing to do withpodcasting at all.
But I like to picture that, orI like to use that phrase, but
just having a few episodes inthe bank, if you will.
And there are periods of timewhere I have plenty of episodes
in the bank and I'm ahead ofthings.
It just depends on what else isgoing on in life, of course,
but I was at a point where I didnot.
I did not have a lot of extraepisodes in the bank, and so I
(03:46):
was prepping for an episode andthis ice storm hit and I really
couldn't.
I couldn't have anticipated it,mainly because we didn't lose
power right away.
Yes, we lost power, but thefirst night of the storm on the
weekend and, as I mentioned, Ihad gone out and run a bunch of
(04:06):
errands and I went to bed thatevening a little stoned, a
little high on edibles, as Inormally do, and I turned my
phone off.
I was probably doing a littledoom scrolling.
I went to bed that night and itwas getting windy out, and at
the house where I live there isa large front yard.
There's probably at least 100feet in length, the driveway's
(04:29):
at least that long, and my dadlives in a rural area.
I mean, he's very close to thelocal library and a plaza where
you can get all the things thatyou need.
But across the street from usis a farmer's field.
There is a house next door, butthere's only a few houses on
this street three to be specificand there are numerous large
(04:54):
mature trees that are on thefront lawn and lots of trees on
the property elsewhere as well,but these particular trees have
been growing for God.
I think my parents bought thishouse 35 years ago, give or take
, and they were pretty big whenwe moved in when I was a kid.
I was a teenager when we movedinto this house, and so of
course, they've had 35 extrayears to grow and stretch.
And I went to bed and it wasgetting really windy and
(05:14):
oftentimes when it gets reallywindy, those trees are swaying
and you can hear them and it cansound probably windier than it
actually is, just because of thewind blowing through the tree
branches.
And I was already maybe feelinga little bit anxious because it
sounded so windy out, but itwas and I started to hear these
sounds and it was really spookybecause what I was hearing was
(05:37):
the sound of the tree branchesand trees snapping like twigs.
They were so weighted down inice that whole branches and
limbs are just crashing downonto the ground.
And not only was it the soundof the branches crashing, but it
was the ice breaking up at thesame time, which made this sound
even worse, and that went onall night.
(06:00):
I did not sleep a wink untilmaybe five o'clock in the
morning.
I kind of dozed off but becauseit was quiet I could be
reminded of what time it wasbecause of the chiming of the
grandfather clock, which seemsthat every grandparent I mean,
do you know an old person with agrandfather clock in their
(06:21):
house?
And this clock that my dad has,I know he loves it.
I think he built it from a kityears ago and he winds it up
every single day and it chimesat every quarter hour and I can
always tell I've gotten used to,because it'll have a shorter
chime at quarter after and thena little longer at half past and
a little longer at quarter two,and then on the hour it'll
(06:42):
chime with all the number ofhours.
So three on the clock in themorning I could hear a bong
three times in a row.
That was just a nice reminderthat I wasn't getting any sleep
because I was listening to allof this happening outside.
And of course sometimes I sat upin bed because I was just like
is this, aren't these treesgoing to fall in the house?
My bedroom faces the front ofthe house, where all these trees
(07:03):
were, and I was admittedlyworrying that the tree limb
might crash through the windowand kill me in some kind of
final destination weird horrorfilm ending.
So all night I was listening tothis and the next day when I
got up, the carnage on the frontlawn was unbelievable.
I can't believe how manybranches fell and this continued
throughout the entire day.
(07:24):
I sat in the living room and Icould watch, because that was
Sunday at that point and I couldwatch these tree branches just
crashing down into the groundand there's a bunch of woods at
the back of my dad's property.
You could open the door andjust hear trees crashing in the
woods.
The trees in the ice and someof the trees closer to the house
like there was a few trees thatactually made out quite fine
and didn't have didn't sustainany damage, but the ice on these
(07:47):
trees looked like it was acouple of inches thick.
There was so much ice and itwas no like just destroyed these
trees.
We lost an entire willow tree.
That whole thing fell down.
Several trees in the back woodsfell down.
My mother's beloved ironwoodtree, which is a very hard wood,
cracked right down the middle.
It's been since cut downbecause it wasn't going to
(08:08):
survive, but it was a prettyscary night.
We did make it out okay becauseso many trees came down in the
area, power went out for a lotof people.
We were fortunate, though, wedidn't lose power until several
days in, and I'm not sure whathappened, because I know on the
first night when this happenedthere was a lot of glowing green
(08:29):
in the sky and people weretelling me that was like
transformers blowing, which wasalso kind of creepy, because I
heard this from several people.
My dad said he saw that, so Iknow I wasn't crazy.
I heard from several people wholived in town because we live
like just outside of town andthey were about this the very
same experience and it's soweird.
When you have these treescrashing down and these the sky
(08:50):
glowing green, it's like what isgoing on.
You know we were prettyconcerned when we got up the
next morning because you couldalso see a lot of branches in
the tops of the trees that hadsnapped but hadn't actually
fallen.
So it's probably not super safeto be going out on the front
lawn anytime soon until some ofthose branches can be fully
removed.
Some of them have just alreadyfallen on their own.
But living with my dad, I wasreally grateful that I was here
(09:10):
to help him sort of assess thedamage.
I was able to get some peoplein to help him do some of the
cleanup, because my dad, I think, is sometimes frustrated with
his age.
If he were a younger man hewould be out there doing a lot
of this work himself, becausehe's always done that Done.
He's always been somebody whoputters around the house, he
always has a project on the goand now he's just he gets too
(09:33):
winded, he gets tired tooquickly.
But of course, because so manypeople did lose power I had
heard that this, this ice stormhit a pretty large swath of
areas much further outside ofwhere I live, like maybe a
couple of hours sort of northand south of us.
It was nice to see neighborschecking in on each other or
friends messaging saying do youneed anything, let us know.
(09:54):
I know I had my one of mydaughters over with her
roommates because they needed tocharge phones and they wanted a
hot meal, so I was able to cookfor them and spend some time
with them while they werecharging up their devices and we
were doing okay and it wasreally nice to unfortunately,
under these circumstances meetsome of the neighbors that we
hadn't met before, because wewere checking on people to make
(10:15):
sure people were okay and, ofcourse, a lot there was people
in the Bite Me Cannabis Club whowere checking in and offering
you know some comfort as well.
But it wasn't until that stormhappened on a weekend and it
wasn't until late Wednesdaynight.
It was another windy night andI heard a couple of pops.
(10:35):
This was almost midnight onWednesday.
They sounded like gunshots andflashes of light and our power
went out and it was probably atransformer somewhere that blew
or whatever the things are.
I know my terminology if you'reworking for any kind of hydro
company or I'm sorry if I'mbutchering this, and I know I am
and we lost our power.
When you don't have power, thatobviously means you don't have
(10:57):
heat.
That's pretty obvious, but youdon't have water from your taps
because it's the electricitythat runs the pumps for your
taps.
You can't flush your toiletswithout well.
Actually you can.
What we were worried aboutbecause my father is also on a
well that there were two sumppumps at the house and I spent
(11:17):
the first day emptying a lot ofbuckets from the sump pump to
make sure that it didn'toverflow.
That never did, but I certainlygot my exercise that day and,
of course, I had to bring upbuckets of water from the sump
pump to the washrooms so that wecould flush the toilets.
That's what we ended up havingto do for five days because we
had no power, because you canobviously pour water into the
(11:38):
back of your toilet tank and beable to flush the toilet, but
that also means no refrigerator,no stove, no, nothing.
I mean, I don't need to tell youwhat it's like when you don't
have power.
I'm sure there's many of you Iknow there's many of you that
live in areas where it is proneto major weather events and have
probably suffered somethingsimilar.
But I am very grateful that Iwas here for my dad, because I
(12:01):
know he did go down and get abucket of water a couple of
times and I was like dad, I willdo it, don't worry.
But he really does not like tosit around and, of course, a lot
of the stuff that he does,because he's not as active, his
eyes aren't as sharp as theyused to be, he watches a lot of
YouTube and he watches a lot ofTV and you take that away and
suddenly there's not as much todo.
Now he usually does play poolwith his friends, but when you
(12:23):
don't have power they weren'tcoming over.
Many of them were also dealingwith their own problems in their
own houses of having to clearup a lot of tree damage, some
property damage and some poweroutages as well.
Again, I'm just so grateful Icould be here for him, because I
heard him bring up one bucketof water and he was just winded
from that.
(12:43):
For so long he lived out here byhimself, just out here by
himself, and I don't think, ifpossible, anybody should be
alone in their last years.
I mean, my dad's turning 94later this year.
While I expect he'll be aroundfor a little while longer, he
does remarkably well.
He did go out with a chainsawon the one first day after the
(13:05):
storm to cut a couple limbs offbecause some branches had fallen
on the driveway, and this wasagainst my advice.
But he kind of snuck out when Iwas doing something else.
We still had power at that point.
This is the kind of man he is,he doesn't like to sit around,
and so this was five days and hedoes have a generator but it
wasn't working.
So we could have had thisgenerator.
(13:26):
Like he did get it out, I triedto start it.
He tried to start it.
Some of the workers that cameby to help clear away some of
the debris tried it.
We did lose all the food in thefridge, which was sort of
painful in a way too, because Ihad just gone grocery shopping
and picked up some stuff atCostco and and that was not
great.
But when you've been withoutpower for five days, I'm not
taking any chances.
(13:46):
I mean, the fridge has neverlooked cleaner, that's for sure.
I just wanted to give a bigshout out to the hydro workers
who are braving really difficultconditions to get the lights
back on for so many people.
It was estimated at one pointthat 400,000 people were without
power.
That's so difficult.
I know the house next door hasa young family with two young
(14:06):
kids, I imagine trying to goabout your daily routine when
you don't have electricity.
So people were having a toughtime and I went into a friend's
house to shower, charge somedevices, try and get a little
caught up in some work, and Istopped at a coffee shop on the
way through the drive-thrubecause I really needed coffee
and I heard some guy screamingat the hydro workers that had
(14:28):
stopped to pick up a sandwichand some coffee before
continuing on and he was justscreaming at them.
He's like I haven't had powerfor 10 days and you're sitting
out here eating sandwiches.
So some of those workers weretaking a lot of abuse, sometimes
, unfortunately, from reallyfrustrated people.
So it was a really difficulttime for everyone.
And there were hydro workerscoming in from Quebec and New
(14:49):
Brunswick, apparently becausethe damage was so extensive.
So just a huge shout out tohydro workers and also a huge
shout out to Team Rubicon, whichI had never heard about until
this whole ordeal happened.
Luckily I still had battery,still had data on my phone, even
if I couldn't charge my phone.
So I had to keep it in airplanemode most of the time so the
(15:10):
battery wouldn't drain.
My phone's not exactly new.
I refused to buy a new oneuntil it finally gives up the
ghost.
So the battery life isn'tnecessarily so great.
I usually keep it in low powermode at all times, just so it
doesn't die on me too quickly.
But I happened to look and thelocal municipality had posted
something about Team Rubiconthat were coming out to help
(15:33):
people clean up some of thestorm damage and Team Rubicon is
a veteran-led non-profitcharity disaster response
organization.
So when there are major eventslike this they will dispatch to
the areas in need.
And I called them up.
Our phone line still workedbecause I had an old rotary dial
(15:56):
phone.
My dad does have a phone lineand thank God because we were
able to make phone calls, but ofcourse all of his phones are
cordless phones, which meantthey wouldn't work.
So I was able to take thisphone and plug it in and we
could make phone calls the oldfashioned.
They wouldn't work.
So I was able to take thisphone and plug it in and we
could make phone calls the oldfashioned way, like I did when I
was a kid.
It was really taking me back.
So I was able to call rightaway to this team Rubicon
(16:16):
because the front lawn was justdestroyed and he's a senior on a
fixed income.
And by that morning there was acrew of four gentlemen who came
out.
They had a look at everythingthat was going on.
They started the cleanup, theycut down the willow tree and the
ironwood and they they startedgetting all the branches off the
lawns where it was safe to doso and piling them by the side
(16:38):
of the driveway.
They weren't able.
They didn't have the equipmentto take any of it away, but they
were able to pile it neatly.
The second day they came backwith a crew of eight and got so
much stuff done.
Now my dad still has to hiresomebody and to finish the job,
but the amount of work thatthese people did free of charge
before they were able to go onto the next house and help out
(16:59):
somebody else was just amazing.
I'd never heard of Team Rubiconbefore, so I just wanted to
give a big shout out to thesefolks too.
They were wonderful.
I was so grateful for the helpthat they gave my father as well
.
I've never been.
When the power finally did comeon, there was a bunch of hydro
trucks on the road and they weredoing all this kind of thing.
And I would say my dad had apretty good idea which hydro
pole was out, because we've lostpower for shorter times before
(17:23):
and he knew which pole was out,where our electricity was coming
from, and anytime he stopped atthe local coffee shop when he
saw the hydro workers there, hewould tell them about pole 236.
He would tell anybody who wouldlisten.
It still took us five days toget our power back on, but it
did indeed end up being thatpole, along with some other
stuff too.
I've never been so grateful forheat.
(17:45):
It was supposed to get so coldthat night when the power came
on.
I believe it was.
It was supposed to get so coldthat night when the power came
on.
I believe it was Mondayafternoon late afternoon around
three o'clock.
It was supposed to get verycold like minus, at least minus
10 degrees below Celsius, and itsnowed that night as well.
But we had heat, thankfully.
(18:06):
There is a lot of gratitudethat I have in just rebuilding
this normalcy, but also thefunny moments that my dad and I
shared as we heated pizza up onthe propane gas fireplace,
because my dad has a gas, apropane fireplace that still
worked, but because there was noelectricity the blower didn't
work, so it didn't really pushthe heat out.
You had to stand right in frontof it, but you could heat pizza
(18:28):
slices on the top.
He did try heating some coffeeon it as well, which didn't work
that great, but we did sharesome really funny moments with
each other, had some good laughseven as we wore toques around
the house for several days, andit wasn't even that cold.
Of course I was able to use alittle bit of cannabis in the
evenings.
Now, I wasn't able to makeedibles, but I always have a
(18:52):
supply on hand and I had a bagof gummies that I was able to
make use of.
And I did have my dry herbvaporizer.
I just had to use it sparinglybecause I had no way to charge
it as well Once that batterydied.
That was it Now in a pinch.
I'm not a joint smoker.
As an ex-smoker, that's not myfavorite way to consume in a
pinch.
I have papers and I can alwaysroll a joint if I need to.
(19:15):
I even have a little jointroller, because my own joints
are actually pretty awful.
I don't, I hardly ever roll.
It's not something I've everpracticed, and maybe one day if
I ever did.
But the joint roller, they workso well and my joints always
turn out perfect with it.
And because I smoke joints soseldomly, that that's the way I
go and that's maybe I doremember I had a boyfriend a
long time ago, many years ago,who smoked a lot of joints and
(19:38):
so he would always roll thembecause he kind of liked doing
it and they looked like perfectcigarettes.
He was so good at doing it andso I never.
I just never learned.
And of course, when I firststarted consuming cannabis, I
consumed almost strictly hash,so bottle tokes was my thing
back in the day.
That was also when I smokedcigarettes.
I also smoked cigarettes atthat time, which I don't anymore
, which is another reason whyI'm not really big on combustion
(20:00):
, because I have quit a numberof years ago now.
But those did create somecomfort in this difficult time.
It was getting a littlestressful in between those
moments of humor.
But one thing I was reallygrateful to see as well is just
all the way people were comingtogether to help each other out.
(20:21):
Like I said, I met neighborsI'd never met before and friends
were reaching out and I wasable to help some friends out
when we did have power.
It just teaches you aboutself-reliance and community,
because it's all well and goodto be self-reliant we all do
need to be self-reliant to adegree but we all also need
community, because it's awfullydifficult in this world without
(20:44):
it and, honestly, do we reallywant to be in this world without
community?
It's very lonely If my dad hadbeen there by himself.
It broke my heart because Iasked him do you have a friend
you could go over and call ifyou need to take a shower or
something?
And he's like not really, andthat just broke my heart.
So I really appreciate thosefriends of mine that offered
(21:06):
their homes up to me to not onlyme but to my dad as well and of
course I have a newappreciation for light and
warmth and hot showers and thepeople who help restore it and
all the disaster response folks.
Just so much to be grateful for.
Now, to tie this into a littlebit with bite me, of course I
was enjoying edibles.
I was a little less active inmy community.
(21:27):
I started bite me cannabis clubto also create some community,
a private space where people cantalk openly about cannabis.
It's just a really wonderfulgroup of people coming together
under this shared love ofcannabis.
And so if you haven't checkedit out, check out joinbitemecom
and that sort of gives you allthe details about what's
(21:47):
involved, because I do findoftentimes a podcasting can be a
lonely endeavor.
I mean, I'm sitting in mybasement right now recording
this episode by myself, talkingto people that I know on the
other end that are listening,and I am so grateful for that.
But the community, the Bite MeCannabis Club, gives me a
two-way conversation, so I hopeyou'll consider joining.
I would love to have you there.
(22:07):
I have gone on for far longerthan I really expected to and by
the time I actually do someediting it might be turn out a
little bit shorter, but thankyou for listening, thank you for
caring, thank you for beinghere again.
I'm.
I just hope we'll all take amoment, no matter where you are
in your life, to be grateful forthose small things that matter
that we don't really payattention to until they're gone.
(22:29):
Grateful for the people in mylife, grateful for cannabis,
grateful for so many things and,I think, spending more time
being grateful for our world andsome of the beautiful things in
it, because there is stillbeauty in this world, despite
the fact that it can bechallenging sometimes, and there
are some challenging thingsgoing on right now.
So we'll be back to ourregularly scheduled programming
now that I have power again andI'm all getting caught up.
(22:52):
Until next week, my friends,stay safe, stay grateful and
stay high.
Welcome, friends, to episode 294.
Today's a little bit different.
Today we're talking ice, icebaby and community.
Stay tuned.
Welcome to Bite Me, the showabout edibles, where I help you
take control of your high life.
I'm your host and certifiedgonger, margaret, and I love
helping cooks make safe andeffective edibles at home.
(00:26):
I'm so glad you're here,friends.
Welcome to the podcast thatexplores the intersection of
food culture and cannabis, whereI help home cooks make great
edibles in their own homekitchens.
I'm so glad they're here withme today.
It has been a wild week.
Yeah, this is a little bit of adifferent episode today, and the
last few days have been reallyodd.
(00:46):
They have been really odd.
But why am I talking about thistoday?
I think it's in large partbecause it's given me a chance
to really think about people andcommunity and the two things
that really keep us going whatthe world would be like if we
didn't have that.
And it just became so obviousduring this latest crazy ice
storm that ended up affectingmyself and my father in ways we
(01:11):
couldn't have imagined.
I'm glad you're here listeningwith me today, even though it's
a little bit of a differentformat.
So happy you're here If you'rejust joining for the first time.
I would love to know whereyou're listening from If you've
been here for a while.
Thank you so much for tuning inonce again to another fantastic
episode.
Can you believe 294 episodes?
Sometimes it kind of boggles mymind a little bit.
(01:33):
I never thought when I firststarted out almost six years ago
I'm coming up on six years Inever thought that I would still
be doing this all these yearslater.
But unlike most of the jobsI've had for my adult life, I
actually like this one.
So that's one of the reasonswhy I keep doing it and in large
part, one of the reasons whythis is such a great vocation is
(01:55):
because of you listeners.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
I really appreciate you.
So maybe I was going to do atrivia question, but you know
what I think today.
I'll skip it.
I'm not really in the mood.
We had a major ice storm roll up.
It turned out to be a lot moreserious than people were
probably really predicting itwould have been Now.
(02:16):
It was serious enough that Ihad gone out.
The storm was supposed to comeon a weekend and I had gone out
and done a bunch of groceryshopping.
I even made a stop at Costco topick up some things because I
was anticipating not wanting toleave the house because it was
calling for freezing rain, whichmakes driving conditions
dangerous.
I had books to read, I hadpodcasts to listen to, I had
edibles to eat, edibles to make,I had plenty of things to keep
(02:38):
me busy for the weekend and, ofcourse, what transpired was much
worse than anybody probablyanticipated.
But this episode is not justabout weather chaos, but about
community gratitude andconnection, plus a few
cannabis-fueled survival tips,of course.
(02:58):
So let's get into it.
Let's get into it.
So you may be wondering well,why are we talking about this
and you're not doing yourregular programming, margaret?
And I'll tell you, because Ihave not been super ahead of the
game.
A lot of the times I like tohave several episodes in the can
, as we like to say in the biz,which is actually a reference to
(03:21):
movies and nothing to do withpodcasting at all.
But I like to picture that, orI like to use that phrase, but
just having a few episodes inthe bank, if you will.
And there are periods of timewhere I have plenty of episodes
in the bank and I'm ahead ofthings.
It just depends on what else isgoing on in life, of course,
but I was at a point where I didnot.
I did not have a lot of extraepisodes in the bank, and so I
(03:46):
was prepping for an episode andthis ice storm hit and I really
couldn't.
I couldn't have anticipated it,mainly because we didn't lose
power right away.
Yes, we lost power, but thefirst night of the storm on the
weekend and, as I mentioned, Ihad gone out and run a bunch of
(04:06):
errands and I went to bed thatevening a little stoned, a
little high on edibles, as Inormally do, and I turned my
phone off.
I was probably doing a littledoom scrolling.
I went to bed that night and itwas getting windy out, and at
the house where I live there isa large front yard.
There's probably at least 100feet in length, the driveway's
(04:29):
at least that long, and my dadlives in a rural area.
I mean, he's very close to thelocal library and a plaza where
you can get all the things thatyou need.
But across the street from usis a farmer's field.
There is a house next door, butthere's only a few houses on
this street three to be specificand there are numerous large
(04:54):
mature trees that are on thefront lawn and lots of trees on
the property elsewhere as well,but these particular trees have
been growing for God.
I think my parents bought thishouse 35 years ago, give or take
, and they were pretty big whenwe moved in when I was a kid.
I was a teenager when we movedinto this house, and so of
course, they've had 35 extrayears to grow and stretch.
And I went to bed and it wasgetting really windy and
(05:14):
oftentimes when it gets reallywindy, those trees are swaying
and you can hear them and it cansound probably windier than it
actually is, just because of thewind blowing through the tree
branches.
And I was already maybe feelinga little bit anxious because it
sounded so windy out, but itwas and I started to hear these
sounds and it was really spookybecause what I was hearing was
(05:37):
the sound of the tree branchesand trees snapping like twigs.
They were so weighted down inice that whole branches and
limbs are just crashing downonto the ground.
And not only was it the soundof the branches crashing, but it
was the ice breaking up at thesame time, which made this sound
even worse, and that went onall night.
(06:00):
I did not sleep a wink untilmaybe five o'clock in the
morning.
I kind of dozed off but becauseit was quiet I could be
reminded of what time it wasbecause of the chiming of the
grandfather clock, which seemsthat every grandparent I mean,
do you know an old person with agrandfather clock in their
(06:21):
house?
And this clock that my dad has,I know he loves it.
I think he built it from a kityears ago and he winds it up
every single day and it chimesat every quarter hour and I can
always tell I've gotten used to,because it'll have a shorter
chime at quarter after and thena little longer at half past and
a little longer at quarter two,and then on the hour it'll
(06:42):
chime with all the number ofhours.
So three on the clock in themorning I could hear a bong
three times in a row.
That was just a nice reminderthat I wasn't getting any sleep
because I was listening to allof this happening outside.
And of course sometimes I sat upin bed because I was just like
is this, aren't these treesgoing to fall in the house?
My bedroom faces the front ofthe house, where all these trees
(07:03):
were, and I was admittedlyworrying that the tree limb
might crash through the windowand kill me in some kind of
final destination weird horrorfilm ending.
So all night I was listening tothis and the next day when I
got up, the carnage on the frontlawn was unbelievable.
I can't believe how manybranches fell and this continued
throughout the entire day.
(07:24):
I sat in the living room and Icould watch, because that was
Sunday at that point and I couldwatch these tree branches just
crashing down into the groundand there's a bunch of woods at
the back of my dad's property.
You could open the door andjust hear trees crashing in the
woods.
The trees in the ice and someof the trees closer to the house
like there was a few trees thatactually made out quite fine
and didn't have didn't sustainany damage, but the ice on these
(07:47):
trees looked like it was acouple of inches thick.
There was so much ice and itwas no like just destroyed these
trees.
We lost an entire willow tree.
That whole thing fell down.
Several trees in the back woodsfell down.
My mother's beloved ironwoodtree, which is a very hard wood,
cracked right down the middle.
It's been since cut downbecause it wasn't going to
(08:08):
survive, but it was a prettyscary night.
We did make it out okay becauseso many trees came down in the
area, power went out for a lotof people.
We were fortunate, though, wedidn't lose power until several
days in, and I'm not sure whathappened, because I know on the
first night when this happenedthere was a lot of glowing green
(08:29):
in the sky and people weretelling me that was like
transformers blowing, which wasalso kind of creepy, because I
heard this from several people.
My dad said he saw that, so Iknow I wasn't crazy.
I heard from several people wholived in town because we live
like just outside of town andthey were about this the very
same experience and it's soweird.
When you have these treescrashing down and these the sky
(08:50):
glowing green, it's like what isgoing on.
You know we were prettyconcerned when we got up the
next morning because you couldalso see a lot of branches in
the tops of the trees that hadsnapped but hadn't actually
fallen.
So it's probably not super safeto be going out on the front
lawn anytime soon until some ofthose branches can be fully
removed.
Some of them have just alreadyfallen on their own.
But living with my dad, I wasreally grateful that I was here
(09:10):
to help him sort of assess thedamage.
I was able to get some peoplein to help him do some of the
cleanup, because my dad, I think, is sometimes frustrated with
his age.
If he were a younger man hewould be out there doing a lot
of this work himself, becausehe's always done that Done.
He's always been somebody whoputters around the house, he
always has a project on the goand now he's just he gets too
(09:33):
winded, he gets tired tooquickly.
But of course, because so manypeople did lose power I had
heard that this, this ice stormhit a pretty large swath of
areas much further outside ofwhere I live, like maybe a
couple of hours sort of northand south of us.
It was nice to see neighborschecking in on each other or
friends messaging saying do youneed anything, let us know.
(09:54):
I know I had my one of mydaughters over with her
roommates because they needed tocharge phones and they wanted a
hot meal, so I was able to cookfor them and spend some time
with them while they werecharging up their devices and we
were doing okay and it wasreally nice to unfortunately,
under these circumstances meetsome of the neighbors that we
hadn't met before, because wewere checking on people to make
(10:15):
sure people were okay and, ofcourse, a lot there was people
in the Bite Me Cannabis Club whowere checking in and offering
you know some comfort as well.
But it wasn't until that stormhappened on a weekend and it
wasn't until late Wednesdaynight.
It was another windy night andI heard a couple of pops.
(10:35):
This was almost midnight onWednesday.
They sounded like gunshots andflashes of light and our power
went out and it was probably atransformer somewhere that blew
or whatever the things are.
I know my terminology if you'reworking for any kind of hydro
company or I'm sorry if I'mbutchering this, and I know I am
and we lost our power.
When you don't have power, thatobviously means you don't have
(10:57):
heat.
That's pretty obvious, but youdon't have water from your taps
because it's the electricitythat runs the pumps for your
taps.
You can't flush your toiletswithout well.
Actually you can.
What we were worried aboutbecause my father is also on a
well that there were two sumppumps at the house and I spent
(11:17):
the first day emptying a lot ofbuckets from the sump pump to
make sure that it didn'toverflow.
That never did, but I certainlygot my exercise that day and,
of course, I had to bring upbuckets of water from the sump
pump to the washrooms so that wecould flush the toilets.
That's what we ended up havingto do for five days because we
had no power, because you canobviously pour water into the
(11:38):
back of your toilet tank and beable to flush the toilet, but
that also means no refrigerator,no stove, no, nothing.
I mean, I don't need to tell youwhat it's like when you don't
have power.
I'm sure there's many of you Iknow there's many of you that
live in areas where it is proneto major weather events and have
probably suffered somethingsimilar.
But I am very grateful that Iwas here for my dad, because I
(12:01):
know he did go down and get abucket of water a couple of
times and I was like dad, I willdo it, don't worry.
But he really does not like tosit around and, of course, a lot
of the stuff that he does,because he's not as active, his
eyes aren't as sharp as theyused to be, he watches a lot of
YouTube and he watches a lot ofTV and you take that away and
suddenly there's not as much todo.
Now he usually does play poolwith his friends, but when you
(12:23):
don't have power they weren'tcoming over.
Many of them were also dealingwith their own problems in their
own houses of having to clearup a lot of tree damage, some
property damage and some poweroutages as well.
Again, I'm just so grateful Icould be here for him, because I
heard him bring up one bucketof water and he was just winded
from that.
(12:43):
For so long he lived out here byhimself, just out here by
himself, and I don't think, ifpossible, anybody should be
alone in their last years.
I mean, my dad's turning 94later this year.
While I expect he'll be aroundfor a little while longer, he
does remarkably well.
He did go out with a chainsawon the one first day after the
(13:05):
storm to cut a couple limbs offbecause some branches had fallen
on the driveway, and this wasagainst my advice.
But he kind of snuck out when Iwas doing something else.
We still had power at that point.
This is the kind of man he is,he doesn't like to sit around,
and so this was five days and hedoes have a generator but it
wasn't working.
So we could have had thisgenerator.
(13:26):
Like he did get it out, I triedto start it.
He tried to start it.
Some of the workers that cameby to help clear away some of
the debris tried it.
We did lose all the food in thefridge, which was sort of
painful in a way too, because Ihad just gone grocery shopping
and picked up some stuff atCostco and and that was not
great.
But when you've been withoutpower for five days, I'm not
taking any chances.
(13:46):
I mean, the fridge has neverlooked cleaner, that's for sure.
I just wanted to give a bigshout out to the hydro workers
who are braving really difficultconditions to get the lights
back on for so many people.
It was estimated at one pointthat 400,000 people were without
power.
That's so difficult.
I know the house next door hasa young family with two young
(14:06):
kids, I imagine trying to goabout your daily routine when
you don't have electricity.
So people were having a toughtime and I went into a friend's
house to shower, charge somedevices, try and get a little
caught up in some work, and Istopped at a coffee shop on the
way through the drive-thrubecause I really needed coffee
and I heard some guy screamingat the hydro workers that had
(14:28):
stopped to pick up a sandwichand some coffee before
continuing on and he was justscreaming at them.
He's like I haven't had powerfor 10 days and you're sitting
out here eating sandwiches.
So some of those workers weretaking a lot of abuse, sometimes
, unfortunately, from reallyfrustrated people.
So it was a really difficulttime for everyone.
And there were hydro workerscoming in from Quebec and New
(14:49):
Brunswick, apparently becausethe damage was so extensive.
So just a huge shout out tohydro workers and also a huge
shout out to Team Rubicon, whichI had never heard about until
this whole ordeal happened.
Luckily I still had battery,still had data on my phone, even
if I couldn't charge my phone.
So I had to keep it in airplanemode most of the time so the
(15:10):
battery wouldn't drain.
My phone's not exactly new.
I refused to buy a new oneuntil it finally gives up the
ghost.
So the battery life isn'tnecessarily so great.
I usually keep it in low powermode at all times, just so it
doesn't die on me too quickly.
But I happened to look and thelocal municipality had posted
something about Team Rubiconthat were coming out to help
(15:33):
people clean up some of thestorm damage and Team Rubicon is
a veteran-led non-profitcharity disaster response
organization.
So when there are major eventslike this they will dispatch to
the areas in need.
And I called them up.
Our phone line still workedbecause I had an old rotary dial
(15:56):
phone.
My dad does have a phone lineand thank God because we were
able to make phone calls, but ofcourse all of his phones are
cordless phones, which meantthey wouldn't work.
So I was able to take thisphone and plug it in and we
could make phone calls the oldfashioned.
They wouldn't work.
So I was able to take thisphone and plug it in and we
could make phone calls the oldfashioned way, like I did when I
was a kid.
It was really taking me back.
So I was able to call rightaway to this team Rubicon
(16:16):
because the front lawn was justdestroyed and he's a senior on a
fixed income.
And by that morning there was acrew of four gentlemen who came
out.
They had a look at everythingthat was going on.
They started the cleanup, theycut down the willow tree and the
ironwood and they they startedgetting all the branches off the
lawns where it was safe to doso and piling them by the side
(16:38):
of the driveway.
They weren't able.
They didn't have the equipmentto take any of it away, but they
were able to pile it neatly.
The second day they came backwith a crew of eight and got so
much stuff done.
Now my dad still has to hiresomebody and to finish the job,
but the amount of work thatthese people did free of charge
before they were able to go onto the next house and help out
(16:59):
somebody else was just amazing.
I'd never heard of Team Rubiconbefore, so I just wanted to
give a big shout out to thesefolks too.
They were wonderful.
I was so grateful for the helpthat they gave my father as well
.
I've never been.
When the power finally did comeon, there was a bunch of hydro
trucks on the road and they weredoing all this kind of thing.
And I would say my dad had apretty good idea which hydro
pole was out, because we've lostpower for shorter times before
(17:23):
and he knew which pole was out,where our electricity was coming
from, and anytime he stopped atthe local coffee shop when he
saw the hydro workers there, hewould tell them about pole 236.
He would tell anybody who wouldlisten.
It still took us five days toget our power back on, but it
did indeed end up being thatpole, along with some other
stuff too.
I've never been so grateful forheat.
(17:45):
It was supposed to get so coldthat night when the power came
on.
I believe it was.
It was supposed to get so coldthat night when the power came
on.
I believe it was Mondayafternoon late afternoon around
three o'clock.
It was supposed to get verycold like minus, at least minus
10 degrees below Celsius, and itsnowed that night as well.
But we had heat, thankfully.
(18:06):
There is a lot of gratitudethat I have in just rebuilding
this normalcy, but also thefunny moments that my dad and I
shared as we heated pizza up onthe propane gas fireplace,
because my dad has a gas, apropane fireplace that still
worked, but because there was noelectricity the blower didn't
work, so it didn't really pushthe heat out.
You had to stand right in frontof it, but you could heat pizza
(18:28):
slices on the top.
He did try heating some coffeeon it as well, which didn't work
that great, but we did sharesome really funny moments with
each other, had some good laughseven as we wore toques around
the house for several days, andit wasn't even that cold.
Of course I was able to use alittle bit of cannabis in the
evenings.
Now, I wasn't able to makeedibles, but I always have a
(18:52):
supply on hand and I had a bagof gummies that I was able to
make use of.
And I did have my dry herbvaporizer.
I just had to use it sparinglybecause I had no way to charge
it as well Once that batterydied.
That was it Now in a pinch.
I'm not a joint smoker.
As an ex-smoker, that's not myfavorite way to consume in a
pinch.
I have papers and I can alwaysroll a joint if I need to.
(19:15):
I even have a little jointroller, because my own joints
are actually pretty awful.
I don't, I hardly ever roll.
It's not something I've everpracticed, and maybe one day if
I ever did.
But the joint roller, they workso well and my joints always
turn out perfect with it.
And because I smoke joints soseldomly, that that's the way I
go and that's maybe I doremember I had a boyfriend a
long time ago, many years ago,who smoked a lot of joints and
(19:38):
so he would always roll thembecause he kind of liked doing
it and they looked like perfectcigarettes.
He was so good at doing it andso I never.
I just never learned.
And of course, when I firststarted consuming cannabis, I
consumed almost strictly hash,so bottle tokes was my thing
back in the day.
That was also when I smokedcigarettes.
I also smoked cigarettes atthat time, which I don't anymore
, which is another reason whyI'm not really big on combustion
(20:00):
, because I have quit a numberof years ago now.
But those did create somecomfort in this difficult time.
It was getting a littlestressful in between those
moments of humor.
But one thing I was reallygrateful to see as well is just
all the way people were comingtogether to help each other out.
(20:21):
Like I said, I met neighborsI'd never met before and friends
were reaching out and I wasable to help some friends out
when we did have power.
It just teaches you aboutself-reliance and community,
because it's all well and goodto be self-reliant we all do
need to be self-reliant to adegree but we all also need
community, because it's awfullydifficult in this world without
(20:44):
it and, honestly, do we reallywant to be in this world without
community?
It's very lonely If my dad hadbeen there by himself.
It broke my heart because Iasked him do you have a friend
you could go over and call ifyou need to take a shower or
something?
And he's like not really, andthat just broke my heart.
So I really appreciate thosefriends of mine that offered
(21:06):
their homes up to me to not onlyme but to my dad as well and of
course I have a newappreciation for light and
warmth and hot showers and thepeople who help restore it and
all the disaster response folks.
Just so much to be grateful for.
Now, to tie this into a littlebit with bite me, of course I
was enjoying edibles.
I was a little less active inmy community.
(21:27):
I started bite me cannabis clubto also create some community,
a private space where people cantalk openly about cannabis.
It's just a really wonderfulgroup of people coming together
under this shared love ofcannabis.
And so if you haven't checkedit out, check out joinbitemecom
and that sort of gives you allthe details about what's
(21:47):
involved, because I do findoftentimes a podcasting can be a
lonely endeavor.
I mean, I'm sitting in mybasement right now recording
this episode by myself, talkingto people that I know on the
other end that are listening,and I am so grateful for that.
But the community, the Bite MeCannabis Club, gives me a
two-way conversation, so I hopeyou'll consider joining.
I would love to have you there.
(22:07):
I have gone on for far longerthan I really expected to and by
the time I actually do someediting it might be turn out a
little bit shorter, but thankyou for listening, thank you for
caring, thank you for beinghere again.
I'm.
I just hope we'll all take amoment, no matter where you are
in your life, to be grateful forthose small things that matter
that we don't really payattention to until they're gone.
(22:29):
Grateful for the people in mylife, grateful for cannabis,
grateful for so many things and,I think, spending more time
being grateful for our world andsome of the beautiful things in
it, because there is stillbeauty in this world, despite
the fact that it can bechallenging sometimes, and there
are some challenging thingsgoing on right now.
So we'll be back to ourregularly scheduled programming
now that I have power again andI'm all getting caught up.
(22:52):
Until next week, my friends,stay safe, stay grateful and
stay high.
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