On account of the Russians having knocked out a lot of our electric power generation, electricity availability is on a rotating nine hour schedule. Four hours off, two hours on and three hours of maybe.
When it gets hot, everybody wants to use their air conditioning. That means that the three maybe hours are usually off. We can have electricity as little as 2/9, that's 22% of the time during the day.
It isn't enough to keep the refrigerator cold or the frozen food frozen. We are not stocking the freezer at the moment, eating down what we have. We will increasingly use the barbecue, which keeps the heat out of doors.
The problem of the moment is the Toastmasters barbecue we are hosting on Saturday. The temperatures are scheduled to be 93° before going up to 97° on Monday. The power is scheduled to be out from noon until four Saturday, and iffy from five through seven. We will prepare the salads on Friday and do most of the barbecuing before the party starts to get it out of the way.
I'm happy to say our family is handling it better than most Ukrainians, taking it in stride and not complaining too much. Yesterday Oksana and Zoriana bicycled to their respective tennis and acrobatics classes in 90° heat. The kids are happy to go swimming every day.
Living the simple life has put us in good stead. Oksana used to ask why we don't have an electric gate like our neighbors, one that opens when you push a button in the car. We are thankful now that we have something that is simple to open by hand. Our house is well-insulated but has no air-conditioning. The downstairs is usually comfortably below 80°.
Most important, we are, as they say here, hardened, or tempered. Used to the weather. We don't miss comforts we didn't have. Neither Oksana nor I grew up with air conditioning in our houses. Her family never had cars – my cars never had air conditioning.
I don't mind biking in weather like this. I did for a couple of decades as a bicycle commuter in Washington DC, where the temperatures are higher and the air quality lower. Bicycling this morning to buy groceries for Saturday, it was a pleasure to have the breeze going through my shirt.
I have a couple of thoughts that I intend to follow up on. My guess is that peak summer electricity usage probably approximates peak winter usage, given that air-conditioning is totally electric but home heating in Ukraine is still largely done by gas.
Another observation is that half of our electricity comes from nuclear. While the Russians have taken over the Zaporizhia nuclear facility, I haven't heard that they have destroyed any reactors. Even they may have sense enough not to invite universal condemnation by blowing radioactive materials into the atmosphere. My guess, therefore, is that we will have enough electricity to squeak through winter.
The prospect of a winter with reduced heat is enough to keep some refugees from returning from Western Europe. That, and Russia's attacks such as the one this week, have prompted some of our acquaintances to go to or stay in Western Ukraine, which will reduce the load on the electric system.
As I have written before, the inconvenience is greater for apartment dwellers than for us. They have to hike up 10 or 20 flights of stairs when the power is out. They cannot open windows on all sides of the house to get a cross draft the way we can. The heat that apartment dwellers, living in close proximity to one another, generate negates whatever insulation they have. Bottom line – I expect a number of them to depart, leaving more electricity for those of us who remain.
As I write this our electricity just returned after a six-hour absence, to be with us for three hours. Time to recharge the laptop, portable fan and portable light batteries.
And water the lawn. I didn't mention that since we are on well water, we don't have running water when the electricity is out. Time now to wash the dishes. After I finish the dishes and watering the lawn I will work out in the 84° upstairs heat, with a fan to keep me cool, confident that I will be able to take a shower and shampoo after I get off the exercise bike.
A couple of you wrote about how the hell of enduring the horrors of war. Realistically speaking, far more people die in Kiev in automobile accidents than are killed by the Russians. We are three miles from any interesting target, even hospitals, and the Russians' aim isn't that bad. The only thing that has hit our neighborhood was the wreckage of one intercepted missile, which destroyed a house but didn't hurt anybody. I guess you can call me tempered as well, having spent four years in wartime Vietnam.
What we will remember are the inconveniences. Like the inconveniences my parents experienced during World War II – gas rationing, a lack of meat, difficulty traveling and such. And also overcoming the inconveniences by perseverance and ingenuity. It is not a bad thing that my children are being tempered by this experience.
That's the observation from Lake WeBeGone, where big brother Eddie has taken his sisters to the beach.
I’ve observed that the Ukrainian diaspora in the area are suffering more anxiety than the natives.
Graham, you are an inspiration. Thank you for putting a human face on wartime challenges. I wish you well.