HERE,THERE & ELSEWHERE. Powerless!

Peter and Grace met and married because of their shared belief that our planet is in crisis and can only be saved by rejecting wasteful urban lifestyles. Their decision to become farmers involved many sacrifices, sure. But 15 years later, they have 40 acres of farmland and three bright, apple-cheeked children; a cow that produces two gallons of milk a day; three pigs; a dozen free-range chickens; five goats; two horses; electricity from the sun and water from their own underground spring.

The list of things they DON’T have includes a TV, cellphones and school fees: the children are home-schooled. And there’s no time for boredom, believe me. A case in point is our second night here. We’ve all spent the day outdoors, me drawing the animals, Bins learning to herd goats and Birk up in the woods, hauling down trees for firewood. It’s been a cloudy day, with very little sunlight. No one’s paying attention however. So at some time during the night, the solar accumulator loses its charge. There’s a backup battery but it’s not automatic.

All of us humans are tucked up in bed and don’t notice a thing. But Aurora, the feisty and temperamental cow, SHE notices. How? Well. There’s an electric fence. It consists of one very thin orange wire strung along a series of slender white poles. It delivers a slight jolt when touched. If Aurora or either of the horses wanted to, they could easily walk through it. But they don’t. When the power goes down, however, Aurora notices something is different. Perhaps there’s normally a faint buzz that only she can hear, but it’s gone off now. Whatever the reason, she realises this is her chance to break out and trample on Grace’s flowerbeds.

Meanwhile, inside the house, the two dogs, Beano and Deli, hear Aurora tramping about outside, disturbing the natural order of things. So they begin to whine. Soon Birk, who is sleeping downstairs on the couch, is awakened by the whining. Thinking that the dogs want to pee, he opens the door. Whereupon Beano and Deli rocket out, barking wildly at Aurora. Whereupon Aurora begins to gallop up and down the driveway. Whereupon Grace and Peter wake up and realise the power is off. Which means Aurora is loose and the fence has to be fixed. Whereupon the children wake up and begin bouncing around in the dark...

In short, pandemonium! I can sleep through a hurricane, but Bins is up the moment the dogs start barking. He leaps out of bed, realises the power is off and dashes downstairs, dragging me with him. “It’s a tsunami!” he cries, forgetting that we’re high above sea level and hundreds of miles inland. “Come on! We must collect the children and run for high ground!” An hour later all is calm once more. We are seated around a lit candle, at the dining table, drinking coffee in our nightclothes. The children are asleep. Aurora is secured in the barn. “Exciting lives!” says Bins, raising a toast with his coffee mug. “You have no idea,” says Peter, with a tired chuckle.

Manjula Padmanabhan, author and artist, writes of her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column

Last episode: Waking up

Next episode: Horsing around

COMMENT NOW