Looking out my office window, I see a whole lot of white roofs out there. Freeland is covered in frost. Winter, it appears, has arrived.

My awesome powers of observation aside, I know this for several reasons. First, my head is cold. Mind you, I’m not talking about a seasonal flu but from actually having washed my hair in ice water for two days straight — three by the time this column hits newsstands and if Puget Sound Energy’s estimated power restoration time is correct.

Yup, I’m one of those on South Whidbey who will be the last to get their lights back. I live off Fish Road in Freeland and our electricity flickered out about five minutes after arriving home from work on Tuesday. My house is in a heavily forested area, and storms there are always exciting. Every fir cone that hits the roof sounds like a 500-pound bomb, leaving you looking up and thinking, “This is it, this is the big one.”

It turned out the big one fell with barely a whisper, and toward the neighbor’s house. We all walked outside, shared our experience, smiled nervously, then hustled back indoors because the atom bomb-sized fir cones were still falling.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. With the power out, we lit a wood fire and turned in early. We even had hot showers in the morning. Our miniaturized water heater, which I’m convinced takes pleasure in regularly providing just enough hot water for my wife and son to bathe in the morning, is apparently as well insulated as it is evil.

Fortunately for me, my luck held. The offending tree that left the neighborhood in the dark also blocked our access to the main road, but I escaped thanks to a little daring and a small Honda — another win for sustainability. Carefully measuring the height of the tree and car against my jacket buttons, I saw I had at least one-button clearance and was able to squeeze through.

The tree was gone by the time I got home that night, but the power was still out and the excitement of having survived the storm and later escaped my house was long gone. Just like the hot water.

Make no mistake, cold showers are dreadful but there are tricks to getting by in power outages without the aid of a generator. First, master the art of the sponge bath. A little water warmed with an alternative heating source — we used the wood stove — goes a long way. Second, ordering out for dinner lifts spirits, and since it’s always freezing when the power goes out, the car makes a handy fridge for leftovers — I’m rocking last night’s pizza for lunch today.

Finally, though cable television and Xbox Ones are painfully close yet impossibly out of reach, entertainment is at your fingertips. We re-discovered a thing referred to as “family time” (it doesn’t involve a remote or wifi), and even dusted off a few of those strange and unfamiliar paper objects on shelves (I believe they are historically referred to as books). Who’d have thought?

That said, I’m ready for power and lukewarm showers.