Our Vertical Garden

The weather today has been flawless.
Caroline arrived at 7:30am to clean the house
David, showed up yesterday after the roof he offered to help remove had been removed, but bless him, he showed up with a helper today and they took away all the pieces that have been in the patio all week. 
Now all we need is to figure out what has become of Jorge so we can decide what to do with the rest of the furniture out there.
The roofer arrived just as I was backing my car through the traffic jam at the top of our driveway to go to class.
His name is Jorge too.
Although he came to look at what appeared to be a fairly minor leak, of course he found sagging beams, exposed nails and missing roof tiles (much of the damage caused by the woodpeckers!)
Looks like we'll be getting a new roof...maybe we should consider a cement one!
Adding solar panels will cost another bundle and here's the deal...
  1. They only generate electricity when the sun is shining
  2. Whatever power we don't use during the day goes back to the grid, the local infrastructure of which belongs to the power company.
  3. We don't pay for the power we put back into the grid that we use at night
BUT
We are still dependent on the power company infrastructure to deliver our power even though it is being generated on our roof and used by the two of us living under that roof.
So when the power company turns off the power from the transmission lines, as they are constantly warning us they will do in case of extreme fire emergency, we will still be without power
BECAUSE
Nobody has come up with a good enough battery to store the power we don't use if/when the power company turns the power off.
I'm not sure this even makes sense to me,  but it seems there should be a good business opportunity for somebody who can invent a good storage battery with enough capacity to store the power we generate right over our heads. 

We'll probably still get the solar panels, but since the power company can't even manage to make their lines safe in an extreme fire, why are we so dependent on them?