Doing daily chores has taken on new meaning for one Jefferson County family, thanks to an ice storm this week that left thousands of residences and businesses without electricity.

When their relatives took refuge in a Lawrence hotel Tuesday, Malcon Orji and his wife, Mandolin Veerkamp, remained at the family homestead watching over three houses.

“They are keeping the fires burning,” said Jennifer Veerkamp, Mandolin’s mother.

In a rural area a few miles north of Lawrence, Orji and Mandolin Veerkamp were feeding woodburning stoves in two of the houses, making sure water pipes didn’t freeze. A third house didn’t have heat because its gas furnace needs electricity to run.

“We’re going from house to house checking on things,” Mandolin Veerkamp said, as she held her 9-month-old son, Uchenna. Orji, a native of Nigeria, said he was used to power outages in his country. But he noted they usually lasted only a few hours at a time. Orji and his wife have been married three years, and he is still getting used to Kansas winters.

“The cold is very hard on my body,” he said with a chuckle.

In Lawrence, Jennifer Veerkamp and the rest of her family – six adults and two children representing four generations – obtained rooms at the Marriott SpringHill Suites, 1 Riverfront Plaza. The oldest of the family, an 87-year-old great-grandmother, was to have surgery Friday.

“She’s on oxygen, and we had no choice but to go to a motel,” Jennifer Veerkamp said. “The shelters couldn’t accommodate her.”

A short distance from the Veerkamp residences, Jerome Rofkahr, 76, was staying alone in his house. His wife, Gaylene, was staying with a son. Rofkahr said he needed to take care of his cattle and goats.

“You can’t let them freeze up,” he said. “They have to have feed and water. And I don’t want my pipes to freeze.”

Rofkahr kept warm by using a propane space heater.

“I got this stove a year ago to warm up my workshop out in the garage,” he said. “It’s one of those that doesn’t need to be vented on the outside.”

Rofkahr said he has plenty of food, which he cooks on a camping burner connected to bottled gas. At night he sleeps under a pile of blankets.

“It gets darker here than a foot up a cow’s nose,” he said with a laugh.

Rofkahr and the Veerkamps receive electricity from Leavenworth-Jefferson Electric Cooperative in McLouth. The families said they had not been able to get through to the company by phone because the line was always busy.

“That’s just like spitting in the wind,” Rofkahr said. “You get more on you than you do on them.”

According to the Kansas Electrical Cooperatives’ Web site, which includes Leavenworth-Jefferson, 1,500 customers remained without power late Friday in Jefferson County. A message posted on Leavenworth-Jefferson’s Web site said power might be restored to the county by tonight.But in Valley Falls, power might not be restored until Tuesday.

Westar Energy, which provides electrical service to most of the county, said on its Web site Friday that more than 700 customers were without power.

Rofkahr said he simply gave up waiting on a crew to remove a power line that had fallen low enough in a driveway that he couldn’t get his tractor through to his animals.

“I knew (the line) was dead. I finally got a pole and propped it up,” he said.

Overall, the power situation was improving, Jefferson County spokesman Linda Buttron said.

Emergency shelters were still providing warmth, food and beds, but few people were using them Friday, she said.

Jennifer Veerkamp said she was concerned about a snow storm that was expected to arrive in northeastern Kansas on Friday and today. Although SpringHill Marriott had given a discount on the rooms, having to remain at the suites was becoming expensive for her family.

“We’re just horrified that we’re spending all this money, but we have nothing else to do,” she said.

One Jefferson County school district – Oskaloosa – reopened classes Friday after schools were closed for three days. McLouth public schools remained closed.