Are We Prepared Yet?

So we wake up to a winter wonderland. My first response is total awe. Every tree, bush, and structure is adorned with white fluff. 

However, as I went to sweep the walkway off, I discovered nothing fluffy about it. It’s really heavy, and I’m limited in muscle strength. However, some areas need clearing for various reasons.

Then….the power goes out. John, the prep person, is still sawing the zzz’s, and I have a question.

“How do we hook up the whole business with our emergency batteries that get us “online” dear.” The cell phone works, of course, but the battery man has things figured out that I don’t know about

I went through the list of basic needs in my mind and checked things off. 

• Fortunately, the bathtub was never drained last night, so we have “flushable” water. No worries about the toilet anyway; we have a sawdust toilet ready for use. Except John has a problem as he only uses a bidet. Well, he will have to dig out the camping one.
• Drinking water? We have bottled water, and the skies have dumped a fair amount of fluff to melt if needed. 
• We have several cooking options available, like our gas stove, a little propane camp stove, and nifty rocket stoves that take minimal wood (we live in a wooded area). 

John got up and got the fireplace up and running, “drum roll please,” and hooked up the batteries he charged from solar panels the other day.

He has enough of a charge for what’s needed to run the fans to move the heat around. 

The small amount of time that we are out of power doesn’t have us worried; however, the season it happens can have a bearing on how to stay warm if you haven’t got back up. 

It sure makes you thankful for the people that scurry around out there working on getting things up and running. 

When this happens, I always think about what I need to work out so that next time whether it is warm or cold weather, day or night, healthy or sick. We need to prepare for the required lifelines to survive to the best of our abilities. So far, so good.

OK. We did discover several hitches that one doesn’t know about until you lose power for real.