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Stocking up on basic foods, flu medicine and toddy ingredients, and plan to stay in. May get extra bags of dog food so I don't have to go out as frequently. Only time I drink soda is when I am sick (ginger ale).Last edited by barretcreek; 02-25-2020, 02:12.Comment
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Sam, you have a gasoline powered generator that will power some of your circuit but needs to be refueled after 8 hours of usage. A Generac 15KW unit hard wired into your system, powered by either natural gas or propane will power all the circuits in the average 3 bedroom, two bath house, and automatically turn on when needed and shut down when the power is restored. The unit starts up automatically, once a week , and recharges the 12V starting battery and checks the circuits.
How many gallons of gasoline do you store? It gets old quickly while propane can be stored... forever?
Just a thought... yes, they are expensive, but they are worth every penny.
I hope this helps.Comment
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This is the time of year I usually post something on preparedness and since the OP was on food. Preparedness food comes in several forms and has assets and liabilities no matter what you buy.
Cooking utensils means pots, pans and something to eat off of, not knives and forks for the purposes of this.
Fresh water can be precious if things get really bad and that is a factor in food storage selection, so is the decision on whether to "hunker down" or "move out."
Fresh or frozen food: Pros - Yummy chow. Cons - Often requires water to prepare. It is not easily transported. If you don't have a generator you won't have it for long when the power goes out, you also won't be able to cook it with no electricity unless you have a camp stove or gas appliances in the old homestead. Requires cooking utensils.
Canned food: Pros - ready to eat, contains water/does not require water to prepare, in fact requires no preparation other than opening the can. With a little study can be used to make a number of stand alone meals in one dish, we had tamale chili casserole tonight made with preparedness canned goods we are cycling through. Cons - shelf life is limited to a few years, canned goods are bulky and heavy, very heavy if you have more than a few weeks worth. Requires a can opener.
Freeze dried food: Pros - very long storage life, lightweight and compact. Cons - Can not be eaten without preparation, preparation requires heat and water (lots of water.) Requires cooking utensils.
Meals Ready to Eat: Pros - lightweight, ready to eat, complete meals with lots of accessories and no utensils are required. Water is not required except to whip up the drink mixes. Cons - While lightweight it is bulky, storage life is longer than canned food but not as long as freeze dried.Last edited by Art; 02-25-2020, 03:35.Comment
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My old Coleman labeled 6kW Y2K special gets it done, with the 9 HP Briggs (Jap?) engine. Suicide cord uses the dryer 30A breaker as alternate main. Keeps well pump, lights, furnace going. No AC however. Got me through a few outages over the years, some >24 hours. Low cost and effective setup but not for dummies given the use of a double male power cord.Comment
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Mine is a brand new 0 time DUAL FUEL, that will run on either gasoline or propane. I keep the extra carbs as insurance IF I do eventually run gasoline in it. I have several 20lbers that I keep full and in a cool, dark place. Tomorrow I will refuel one and on Thursday-Friday pick up two additional ones as my outside cooking season is coming up. Our generator is wired into the new section which eventually will also be solar. The generator will run everything when it is completely set up.
SamComment
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Boggs is on top of it.
Washing your hands properly is one of the best ways to protect against infections like the new #coronavirus - here's how ��
(Tip: it should take about twice as long as it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" ��)
This was from an article about Greece. They have no cases yet but are concerned about Italy. I was wondering why Italy? They are a sea port.If I should die before I wake...great,a little more sleep.Comment
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Having been caught short too many times early in our marriage I try and look ahead. I use "Murphy's Law" as my guide to what to do and more important WHAT NOT TO DO and I try and not hit my thumb more then once! I feel sorry for those who don't live in the country and are dependent on others. We have city water and I have locally other ways to obtain and purify the precious liquid. As soon as the weather warms I am setting up our rainwater catchment system to be able to store about 700 gallons of rain water under the new section of our cabin.
It would be nice to hear from other's [NO POLITICS] as to your situation. We must learn from each other!!!
SamComment
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A Survival Story in the Ozarks
On Tuesday, February 5th, 2008, Super Tuesday, I was stationed in the Stone County Clerk's office in Mountain View, Arkansas. I am a County Election Commissioner, and my duty was to supervise the primary election. My wife is Assistant Director of Nursing at the local nursing home.
We had warnings of storms and tornadoes. Late in the afternoon, we heard that the town of Clinton, about 25 miles to the southwest, had been hit by a tornado. Then we heard other towns, closer to us had been hit. At 6:00 PM I directed poll workers to lock down the precincts and evacuate, and to return after the storm had passed.
At 6:30 PM, the tornado tore through the eastern part Mountain View. It went through an automobile dealership, blowing cars across the highway into the hospital – there were cars on the roof.
All the electric power in the county went out. Cell phone signals were lost. We retained landline communication with most of the county, but could not make long distance calls, nor could we contact the eastern section of the county. In the county hospital only the operating room remaining intact. Patients were evacuated to the nursing home. Roads were blocked for days with fallen power lines, debris, and so on.
I won't bore you with how we had to recover ballot boxes and voting machines -- but it took seven days to collect everything and get certifiable results. In the meantime, the county was cut off, with no power. This tornado tore a half mile to a mile wide swath through the state, 123 miles long!
My wife and I put our personal survival plan into effect, moving into our basement, heating with a wood stove, cooking on a Coleman stove, lighting it with a Coleman lantern. We survived in comfort until the power went back on at 4:00 PM on Monday, the 11th. This is hardly the first time we have put our survival plan into action -- the county has had two tornadoes and two ice storms in the last 12 years.
Not long after, we lost power for another three days when a snowstorm disrupted our jury-rigged system. Then we had two floods, one on top of the other – each producing a 100-year flood.
A few months later, the remnants of Hurricane Ike went through the Ozarks and we lost power for another six days.
Finally, on Monday, the 26th of January, 2009, we had an ice storm -- the mother of all ice storms. It began as heavy fog in freezing weather. The fog froze on the trees, sheathing them with ice. Finally, the weight of the ice was too much for the trees. They began to split and break. Power poles were broken off. People in rural areas were truly isolated -- so many trees were down that we literally had to chain-saw our way to the highway.
In my case, being 3.5 miles down a county road, 0.6 miles down a common road (shared with one other family) and a quarter mile of private drive, it took two days to cut a path out.
There was one bright spot -- although the power pole at the end of the common road was broken off, some neighbors working to clear that part of the county road realized that pole carried my phone line. They cut the pole in sections, and dragged the sections aside as best they could -- the sections were still held together by my phone line.
So I still had telephone service. Until Saturday. On Saturday, the postman came. Those sections of power pole made it a bit inconvenient for him to reach the mail box. So he thoughtfully cut my phone line, so he could drag the sections out of the way. And, of course, we can't get a cell phone signal here in the mountains. I had thought about getting a two-way radio since the last disaster, but hadn't yet got around to it.
Other than that, my survival plan worked well. First, as soon as the power went out, I cleaned out the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. I took all the frozen food downstairs and put it in the chest freezer in the basement "machine room" (where the heating system is, the junction box, water cut-off and so on.) The machine room also contains a chest freezer, gun safe, and survival stores.
I keep a small 1.35 kW generator down there, along with a Coleman dualfuel camp stove and lantern.
With the freezer as full as I could get it with frozen food and freezer packs, I closed it up, took the generator outside and fired it up. For 13 days, I ran this little generator two to three times a day -- and it kept the food in the freezer solid. The value of the food saved exceeded the cost of the generator. It more than paid for itself. Thirteen days of operation, two to three sessions a day, each time allowing the generator to go out of fuel, burned about nine gallons of gas.
In passing, I might note some of my neighbors have large generators, and used them for lights, TV and other purposes. This is really expensive, because these more powerful generators use a lot of fuel. And fuel can be hard to come by in a survival situation. Since the tornado last February, I keep 15 gallons of gas on hand, and use my generator for the freezer only.
I got a fire going in the Buck™ stove that heats the basement, and as soon as I managed to clear a driveable way out, I started cutting the downed trees into firewood lengths, hauling and splitting then. My Buck stove will take an 18" log, but I tend to cut them to shorter lengths -- makes them easier to split with my Wal-Mart splitting maul.
Over the long haul, you will find the fire will burn down at night, and you need to get a good fire started each morning. I keep at least a full box of Starter Loggs ™ in the basement. These are made of wax and sawdust, and can be broken into cakes that start fires easily. If you stack split wood in the stove with a cake of Starter Logg under the stack, you don't even need kindling to start a roaring fire.
My wife is a nurse -- she's the Assistant Director of Nurses at the local nursing home. When we got warning of a coming ice storm, she packed up and went into town -- the nursing home put her and several other nurses up in a motel room, so they could keep staff on hand when other nurses couldn't get into work.
She finally came home on Friday, the 30th. And rearranged everything. Me, I was comfortable with a folding table set up in the basement with the camp stove, a pot, spoon, glass and GI canteen cup. That was all I needed. But women need more. Soon we had half the kitchen down in the basement -- pots, pans, seasonings, and so on. Plus her makeup, knitting and other essentials.
Crews from several states were working to restore power. The number of power poles broken exceeded the number of new poles on hand, and our power company had to borrow from other states. Finally, on the evening of Sunday, February 8th, the power came back on. But we didn't get telephone service until the about 6:45 PM on Friday the 13th, and only one number at that (I have a dedicated computer line, which wasn't restored.) When I went down to check on the work, the lines were merely twisted together -- the splice wasn't even wrapped with electrical tape. There was so much noise on the line, conversation was difficult, and of course, Internet connections were impossible. My dedicated computer line was restored (and the other line properly fixed) at 4:00 PM on Friday, the 20th.
As I looked across Lick Fork Creek toward Johnson Ridge, the whole mountain seemed to be speckled yellow -- raw wood showing where trees split under the weight of the ice. The timber is ruined -- anyone who was counting on selling timber will have to put that off for a generation. And, of course, the woods are full of "widow-makers" -- the spilt tops of trees still hanging by a thread.
I cut a year's supply of firewood from fallen and splintered limbs -- and after cutting it, I took down all the dangerous trees around the house, and now have a double supply of firewood.
The lessons here are:
• Survival disasters can occur at any time, and leave you completely cut off.
• Work with your neighbors. Help them and they will help you.
• Disasters can last so long and come so often they aren't fun anymore.
• The key to survival is to anticipate a real disaster situation and plan accordingly.
• Plan to stay where you are, if at all possible, and to stick out the disaster at home. Remember, you have far more stuff in your home than you can possibly carry if you opt to go somewhere else, and you may need all of it.
• Practice your plan. Each time you practice, make a note of what you didn't have but wish you had, and steadily improve your plan and your equipment list.
• Economize. Scarce resources (like fuel) may be difficult to replace in a survival situation. Use them sparingly.
• Choose your survival tools for utility, not for cleverness. I use a real ax, splitting maul and chainsaw, not a "multi-purpose survival tool." If I need game I use my ordinary hunting rifle, not a folding compromise "survival" weapon.
• Shoot that damn' postman! (Just kidding 8-)Comment
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I've just made sure all of my extended family have food and supplies to stay at home for at least 30 days if we are told to. Also don't forget to have a supply of toilet paper.To Error Is Human To Forgive Is Not SAC PolicyComment
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Henny Penny, Henny PennyRead, think, UNDERSTAND, commentComment
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And above all keep your mouth shut! Our neighbors know nothing about what we have and we plan on keeping it this way. Many have generators, that is a given and I make sure our fuel is out of their reach. I am going tomorrow and talk to our propane supplier to have my 100 gallon tank moved from my small building closer to the house and plumbed to my generator.
I hope nothing happens to our Republic yet I am not confident that it won't as there are too many variables. I went into Walmart to resupply my crash kit as we are down on some items. Usually people ask why I am buying so many medical supplies and I state that I am low. If they ask why I need medical supplies I open my shirt and show them my port for my cancer treatment, they shut up and walk away.
If people know you have something they don't, guess where they will come to beg-borrow-steal! Remember charity begins at home!!!
SamComment
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Sam... I admire your balls to use your real name here at Culvers . However you claim your neighbors know nothing of what you have...
Here on the internet ... on this one forum alone.... you have posted all the information needed to learn everything about you.
You have posted copies of your college diploma which has enough info about you to look you up and even Google Earth the little place in which you reside .....
My advice is.... if you don't want anyone to know.... then don't tell anyone . Through this forum alone you have people near you who know everything you didn't want them to know...
friendly advice is all I'm offering
above all... keep your mouth shut is a moot pointLast edited by Sandpebble; 02-26-2020, 03:17.Comment
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If people want to go to all of that fine, dealing with criminals who could have hurt me at any time I learned many things. I protect mine period and have before...I don't scare easy and I can/will say NO! So what YOU FEEL IS THE NEED, I only gave an opinion for those who can/won't say no or won't defend self/family. My Deacons know what I have and will help our church family as they helped my family when I feel ill without being asked. I appreciate your advice and you are right in your opinion. Locally I have a reputation deserved/underserved to the guy to leave alone and I have proved that many times over. I have a good relationship with the local S.O. who have helped me many times. Last time I needed help they were here PDQ including those who live within a mile of me. For me having any issues is not a worry for us knowing what can be done.
SamComment
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Last edited by Roadkingtrax; 02-26-2020, 03:45."The first gun that was fired at Fort Sumter sounded the death-knell of slavery. They who fired it were the greatest practical abolitionists this nation has produced." ~BG D. UllmanComment
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