Well, many of you don’t know me. This is my first guest post ever. So, I am excited about doing this. I thought I would share how this weekend is going (middle of April). We are currently living between two places. Husband lost his job two years ago, but was blessed with a new one just a few months later. No panic, since I have been working on food storage for over 20 years. With the housing market so bad in Southern California we didn’t try and sell our house. Company rented a house for us at the new job town. So now during the week the youngest two are in high school and are back in the charter school they love. So we commute on the weekends back to were my husband lives.
Well, we having been trying to get the gas (lp) company to check our lines because we could smell gas on still days on the rental house. Alan started calling in Feb. Well yesterday (Friday) morning I got the call that the line was bad and they had turned off the lp. So we were without lp. Before leaving for the 110 mile drive I had figured out some things we could do with out the lp. No heat, no hot water, no stove or oven. Alan made calls to the rental management.
Now for many of you, you are thinking big deal in southern California no heat, right? Well we are at elevation of over 4,000 feet. Still getting down at night to 20’s or 30’s and running only in the 50’s maybe the low 60’s by Monday morning.
We do have the fireplace going and some space heaters. So we are getting the house about 65. Last night I used the electric fry pan and microwave to make supper. Used the sanitized setting on the dishwasher to get the heat for that. Not a bad Friday. But did decide that it was going to be too tough to try and take showers by Sunday (for church) and Monday (got a funeral to go to). So we have reservations for the Fairfield Inn after dinner on Saturday night.
Saturday, well they showed up to dig up the line from house to lp tank. Bad news they hit the water line and now no water to the house. Boys, had gotten their cold showers, right before they hit the line. The rest of us didn’t, :(
I had gotten the 55 gallon water barrels. It was Alan’s job to fill them. He didn’t. Lesson learned…never send a man to do what is only important to a woman! At this house we currently have only 5 gallons of water plus a case of 24 bottled water. You only get thirsty when you know that you can’t just run to the tap. We won’t even talk about the potty! We won’t be making dinner here, now. We will be going into town earlier and having dinner there. If this was a natural disaster, we failed! I will be filling the barrels. I also will be buying the new shelf stabilizer for 55 gallon barrels. It is suppose to keep the water in the barrel good for about 5 years. So no dumping water every 6 months. Do need to start with fresh water in the barrels.
Will also make sure that we have charcoal stored in 5 gallon buckets. Alan does great dutch oven cooking and we could boil water. Also, I decided that I am going to get some room heaters on clearance. They are a good back up for at least getting a bedroom warmed up some or to keep a closed off room bearable.
Another lesson learned. To use a inconvenient weekend to look at where you are lacking in your preparedness, rather than poor me! I don’t think we can ever learn too much! Hope this gives you all some new ideas or a new way to look at those inconvenient times.
Keep preparing! Angela
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Excellent guest post Patti and such good lessons to share. Thanks!
I live in a town in AL, ripped apart by a tornado. I did not have electricity for 5 days. I learned lots during that time. But, I now have a $1050 generator and 3 12-gauge extension cords. Thankfully, the water was not affected and we luckily had a few nippy nights. I will be more prepared in other ways next time. Of course, this probably will never happen to me again since I have more emergency light and a generator for freezer, refrigerator, computer, and a lamp. I took cold baths when I could have put jugs of water outdoors and at least had tepid water–hits self on side of head! I am glad your first sign of major trouble was not an exploding house. Good post. We all need reminding. Water stabilizer? Never heard of that. Thanks for the information.