Re: If it ain't one thing, it's another....
poolgirl22 said:
Wow GG--
I swear you have the most creative ideas for 'stuff'...I'm going to start freezing those bottles ASAP..we have a similar freezer and when we get the dreaded outages we move things over to it and it keeps a good long while that way. We always have extra room in it so it's a good plan. Our outages are fewer since last year we got bad strait line winds and the power company did a real number on the affected grids' trees. But we are always the last ones in the vicinity to get our power back on. I have a couple regular battery operated fans I take on trips with us so the bottles will just make it better cooling!
Here's the concept:
http://sportys.com/PilotShop/product/12 ... gle%20Base
Mine is a big orange, insulated cylinder, drinking water container, with the pump and fan sitting on top in a dome. It is set up so you don't need any external hoses and has vanes to direct the air, just like a 120 volt portable AC. There is a dial on the top to control the air speed.
I think I was a girl scout in my mother's womb and followed my father around learning all kinds of stuff. Our Y2K supplies and "tools" were impressive!!!!!!! I even had vacuum sealed garden seeds. We didn't have to purchase toilet paper for several years after. :lol: We had enough dog food and "biskey bones" for 10 large but mostly GIANT dogs, for a year. If we ran out then they would have eaten the soybeans, wheat, rice, corn, beans, and sprouts we would have been eating. Believe it or not I'm still using some of the sprouting seeds from Y2K stock. That's 10 year old seeds. Sprouts are a garden in a jar. We also had a mini drug store and surgical "center". We had a small Geiger counter and enough Potassium Iodate (keeps radiation out of the thyroid gland) for the whole neighborhood, especially the children, in case Glen Rose had a melt down.
I purchase a used Mercedes diesel station wagon on the Internet, in 1999,
long before eBay started started listing them. The Merc was for DH, as I already had a diesel truck. We stored 750 gallons of diesel for years and a couple of hundred gallons of kerosene, kept fresh using Stabil. The kerosene really came in handy in my greenhouses afterwards.
We had a bunch of stuff to be used for bartering. Toilet Paper was one item, vacuum packed coffee beans, loose smoking tobacco, etc..., camping tools, etc.
We have plenty of woods for heating and cooking but I do keep 1 lb propane bottles and several catalytic burners handy (they can be used inside with a small amount of ventilation. Those came in handy for spot heating this winter, especially for pet snake.
After the last outage, a few weeks ago, only 9 hours, I ordered a small, 4 stroke, gas generator, that I can easily carry around, so we can continue to watch Satellite on our big TV. :lol: That's what we miss the most, especially DH, when power is out. During those times we resort to the big wind up radio. Actually I usually busy myself with chores and get some good reading in. Problem is that they don't have many "story hours" any more on radio. If Y2K events had happened, and there's even more possibility of that happening today, we were going to use only solar and wind for power.
Getting ready for Y2K was a girl scouts dream. I'm glad nothing "happened" and we are still prepared for most emergencies.
I didn't mention personal and property protection and best left unsaid but we had enough supplies to take a few people in. Having several people ups the security. Everyone from the cities would have swarmed the more rural areas.
Now most of our stuff is stored off site but pretty easily reached in case of an extreme emergency.
I don't have a good stock of TP though.
Better take care of that.
gg=alice