Anyone who has read my blog for any amount of time knows I’m a “prepper”. We’re not as “dedicated” or radical as some. We don’t have a buried bunker nor do we have some remote “bug out” location. I’ve talked about all this many times before so this is a repeat for many readers.
My wakeup call was living in an all electric house when an ice storm came through, it dropped below freezing for probably a couple of hours, along with rain, tree limbs became coated in ice, began falling, bringing the power lines down with them. It wasn’t just at our house but it was for a huge area. Our power was off for seven days and we were the lucky ones! Think about this for seven days:
- Whatever gasoline you had on hand for a generator – that was the gasoline you had for seven days.
- No heat. No way to cook food. No way to wash dishes or clothes.
- Chad had just turned 9. No TV. No Nintendo, no computer. Thankfully, the day after the ice storm, the weather got warmer and nice and even in January, he could play outside. He had a bicycle and a big dog in a fenced yard.
About the only thing that really saved us is that my parents had a fireplace and lived in a subdivision where they all got together, pooled the food out of their freezers, lit the gas grills and the charcoal grills every afternoon and everyone shared what they had. One lady even knew how to make a solar oven with a box and aluminum foil. Several people had brownie mix in their pantries so a neighbor, Karen, made brownies for the neighborhood in her homemade solar oven.
Chad and his cousin got to playing rough, Chad bonked his head, had a big goose egg pop up and a doctor who lived in the neighborhood came over and checked him out using the car headlights to see if his pupils looked ok.
After that week, I said . . never again. That was 23 years ago and since that time, I’ve tried to be prepared for whatever might come our way. A wildfire, tornado or earthquake .. not so much because I mostly prepare to hunker down at home and stay put but we do have like minded friends who know they are welcome here if the need arises and we know we’re welcome at their homes if we were to have to leave here.
This may sound cold but people often say “I know where I’m going if something happens”. NO! Everyone should be preparing on their own for whatever they feel is necessary. Everyone else can plan and buy supplies just like we do. I don’t prepare for half the town; I prepare for my family. So, even though I share some of what we do here, it doesn’t mean I have enough to share. In a real emergency, we’d be locked down pretty tight around here.
That all brings me to today. When we started talking about moving to Arkansas last spring, we began using a lot of the food we keep stored. Trying to lighten the load if we do move . . but with the virus in the news so much, we felt like we should add a few things so over the weekend, we made a list of what we might need if we end up deciding to stay home for days, weeks, or months without going out and interacting with the public.
I cringe every time someone says “It’s just the flu!” Without getting into politics and giving too much of my opinion, I don’t think we’re getting the full story. While we are not worried, we are paying attention. As I understand it, old folks are more likely to be affected and since we aren’t spring chickens, our plan is to stay home as much as possible.
So, what does one buy when thinking you might be staying home for weeks without going out for groceries?
Mostly it was just things we always keep but had used but the funny thing is . . when there’s a time we stay put, or the power is out, I always want junk food. Last night as Vince and I were talking about what we should buy as far as supplies, I asked Vince if he would eat Snickerdoodles if I made them. He said no so I didn’t make them for myself.
Today when Vince and I went out shopping, all I could think about was junk food. I’m not much on storebought cookies and snacks so . . here’s what I ended up adding to the cart:
Popcorn! We picked up one back of white and two bags of yellow popcorn. I dumped it into jars, vacuum sealed them and we’ll at least have popcorn when we need it.
One tip: I was watching a youtube video of a guy I like. He’s Canadian, with a family, living in China. He has four boys and this morning the video I was watching, he was talking about being being quarantined, inside, with four boys for 50 days. So . . always have things to keep yourself, your family, grandkids, husband, dogs, cats . . occupied! With a widespread illness, chances of losing power are hopefully slim but have checkers, board games, puzzles, and plenty of things that do not require electricity.
After a trip to town, and a very early wake up call from a little dog, I came home and took a three hour nap. It will be a late night of knitting for me.
Diana says
I so agree, not panic just prepared. My sis has her electric cut off several times for several days at a time due to the stupid electric co here being afraid of wildfires and wind. (Instead of PG&E doing a better job with maintaining transforms/cutting down trees etc) It was a real hardship on her. She can’t afford to get a generator nor loose the food in her fridge. I just put in my amazon cart that camp stove you said your Chad uses, so she can at least heat things up, she got real tired of eating cold soup. We have an all electric house, and luckily a different electric co than my sis who just lives 15 miles away so we weren’t affected by shut downs but its definitely on my mind. I’ve been ordering my groceries online thru Walmart then just drive to the store and they deliver them to your car. They just started that here maybe 6 months ago. You tell them what time you want to pick up and they send you a text when they’re ready. Aside from schlepping everything into the carts, thru the ckout, and into the car then into the house, you don’t come into contact with all those people in the store, touching the cart handles etc. Its only about 5 miles from me, and I can drive there, have them put everything in my car and drive home in just half an hour. Keep up the great discussions about being ready!
Sara Fridley says
I think you are smart to plan ahead. Living in a rural area presents other unique challenges to getting supplies delivered to the area. We learned that last year when we had lots of flooding and the Interstate was closed going east. It caused a short lived shortage of anything arriving by truck.
Nelle Coursey says
We don’t have all that you have stocked up, but I figure there will not be much to worry about here. However a friend of mine ordered Swiss Miss K-Cups from Amazon and they did not come when expected. She called Amazon and they told her they came from China and were being inspected to make sure there was no virus. She asked him to cancel the order and he did. He probably wasn’t supposed to tell her that but he did, thank goodness! I am going to start looking at labels more! I had thought about all the things we order and a lot of them do come from China. So if it was before the outbreak there still could be some of the virus on the things ordered.
Joyce says
One of the sentences in your post made me think of the story of the ant and the grasshopper…be the ant, not the grasshopper! 🙂
Twyla says
My mother always advised me to have at least a month’s worth of groceries in pantry and freezer as you never knew what could happen to a job. My pantry is always well stocked and freezer AND toilet tissue. I keep the medicine cabinet up to date and stocked. I have always made sure our houses have had gas for cooking an d a heater if needed. Nearly froze when a little ice storm took out electricity for three days in our all electric house.
Judy Laquidara says
I learned the same way to live watching my grandparents who lived far from town and often didn’t get out much so they kept a very well stocked pantry and freezer. Even as a young adult, I was amazed that my grandma could have guests surprise here and in no time, she had a wonderful meal, including desert, for them.
When we moved here, and had such a hard time finding a house, I think many people thought we were being overly picky. We wouldn’t consider a house without a gas stove, a fireplace and a water well.
Emma says
There was a confirmed case in NYC about an hour from me. This week at the store I stocked up a bit more on food. We’re doing a total kitchen remodel at the end of the month so we’d been trying to use up our foods prior to it, but I bought extra. Lots of frozen veggies, more meat to put in the freezer, etc. We’ll be good for several weeks if we need to, and if it gets worse I’ll make another run out before we have to hunker down.
Susan Nixon says
It is different prepping for disaster, where there will still be some services available and prepping for being stuck at home for an extended period of time. I think I’d be okay – learning how to use my hand crank machine. LOL Or doing lots of embroidery. Or reading books I have around here. But it is a long time without salt and vinegar potato chips. LOL
Judy Laquidara says
Right! And I always seem to want what I don’t have. When there’s a tornado hit and everything is blown away; or a wild fire and you lose everything, or an earthquake . . the kind of prepping I do isn’t going to help much.