{31 Days} Intentional Living – Day 29
Find the rest of my {31 Days} Intentional Living series here.
I mentioned on Friday that I would be talking a bit about preparedness for the end of my {31 Days} Intentional Living series. I have to preface this all by saying that I am not a prepper, I don’t have tons of things stocked up in my house to use – although I probably should, which is why I am writing about this.
I was reading on the FEMA website that they recommend keeping 2 weeks of non-perishable food on hand in case you lose power for that amount of time – although they seem to think that is highly unlikely. I guess I would agree that it doesn’t happen that often, but it seems to be happening more and more frequently. I remember several years ago we had an ice storm where we lost power for a week, and the next town over lost power for 3 weeks. I was also thinking about people in the south who had lost power for an extended period of time this past summer. It may not happen every year to you, but it is still likely that at some point this will happen.
Is 2 weeks worth of food enough though? Should we store a months worth? Six months? I’m not sure. I do know that I need to look more in the direction of getting up to that 2 weeks. I was trying to go through what we have in the house, and whether or not it would feed us for two weeks, and I have to say that we probably do have enough food on hand. I tend to keep a lot of dry beans and flour on hand, as well as all the things that I have canned for the winter. But, if you talked to me at the end of March and most of April…well I would say that we were down to the last jar of tomatoes that I have been saving for a special occasion – whatever that may be.
Now, I may have the food down, but what I don’t have down is a way to cook the food. We don’t have a wood stove installed in our house, but we do have a grill which has burners to use with pots and pans. I think we could build a fire outside if we really needed to – however that wouldn’t work in the winter when we have a ton of snow. So just having the food is great, but making sure you have a way to cook it is something else all together.
What do you do when the power goes out? Do you cook on the grill? Or just eat cold food? My dry beans probably won’t do me any good if I don’t have a way to cook them. Any suggestions?
I’m linking up with the Barn Hop, Your Green Resource
We have a grill a fire pit, and camping stoves, but it is definitely something to think about. We are probably pretty close to having 2 weeks of food, but I agree that more is probably better. I would love you to link up with me on my hop: http://www.backyardfarmingconnection.com/2012/10/the-backyard-farming-connection-6.html
Gretchen
I have a gallon and five bottles of water. I also have about six cans of green beans and five boxes of pasta and oats, but I have no idea how I would cook them. I think we would be up a creek. Working on it though.
The few times we lost power due to wind storms on the coast we made due with propane camp stoves. Currently I still have Tall D's camp stove AND his grill (which also has a side burner) so I think if I didn't have power, I'd heat up the grill to cook stuff. Although honestly knowing me, I'd probably go at least one day eating the perishable stuff and not worrying too much about cooking–except to boil water maybe. I know of a few families who have wood stoves and are able to cook on top of those. Worst case scenario–totally could toss potatoes into the fireplace coals or roast over the flame–just like when camping. I think one of the biggest concerns is water, which ironically Tall D had gallons of stocked around the garage (that are still there) for some random reason–but at least, recognizing all the stuff that is currently still in place, I suppose I'd be more prepared than I thought!
Yes, we lost power for 8 days. We got a little cooler we filled with ice, and keep deli meat in it. We ate a lot of sandwiches (it was so hot we didn't feel like cooking canned goods like soup or even using our grill – temps were in the 100s each day). Peanut butter and jellies, deli meat sandwiches, simple foods.
We are fortunate to have a wood cookstove in the kitchen. We've had it for about 17 years, and had a different one for about 10 years before that. We don't have to worry about cooking if the electricity goes out because the stove works beautifully and it warms the kitchen at the same time. Even if the power never goes out, I would still want this cookstove; it just seems to fit our old farmhouse kitchen. If the power went out during the summer, we would cook on either the grill or the 3 burner LP stove.
Timely post. I am not a prepper either but have decided that I need to get more things on hand. Maybe I am turning into a beginning prepper. I definitely have enough food for 2 weeks, maybe a month. A far cry from the 3 month supply that is recommended in the case of a pandemic, and miles from the one year supply that I have been reading about on some sites. We have a gas oven and cooktop, but in the case of a power outage, the oven portion would not work. If we lost our gas line as well, then we have no way of heating food either (our barbecue is connected directly to the gas line so we don't even keep propane tanks anymore) unless our fire pit is usable – and we don't keep a huge supply of firewood on hand. That's the next step I am working on. Also, we probably only have about one week's worth of drinking water. I wrote a post on Thursday about getting ready a bit at a time and hope to make it a weekly feature. I hope you will comment along with your progress now and then and we can all work together to urge each other along.
We cook on the grill and eat easy thing like peanut butter crackers and sandwiches. I always have extra peanut butter in hand and beans too. Still probably nit enough! We also store extra batteries and have a crank light, radio and first aid kit. Not enough for a big emergency but a start.