What do I do without electricity?

   About 9:30 on Sunday morning the lights flickered, dimmed, and went out completely.   The AC came to a screeching halt, and the entire house went silent as all of the noise from running fans stopped abruptly.  "You've got to be kidding me," I thought.   Exactly one week to the day since the boil order was lifted on our water supply.  Seems we have been blessed with all sorts of opportunities recently to test our preparedness skills. We began to think about how this would affect us.  I claimed the first shower, just in case the hot water went cold before the the tanks could heat again, and then I remembered we have gas water heaters.  :-) We wondered if church would be cancelled if there was no power in the building, and hubby started dragging out the solar panels we haven't had a chance to set up yet.  {Notice the shade tree directly over them... ha ha.}  

     Truthfully that kind of made me laugh because we didn't even know yet if this would be a long term outage.   And there's wouldn't be enough power coming from those to run a freezer, which was my biggest immediate concern.  Freezers will continue to keep your food frozen for quite a long time if you don't open the doors.   But in a long term outage, most food would begin to thaw within 12-18 hours.  Requiring cooking up of any meats, and other foods.   Canning of vegetables, and tossing out ice cream and popsicles.     We have tons of Goat milk in our freezer that wouldn't be good for anything but Cheese or soap.   And truthfully, I'm not prepared for the amount of work it would take to salvage/process all of this.

     We have had a heat wave lately as well, and it was already over 80 outside at 9am so I knew the house was going to heat up pretty quickly.   The Solar panels might power a few fans, but ultimately, we'd have to start living in the basement to keep cool.   I had noodles boiling on the {gas} stove in preparation for dinner, which was actually a good thing, because I had contemplated using my electric pressure cooker that morning, and decided against it.   But all of this ads heat to the room quite easily.

   I also rather enjoyed the fact that within minutes, people were posting on Facebook about the outage from their smart phones with internet contracts.   The whole neighborhood was out of power and we still have Facebook.   Kind of oxymoronic in a cool sort of way.   And I don't discount the usefulness of Facebook in times of emergency either.   It was how the city kept in contact with us about the water issues as well, and how I found out the boil order was lifted.  Its sort of our latest source for local news and information.   And tidbits spread like wildfire, so its really an effective means of checking on everyone and spreading the updates.

    I know you are used to very informative updates from me, but this one is just intended to make you think.   What would YOU do if you had a long term power outage?   Are you prepared to carry on?   Would you be able to cook, eat, keep warm/cool?   Are there things in your house that could/should be changed replaced to accomodate such a situation?  Ie:  having a gas rather than electric stove, water heater, etc. etc.

     I'll ad more to this topic as time goes on.   We can discuss alternate power options, energy efficiency ideas and more.  In the meantime, I'm super grateful that my power was only off for 2 hours and 3 minutes.  :-)   Have a great week!

     

Update on the Beehive! All Engines are go!

I just started my Bee education with this fabulous book, also approved by my beekeeper, Jed.

This is one of the definitive resources for new beekeepers.  Get your Copy today!

This is just a reference photo I downloaded so you can compare it to what is in MY hive.

MY HIVE UPDATE:

My friendly neighborhood beekeeper, Jed came by today to check on the little buzzers.  I love being there when he takes off the lid so I can see what all they've been up to since the last time we looked.   I was amazed at the sheer quantity of the bees this time.  They have probably tripled of more the number of inhabitants.  This mean the queen has been doing her job, laying lots of eggs, and the workers have been busily gathering everything and building out the hive.

We saw lots of Nectar, Honeycomb, Larva, eggs, and Brood.  Even a bit of Pollen and the precurser to honey.

Here he is pulling out the first frame, and I was just amazed at what we saw.

Yes, this photo is from MY hive!  Yahoo!   These little critters have been busy working and preparing for winter.   You can see all the elements from the diagram above visible in this photo.

Rogue comb - the bees are building somewhat outside the frame.  This has to be removed to keep the frames from sticking together and sticking to the lid which would prevent being able to check on and care for the bees.

Jed also added a second box to the Hive today.   The bees have filled all the frames in the original blue box on the bottom and they are ready to work into the next box.

He also installed this new sugar water holder in place of one of the frames in the new box.   It makes it much easier for the bees to get the fuel they need to build out this first year.

Water storage & Preparation for contamination scenarios

Well, today it happened.  The city issued a warning to all residents that the culinary water had tested positive for E-coli.  There have been a lot of questions, and frantic running to the store to buy water.   How do you properly prepare for this scenario?   Water storage, and water purification systems and products.  Be sure to scroll down to see how to care for your pets as well.

I have always kept old juice containers, washed them out and filled them with tap water to keep in the bottom of my pantry for emergencies.   This is the 2nd time this year I have had to use them.   A few months ago a water main broke at a construction site near our home, and there was no water for about 1/2 a day.   But at our house things went on as usual, we simply pulled out the jugs and used them for hand washing and drinking while waiting for the water to come back on.  Just don't forget to refill them for next time.
 If you haven't planned ahead, the best thing to do is set your largest pot or several smaller pots on the stove, fill them with water, and bring them to a boil.   Once they have boiled for 1 minute you can turn them off on let them cool.   The water is now safe to drink.




In Utah, we are always on the verge of, if not IN a drought.   Some cities are already restricting water use.  So really we should all be prepared with some type of water storage.   Ifyou are in an apartment having 55 gallon drums to store water is, of course, impractical.  This is where I recommend re-using juice containers and keeping them in the bottom of closets.   You should plan to have enough water for every person in your home for at least 72 hours.  The general recommendation for this is one gallon of water per person per day, MINIMUM.  This would not be enough for hand washing or bathing.  If you have a place to store larger amounts of water, the big 55 gallon drums are a great resource.   Many grocery stores actually carry them here in Utah, and the emergency preparedness stores.  But if you live somewhere where that is not available, you CAN order them online.   Be sure to put pallets or 2x4's under your drums if they are on cement.  Recommended long term Emergency storage is 2 Barrels per person.

55 Gallon Barrell and water use kit.

Water Storage Do's and Dont's :
Rinse and sanitize all previously used containers before storing water in them.
Do NOT use containers that were previously used for NON Food items/ Chemicals.
Store water AWAY from excess light or heat.
Do not store containers or drums directly on concrete.   Use pallets or cardboard underneath.
Do not use milk jugs.  They aren't intended for long-term use.
Plain, unscented household bleach can also be used for purifying water at the rate of 8-16 drops per gallon depending on how clear the water is to start with.



Water storage ideas/locations:
Most homes actually have at least a small amount of water storage built in.  You can find water in different areas of your home if you look closely.

Water heater tanks have 35-50 gallons of water
Reverse osmosis storage tanks usually have 2-5 gallons of water.
Even the toilet tanks on the back of the toilet contain at least a gallon of water.  (You can boil or purify it to be safe.)
If you have a swimming pool, and you maintain it well, this is a great source of water storage for emergencies.   It can be boiled and treated as well before consumption.
Also you can purchase water purification tablets to have on hand for these types of situations as well as hiking and travel to areas where pure water may not be available.

Potable Water purification Tablets

NATURAL PURIFICATION METHODS:
Colloidal silver is well known for its purification properties, as well as just putting a solid silver round or silver dollar in your water filtration device or in a jug of water.
Also you can purchase a portable UV light purification system for bottled water to purify water on the go.





Animals & Water Contamination:

I feed my animals small doses of Diatomaceous earth along with their food daily.  DE is a natural product, and has long be known to kill worms, bacterias and even e-coli, preventing them from having problems related to a tainted water supply.

"As these millions of cylinders move through the stomach and digestive tract, they attract and absorb fungi, protozoa, viruses, endotoxins, pesticides, and drug residues, E.coli, and heavy metals. These are trapped inside the cylinder and passed out of the body. In addition, any larger parasites that happen to be in the stomach or digestive tract are "cut up" and killed by the sharp edges of the Diatomaceous Earth. "

Food Grade DE would even be suitable in preventing these issues in humans, should we not be able to get our hands on pure water.  If you don't have DE on hand, I recommend obtaining some for future emergencies to prepare for your pets needs as well as your own.

Animals are just as susceptible to the symptoms as we are, but this is an easier way to keep them healthy long term, and not have to react in emergencies, since they are already being dosed regularly.