Boyd - Day in the life of a hillbilly stuck in Michigan..

[Boyd]

Today my father and I went to Bass Pro Shops. Apparently he purchased one of those .22/410 combo guns and wanted some specialty ammo! For our rabbit hobby I use a .22 short sub sonics.. Barely louder than a bb gun actually. My dad has rabbits also, so he was looking for some of the same. Funnily enough he asked me where I bought my rat shot, my short subs and the hollow points when the big bad outdoor store didn't have it.. Wal-Mart. Yup

Not too sure if the salesman there is impressed with me lol. On a lighter note, I checked out the Taurus Judge, Night Court.. all matte black, 3" barrel, takes 3" shells and the grip and weight feels good with a great balance. I am thinking half the cylinders with .45 long colt, the other half with 410 loaded with buck shot..

 

[Boyd]

Hi there SS'ers!!! I have been working up a storm and paying down bills, yet I am trying to prep for what I think is coming soon. I've just finished reading one second after for about the 3rd time and it still scares the hell out of me. I am curious, as a group, as like minded folks, how many peeps actually prep for a no power situation? No generators, no batteries, back to the basics? I have a long way to go, and i must admit, I am sort of worried!

 

[BarredBuff]

Howdy Boyd!! We are sort of prepared for an electrical outage, we have kerosene lamps with some kerosene stocked, need to get more once our supply store is built. THen we should have our gas stove hooked near our storage place as well. For heat, we have a woodstove, that has an electric fan to blow threw the house but it will give enough heat off in that area. In a long term sense we have an old basic wood cook/heat stove, that potentially we could cook on and heat our place. Then we can cook over the grill and bake in the fire pit outside.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Hi there SS'ers!!! I have been working up a storm and paying down bills, yet I am trying to prep for what I think is coming soon. I've just finished reading one second after for about the 3rd time and it still scares the hell out of me. I am curious, as a group, as like minded folks, how many peeps actually prep for a no power situation? No generators, no batteries, back to the basics? I have a long way to go, and i must admit, I am sort of worried!

My prepping for this is fairly simple, as we've had it happen before.

I think it was September 2008? Not really sure, but close to fall because we were wearing flannel shirts in the early mornings and evenings.
We heat with wood, so warmth wasn't a problem. We kept a charcoal grill burning all day, with a kettle on it for keeping water hot, so I had access to hot water all day long. We cooked outside 3x's a day on our gas grill. My kids thought it was awesome.

When it got dark, we went to bed.

We've upgraded a little since then, though. Now we have a homemade grill out of bricks, and we put wood in it to cook on. No buying charcoal, as the wood is freely accessible to us. And, it cooks better than gas grills!

We bought a new woodburner before last winter, and it has two burners on top, so I could cook on it if necessary, too.

And, we'd again, go to bed with the chickens at dark. We play board games, card games, tinker around outside, etc during the day. We don't worry about the outside world in those times when we have power outtages - which is something that happens at least 1x a year around here due to bad storms.

 

[Damummis]

Boyd buddy, good to see ya.

Electricity is not that hard to live without. You adjust. Heat is my main concern. Blizzards, ice storms and hurricanes leave us powerless quite often. Now is the time to start to accumulate manual things. Yard sales work great for that. This summer I have aquired a manual slicer, grinder, bread kneader, lamps, and other odds and ends that are old school. I love the looks on the sellers face when I get all excited with finds. My treadle sewing machine was the best score yet, no maybe it was the hand cranked stainless meat slicer......

 

[TanksHill]

Hey how's it going. Good to see you.
I have some preps for when the power goes out. But I think Aly has the ticket, up and down with the sun. Here in Ca. heat is not a big issue but warm clothes are.

G

 

[Boyd]

I am wanting to integrate a wood stove into the household, but thinking it may be difficult.. .... .. But I am going to try it anyways. Something large enough to cook on with a cast iron skillet or a dutch oven. Also considering getting a multi-fuel wood stove that adds on to my existing furnace. I've got 5 acres of thick thick woods, and my father wants to buy a pellet maker and hammermill for making animal feed. Hoping to have a couple acres of clover and alfalfa someday added to the back.

 

[dacjohns]

Boyd,

Are you thinking the family is going to resist the wood stove or do you think finding and installing the right stove is going to be the problem?

Multi-fuel wood stoves I am not familiar with. Have you considered an outdoors stove that will hook up to existing ductwork? Duh, of course you have.

 

[Boyd]

Boyd,

Are you thinking the family is going to resist the wood stove or do you think finding and installing the right stove is going to be the problem?

Multi-fuel wood stoves I am not familiar with. Have you considered an outdoors stove that will hook up to existing ductwork? Duh, of course you have.

I have, but with a no power situation I don't see how an external stove works for me. The add on to the furnace is only for a power situation as the blower and ignighter is needed to work.

Honestly, the most I am worried about is keeping warm when it's cold. And where i live, it gets -20 on most winter days, and as bad as -30 or -40 on bad ones. I have no warm lake effect to keep us going.

And I will admit, I am scared of what the next 18 months will bring us... not only a double dip recession, but a total back to the land movement that knows no property lines and lots of imminent domain.

 

[rathbone]

Boyd, are you the same Boyd from my df group on fb? If so, nice to see you here.