Our first real SHTF situation/"practice run"; what have we learned?

I learned that my wife no longer complains about my supplies!

 

I've learned that my retired lifestyle qualifies me as a non-essential person, and that the impositions of social distancing, and shelter-in-space have affected me very little from my retired "normal". I do miss my gym workouts, and am gaining weight during this pseudo quarantine because of it. I'm actually eating more and better because the Mrs. is conquering her boredom with cooking and sewing, while I putter around with small home fix-up projects, and relax with reading and the TV.

I chafe at having to mask and/or glove up to go to the post office and shop for groceries, but sort of get a kick out of wearing an N-95 with a ball cap and sunglasses as I walk across the parking lot (facial recognition cameras have a tougher time tracking honest citizens). The hair poofs out from under my ball cap more than normal because I haven't had a haircut in a while. I've learned to look at the floors of the places I enter because there will be a square or a circle that I'm supposed to stand in to keep my distance when lining up.

I've learned how to make hand sanitizer with 91% isopropyl alcohol, aloe vera sunscreen gel, and a touch of hydrogen peroxide. I've learned how to sterilize, re-use, and rotate the few masks I have by spraying colloidal silver on the inside part, wetting the outside portion with hydrogen peroxide, and then letting it dry in sunlight for at least 4 days.

I've seen more caring consideration come out in people when they see a stranger who is distressed, confused, or disabled while in public, whereas before the Wuhan Virus people tended to keep to themselves while quietly minding their own business.

I've come to appreciate the thinning of vehicular traffic congestion on our roads and highways. It's almost like 30 years ago! The bad side of that is that the folks that are driving are doing so with a heavy foot on the throttle not just because it's refreshing to see a clear straight highway in front of you, but because gasoline is so dang cheap!

 

Me at the end of May. I was going to wait until 70 but fuck it we have enough saved that I am taking full SS at 66. We are not guaranteed tomorrow

 

I saw this coming in late December when a few friends from the intel community told me to get ready.

So we started to add to what we had in early Jan based on current intel. The only thing we have bought besides alcohol is fresh veggies.

My wife thanks me daily for being ready and alert early.

 

My wife doesn't exactly thank me, but she's grateful for some of the things I insisted upon. Sadly, she's still not happy with my rainwater catchment (she wants the ease of just turning water on and letting it pour down the drain, which we can't do when we're limited in our storage capacity) but for the most part everything else is okay with her, and we've been eating exactly as we always have, without yet having hit our basement stores (main pantry only).

Getting rabbits going; I won't run out of meat if I can help it. Now that Smithfield meat situation is tenuous (and they're owned by the Chinese anyway) I'm suspicious of running out of meat. As it is, the meat we do have in our area is limited and outrageous in price.

I'll farm my own.

 

Sweetie has been expressing her delight in our preps lately. She never really said anything about me buying them, but I sure got that "Just humor the old fella. It ain't hurting anything." look many times.. I just love it when a plan comes together. Yeah, I agree, I could have done with another 25 years of her humoring me, though.

 

This has been an easy one, since the power is on. We usually prepare for hurricane season without power in one or more homes and have been able to shuffle frozen stuff to freezers that still have power. I found during the past several outages that if the freezers aren't opened often they can remain cold for about 72 hours, chest freezer probably twice that. Understanding the amount of on and off time the freezers can operate and keep the food safe will eventually help me if I buy a generator. We'll be able to reduce fuel consumption and noise if we limit generator operation based on the freezers needs.

Eating well and staying strong at the beginning of a prolonged event makes the frozen food options attractive.

 

Couple of tricks you can use to verify you're meat remains of good quality.
Like the quarter on top of a frozen glass of water in the freezer.
I freeze tupperware filled with water in the freezer,Power goes out? I transfer this ice to the inside frig too keep it cold inside!

 

I like those. We had good people bringing us cases of frozen water while we were stranded by the pond in the front yard... with the road under it. That worked so well that I always keep a case in the beer fridge freezer now. Being able to use all or part of it is handy.

Now I'm thinking about an external thermometer to monitor the freezers. The less opening and checking the better.

 

I have a LOT more freezer space than I need. But long ago I figured out that a power outage is a costly thing, so the excess space is full of half gallon jugs of ice.

So far as a temperature gadget goes, opt for one that has an external monitor and uses a wire thru the seals. Batteries don't do well at zero F. I KNOW this.

 

On Military bases everything old is new again.


1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated in China, Historians Say

 

I've gotten valuable feedback on the state of my preps. I've also been validated on how I gather information and tend to ignore the half dozen or so "hot topics" in the news and focus mainly on threats from the spectrum we recognize (economic, political, pandemic, etc..). It allowed me the advance time to customize my preps for this particular threat before people panicked.

I did make a few decisions about my current and future homes based on pandemic experience. In particular the realization of how efficient our shoes can expose our homes to a virus:

• Carpets in my current home need replacing. Instead of new carpets I'm going to replace them with laminated flooring. It's easier to sanitize. Will use area rugs that can be taken outside, beaten and exposed to UV, dry easier after cleaning, etc.. Next home will be built this way from the get-go. Fortunately my entry is already a laminate so is easy to sanitize.
  
  
• Am going to follow the Japanese model of no shoes in the house. The entry in the next house will be designed this way to accommodate a seating area as well as shoe and slipper storage. In my current home there is an adequate way to do this.
  
  
• Underscores the need for mud rooms and pet ingress and egress through them.

 

It seems all the best flu type viruses come from China.

 

I didn't have enough dog and cat food stored. That will be fixed.
Other than that, it's business as usual.

 

Same. I'm also less happy about my store of canned milk. We haven't touched it, but the things we've run to the store for invariably include as many as three gallons of milk, and I've made that trip three or four times in the last month. If that's how we're blasting through milk, what I have stored is not going to be nearly enough.

I'm adding powdered milk (which even I hate) and powdered eggs (which oddly enough I actually like) to the stores as well. The canned milk is my preference, but I may be able to store more in powdered form, and I'm sure there's a recombination that I can come up with using both together with water that's almost drinkable.

Almost.

 

I can fit a lot more beer in the dedicated beer (and battery) fridge than I thought.

There are still three 12 packs of Diet Mountain Lion in there, so it's not full yet.

 

Nice Fridge , batteries in the butter keeper is why ?
Sloth

 

Refrigerated batteries are supposed to last longer... and that'd where I can always find them.

 

Now this just isn't fair.

You, sir, are a GOD among preppers. I'd give you a twenty one belch salute, but someone has hoarded all the beer and I only have enough for one good one.

BBUURRAAAAAAAAAPP!

 

Batteries that are near their end can also be heated slightly to get a little more out of them. I DON'T NECESSARILY RECOMMEND THIS, for safety reasons, but I know for a fact it can be done. I watched my grandmother heat up a skillet on the stove with batteries sitting on their butt end (I'm not making this up--it's a wonder we're not all with the angels right now) on Christmas when the kids would scream about their new electric toys not working anymore...

Now I should mention that this is the same woman who cut her toes off with a push mower, so use this info at your own discretion!