Preps can pay off short term too!

Sometimes I don't take my own advice quite as much to heart as I should.  I'm lax about keeping up with my look ahead storage (realized the other day that I only have two extra bottles of dish detergent), sometimes my Honda's gas tank gets down to half full before I fill it and occasionally I even don't know exactly what is in the grab and go bag if I have to bail out on short notice.

This week it has been brought home to me in No....Uncertain....Terms....that it pays to be prepared.

Most of the time I like to think I am as light as a fairy on my feet - graceful, careful and not prone to stumbling around like....er, an old lady.

Last Saturday I blew a hole in that theory that I could have walked through....well, if I hadn't been lying prone...or is it supine?  Anyhow, flat on my face on the porch outside my house.

Still not exactly what went wrong....yeah, I know, I fell,   I mean I'm not sure what the instigating event was.  I suspect it was the old deal where a person thinks they can take the dog out on a leash, open the door to do that and talk on the phone all at the same time.  At least one of those didn't work.

I fell flat on my face...actually trending more to my right side, hit my head a resounding whack on the porch, knocked the breath out of myself to the point where I couldn't even gasp cause that required more breath than I had and lay there like the proverbial fish out of water.

However, I did not drop the leash!

Gathered myself up, completed the "take the dog out" maneuver and put an ice pack on my head.  Friends were dropping by and hung around long enough to be sure my eyes were still the same size etc and that I wasn't going to become an inert lump on the floor.

I'll keep the rest relatively short - I hurt, I hurt a lot....couple days go by I don't hurt so much until I coughed.  Then I felt like someone who really disliked me had stuck a knife in my back...repeatedly.  Perfectly in time with the coughs.

So go to the Redi-Care, get poked and prodded and xrayed all to find out I have three broken ribs. Reasonable I suppose...most anything would break if I hurled myself onto it!..

The point is (drum roll as long as you do it, I can't move that fast) that I have enough food and meals so I don't have to go anywhere for a few days.  My friend brought me milk and half and half but otherwise I'm all set for the duration and so is the dog.  Might have to make an emergency trip for fresh vegetables and wine but otherwise I'm good to go.

If I was as slack about food as I am about some things I'd be, to put it impolitely, screwed...and hungry or, worse yet, dependent on the kindness of others!  And we all know how New Englanders love having to ask for help...not!

So, especially if you live alone, think on this.  It doesn't have to be a disaster to leave you wishing that you had a few groceries and maybe a bandaid or two (did I mention my scraped knuckles?) as well as perhaps an ice pack in the freezer.

So think ahead at least short term, ok?  And keep track of your feet better than I did this time around!

P.S. Surprise!

Howdy,

As a Post Script to yesterday's blog post I have to mention:

The evacuation of the homes near the train tracks where there was a derailment including train cars carrying propane.

The forced evacuation of homes near the fires in the southeastern United States.

Not much warning there, guys, hopefully their vehicles were fueled up and ready to rock!

Gas - it's a delicate subject

I truly wish that I could see how many of you who read my blog just jumped to absolutely THE wrong conclusion based on that title!  I admit I was hoping for a "gotcha".

At any rate, I'm talking about gas in your car - or diesel if that is your fuel of choice.

There are a lot of reasons to keep your car/truck/SUV gassed up and ready to go.

If you had to leave right now with what you have for fuel, how far would you get?  Do you even have any idea?

It doesn't have to be the apocalypse to cause an unexpected road trip.  Could be a regular old evacuation (if there is such a thing) to get away from rising water or toxic fumes or just that annoying kid next door.  Admittedly the kid might not cause an emergency (depending on how loud he's screaming) but the other things are a potential for all of us no matter where we live.

Among other things, at least half a tank of gas helps keep condensation in the tank to a minimum and that's a good thing.  It also potentially could at least get you far enough away from an emergency situation and into an area where gas lines aren't two miles long.

And how about all the fires down in the southeast?  Do you think most of those people expected to have to load up and go with little or no warning?  Probably not.

I'm struggling to find a way to convey how important I think it is to be prepared for the unexpected. Hell, if it was "expected" it wouldn't be an emergency, right?

You do not want to be the one sitting by the side of the road because you were going to get the car gassed up tomorrow.  Perhaps on your way to the grocery store to finally get some extra provisions in case of - ta da - the emergency that I've been nagging you about for a year now.

So if you don't want to be "that guy".....

Keep the car gassed up!

When you lose someone

When you lose someone close to you do you cling to the common everyday things that remind you of them?

Obviously I do if you read my posts on the baskets.  Every time I use one I am reminded of my grandmother, my mother and my dearest friend, my Aunt Emily.

She was (well, I guess she still is) my mother's younger sister.  She was an amazing person - worked in Washington, D.C., acted as a courier for sensitive documents during the war ("who would suspect a young woman of doing something important" she told me when I asked) and traveled the world with my grandmother on her vacations.  She rode camels, sailed around the Horn and just generally kicked the ass of every stereotype in existence - all the while being the perfect lady.

She actually ended up in D.C. because she went to take a government test with a male friend of hers just to be moral support.  She got the job.  He didn't!

I can't begin to accurately describe her really - for starters she was one of the least judgmental people I have ever known.   She was able to talk with anyone from a congressman to a truck driver.  She never married and when I asked her why she opined that "there was a war on - shortage of eligible men, you know?".  No matter what crazy idea I got in my head she was always there supporting me - I would like to learn to hook rugs?  Next Christmas I got the whole enchilada:  frame, hooks, pattern and wool.  I would like to get a commercial truck driver's license?  Check in hand she urged me on!  Oh my god, my poor mother must have wanted to squash us both!

I could go on for half of forever about her but all this is leading up to the small things that remind me of her every time I go to my cabin.

When the dust had settled on her passing and everything had been parceled out according to her desires no one wanted the pots and pans and utensils from her kitchen.  Yeah, they were very well used - not to say pretty much worn out.  We're dealing with a dyed in the wool Yankee here:  some of the knives were so thin from being sharpened hundreds of times that you probably could have snapped them in half.  And some items were of a design not seen in probably 50 years!

So I gathered some of them up and took them to my cabin in Maine.

Some of the pots I use every time I cook and other things were just so cool that I had to use them for decoration!  Take a good look left to right.  Who now has a spatula that you can scoop something up with and hold so the fat drains off through a hole?  Just me!  And a flat whisk?  Stir, whisk, strain, you name it and it does it.  The single mixer?  Look closely - it's made so you can push up and down and it rides up on the shaft and turns to whip up whatever needs whipping up.  The big knife and the ice pick are just that:  big knife, ice pick.

It was a standing joke between the two of us that we would sit at her house in "our" chairs and she would listen to all my woes and triumphs as if they were actually important.  Within 15 minutes I would be yawning and totally relaxed. She would accuse me of thinking time spent with her was boring...far from it, I think that being in her presence was my safe place and god knows I loved that woman.  To this day she is probably the person I miss the most as the years go by -  always my first thought is to ask her or tell her or show her.

 Just one more time.

I think it was toilet paper

Last December when I first thought about trying to inspire a few people into being more prepared for emergencies,  my first question was about toilet paper.

Not about quality so much as quantity - actually more like "do you know how much you have and how long it might last?" quantity.  Far be it for me to pry into how much you actually use but I'm sure you realize using pages from a magazine or a catalog or, heaven forbid, actual tree leaves doesn't begin to compare to the real thing, right?  I don't care how many cute bears they use to advertise it either! I'm guessing that even a bear (if they had to use TP at all) would prefer the real thing.

However, I begin to wander more than usual!

Now it's almost a year later and I wonder if I joggled anyone into thinking about being prepared for that time when they might not be able to just run out to Walmart or Market Basket or the vendor of their choice to buy all those essentials that we are all so used to, well, using.

Not much chance in the next few weeks of some major snow storm - so does that mean you should wait until you are looking at one before you consider being ready for it?  I notice that even the Weather Channel is already beating the "be prepared to take care of yourself" drum.  Also during that Matthew thing there were several state governors who came right out and said, if you're not ready (or evacuated) when we tell you, you are on your own!  I think it is finally dawning on the powers that be that putting emergency personnel in jeopardy because the general public is too lazy or too stupid to do their part is just wrong.  Not doing your part to prepare for the unexpected?

Worst

Idea

Ever

I did open up my blog to accept comments (thus exposing my tender ego to bumps and bruises)  but either no one has anything to add or, like a couple of people, they prefer to privately e mail me.  I've always said that this isn't War and Peace - just one person's take on a mix of topics.  I think I'm probably supposed to have a theme so I try to return to the "are you ready" area at least occasionally.

How about take a look around at your basic supplies - easy to prepare foods and maybe even some water?  And don't forget the pets - unless you want to share your beans and rice with Fido or Kitty Cat you'd best lay in some food for them too!

On that note I will go out and attack the leaves in my yard - but I hope that this "reminder" (I hate the word "nagging") will help you at least consider making a few preps for the upcoming winter!

I will keep it short

  I'm sure there isn't a living soul in the US who didn't know about Matthew the Storm coming towards out southeast coast.  It was hyped for days ahead and followed more closely than a celebrity stalker to a Kardashian.   The news was everywhere for days in advance.

As it should have been - it was a dangerous storm that did a huge amount of damage.

That being said, while we were watching that right hand, the left one was sneaking up on the Carolinas - especially North Carolina.

There are people in North Carolina in a flood situation that is unprecedented - places that have never flooded and that are continuing to flood even now - days after the skies cleared and the sun came out. I heard this morning that there are people still in shelters and, more to my point, sheltering in their homes, unable to get out and without any services in many cases.

So here comes my point:  winter is coming and if you were told tomorrow that you have to stay in your house for the next two weeks using only the provisions that you have now....how would that strike you?  As a great way to diet?  As a cosmic joke played on you the day BEFORE you were planning on grocery shopping?  How about as what may very well happen sometime this winter?

Some one of the talking heads over the past couple of weeks stated the obvious (they are good at that) - it is much better to prepare before the emergency than to be the proverbial chicken with no head running around when it's here and happening.

Take a look at your supplies - food, water, medicines (even over the counter ones), sanitation supplies - all that stuff!  Do you have at least the recommended three day supplies - which is ridiculous in my opinion - when can you plan on a three day emergency - like a curtain goes up on the fourth day and it's all better?

Check it out, guys - and be ready for whatever little surprises the winter may gift us with.  And, by the way, North Carolina's problems had nothing to do with Matthew - so keep your eyes on all the balls, not just the one bouncing in front of you!

 And even if you could get out?  This might very well be what you find....just sayin!

Garlic's Promise

How strange it seems to be planting something while looking fall and winter dead in the face.  Years ago I tried to grow garlic - obviously before the great god Internet because I planted it in the spring and then stood over it wondering why the heck it never amounted to anything!  Today, of course, I would just "google it" and become instantly wiser.

My initial failure would be because I was planting it the wrong time of the year...who knew?

I'm sure that there would have been planting instruction if I had bought from a garden supply house.  But I suspect at that point in my "gardening" it was more of a point and shoot kind of thing:  buy garlic in the grocery store, put it in the ground in the spring and go from there.

Now that I am at least somewhat wiser (and definitely older) I not only buy from accredited sources but actually read the instruction/informational sheets that come with a product!  Amazing information to be found there.

It was a total polar shift when I found out I was supposed to plant the garlic mid to late October and that miraculously by the following July or August I would have lots and lots of....drum roll:  GARLIC!

So, as it is currently the middle of October it's garlic time.  I ordered the smallest quantity I could (a pound) and today was planting day.

A pound of garlic is actually quite a lot - ended up with 6 "heads" of garlic - each of which has to be broken up into all it's little cloves for planting.  Fortunately I have a friend who will take some so my garden next year won't be exclusively garlic.

I even followed the instructions that said to add aged compost to the bed prior to planting - my compost bins are finally starting to produce some wonderful compost.  For a while I thought everything I threw in there was going to retain it's original form and composition forever.  But time does indeed rot all things so I added several shovels of the compost to each of the two beds I planted today.

Put compost all along the middle of the beds and then spaded it in, smoothed it out and set the little garlic babies in place.

And, yes, I put in markers just because I can see myself planting something on top of them come spring and then wondering what those garlic looking things are.  Memory lapses are common at my age but I take it to new levels occasionally.  Anyhow, I marked the rows just in case, put the cloves in their assigned spots and then pushed them into the dirt.

Next step was adding a layer of mulch to protect them through the winter.  I will probably add more but this is a start.

It's eminently satisfying on a blustery fall day to tuck something into the still warm ground, cover it with soil and mulch and walk away secure in the knowledge that in the spring the cycle will continue and there will be garlic.

This has been a hectic summer for me in many ways.  Health-wise it was brought home to me in some not so subtle ways that an apple a day doesn't always keep the doctor away.  And it is quite possible for that same doctor to come up with some potential diagnoses that you never even heard of, never mind considered actually adopting as your very own.

So doing something like planting garlic which has the implicit promise that in the spring no matter what else is going on, the garlic will arise like a green phoenix out of the dirt is comforting.

Not to mention setting the stage for some kick-ass stir fries!