Baby, it's COLD outside!

NASA satellite photo of the huge February 2011 snow storm 

Like much of the United States, the Harried Homemaker Acres got a deep blanketing of snow last week. It disrupted our lives slightly, but otherwise left us unscathed. Hubby Dear chose to spend the night at work Tuesday. He was on-call that evening and things could have been dicey if he had to drive back to work during the blizzard. I also was unable to make my usual mid-week grocery run. No worries - we had plenty to eat in our food storage. Woohoo! Time to break out the Girl Scout cookies!

The only thing that gave me pause was the thought of what I would do if we lost power. Sure, I had plenty of food I could cook on my gas stove and non-electric playthings to keep the kids busy, but how would I keep them warm? The only source of heat in our house is the furnace. It burns propane but it also requires electricity to function. I wouldn't even be able to drive somewhere that still had power or a generator since my mini-van would be no match for the large drifts of snow in our driveway.

That sick feeling you get when you realize you've forgotten something important lodged in my stomach. Oops. That's a rather large hole in my preps. Thankfully, the layer of ice we received wasn't enough to bring down the power lines and a potential crisis was averted.

I hadn't totally forgotten about the issue of keeping warm during the winter. I just blithely decided that food storage was more fun pressing since inflation is rising rapidly and we are getting a wood stove sometime in the next couple of years. Anything I bought now to heat our house during a power outage would simply waste money, right?

WRONG! I failed to remember the Rule of Redundancy:  you need to have back-ups for all vital preps! Even something as old-fashioned and simple as a wood stove could fail. What if you run out of wood? Maybe you get sick and become physically unable to cut wood and haul it inside. Having a back-up plan for heating your home in such a situation could make all the difference.

One of my prepping goals for 2011 is to start saving up for a small house renovation that would include one of these fabulous soapstone wood stoves. We'll do this, but we also need to get something like one of these Mr Heater "Big Buddy" Propane Heaters. It's safe to use indoors, shuts off if it tips over (important with my crazy rugrats), and can be hooked up to the kind of propane tank you'd use with a gas grill.

How would you keep your family warm if the power went out? If you haven't thought about it (or if you've ignored it because it's not one of the "fun" preps ), it's time to think it through. Especially if you read one meteorologist's predictions for the next five winters.

Month Four Preps: Butane in my veins

I like to write posts named after lyrics from songs from my youth. I probably should have called it "Come on Baby, Light My Fire", but that would be from my parents' youth. We'll stick with the 90s today.  

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Without electricity, how am I going to cook any of this food I am so frantically storing?

Around here it is de rigueur to have at least a 500 gallon propane tank on your property. Ours runs our furnace and gas cooktop. Depending on the season and the weather conditions, a full tank will last us between 2 and 6 months. We are members of a fuel co-op and have regular deliveries to keep our tank topped off. We also buy our winter fuel ahead of time, locking the price of propane in place and paying for everything in advance. If Hubby Dear should lose his job, that's one bill we wouldn't have to worry about for a few months.

The only problem with this set up is that the starter-spark thingy that lights the gas in both appliances is electric. The furnace also uses electricity to run its fans. I can't do much about that until we get a generator, but we can easily use our stove even in an emergency with aid of a handy-dandy butane lighter.

I love this Zippo MPL. It is very easy to use and is refillable. And did I mention it is pink? :)

I bought four extra cans of butane this month. I'll get more butane as well as additional MPLs later on. 

Of course there's always matches. You can never have too many of those. I have some in our kitchen and others in our BOBs. I'm going to stock up on more as part of Month Five of my Prepping Plan.

The third item I'm planning on buying for potential fire starting needs is a firesteel. I first saw one of these demonstrated on The Discovery Channel's "Dual Survival" (Here's a link that describes all the methods they used to start a fire on that show). You rub small metal striker perpendicularly down the steel. It produces a very hot spark that will light the gas on my stove or the tinder I gather for a fire outdoors.

Speaking of tinder, I've started collecting dryer lint. Finally, a use for dryer lint! I'm filling small ziplock bags with it and putting it in our BOBs. If we do have to bug out and make a fire, having dry tinder at the ready will be vital. 

If the electricity goes off, my electric oven won't work. There are a few options for baking food without electricity:

• A solar oven, either homemade or store-bought. That method will only work if it is sunny.
• A homemade box oven.
• Baking on the dashboard of my van on a hot day. For real.  

At some point, we're going to have to consider getting a wood stove and/or a generator for backup power. For now, though, we can be sure of a hot, home cooked meal whether or not the power is on.