[LittleHillFarm]

I must say this thread along with the GTT forum in general is most entertaining. Far better than anything else on the internet and tv probably because it is true life without much editing. Sometimes it's ugly and sometimes it's beautiful. The part that stands out here is the resilience to endure all situations and that my friends is what I call independence. Something that so many now days seem willing to give up.

 

[Treefarmer]

Oh, hadn't thought of taking the motorhome to the bulk tank, we have trees down in the way though.

Checking email I see my FleaBay seller cancelled my EU2000i order so I ordered one from two different sellers.

Read a Friday update that power crews have power restored to 5 miles south of us and 2 miles north of us but that little substation two miles north might not be restored. In any case we are still assuming we have another three weeks to go without power so I will be measuring water level in our larger storage tank daily.

At least one of our two local gas stations have fuel and our Mexican chow hall is open (we have two restaurants in town.)

If those generator sales crap out, Grainger has some generators in stock but not Honda's which are showing backordered.

In my experience, they are pretty good about being accurate. If they say it is being shipped, it really is shipped.

Treefarmer

 

[Yank]

John, if nothing else, when this is all over you should be able to teach us all about what came in handy, what didn’t, and what you wished you would have had. Priceless knowledge.

 

[waltmart]

I must say this thread along with the GTT forum in general is most entertaining. Far better than anything else on the internet and tv probably because it is true life without much editing. Sometimes it's ugly and sometimes it's beautiful. The part that stands out here is the resilience to endure all situations and that my friends is what I call independence. Something that so many now days seem willing to give up.

ALL I WANT TO SAY ( well almost) IS I TOTALLY AGREE!!!! Well said, Don't chime in often, just lurk in the back ground, More fun and learn more!!!
SENDING WELL THOUGHT TO ALL TEXANS and PRAYERS FOR ALL

REGARDS,
Waltmart

 

[johncanfield]

Thanks again guys! The sun came out and it stopped blowing 20-25 mph, it's nice to not be bundled up to take the dogs out or do anything. We did get gas this morning and the line wasn't too bad, we now have 35 gallons in jugs and the genny is full. No milk at the little gas station store (not part of a chain.)

Before we made our gas run I had to unload the hay and thought I might as well take the tractor and grapple to clear our little road in front of the property. I had a limb down on my fence blocking part of the road and there were limbs down at the intersection which I cleared.

As more power is being restored friends are discovering they are flooding. Duh . Turn off your well pump or pressure pump (most everyone out here are on wells.)

Another takeaway, not for us though, is friends with fireplaces and/or wood stoves could not heat their houses above maybe 55 degrees. Unless you have a high tech fireplace or stove, they do not heat a house - especially one with limestone facade on the exterior. (or if the house is too large for one fireplace)

I need to head over to my neighbor's place in a while to have another look at his generator. I fixed it maybe a month ago (completely gummed up carb) and fixed his repair attempt. Now something isn't right and they think the oil might have gas in it. This generator doesn't even have 50 hours on it and it's the ubiquitous Honda GX something.

Oh, Wonder Boy and Wonder Woman showed up late morning. To my utter amazement their chickens are alive, we need to put them in the coop late afternoon. Going to be a muddy mess.

Might take another bale of hay for his sheep. Okay, end of the midday update. Lunch was a BLT sandwich and two glasses of diet Cherry Coke. Not as tasty as chardonnay but tastes better than our water in jugs.

 

[ddinham]

Thanks again guys! The sun came out and it stopped blowing 20-25 mph, it's nice to not be bundled up to take the dogs out or do anything. We did get gas this morning and the line wasn't too bad, we now have 35 gallons in jugs and the genny is full. No milk at the little gas station store (not part of a chain.)

Before we made our gas run I had to unload the hay and thought I might as well take the tractor and grapple to clear our little road in front of the property. I had a limb down on my fence blocking part of the road and there were limbs down at the intersection which I cleared.

As more power is being restored friends are discovering they are flooding. Duh . Turn off your well pump or pressure pump (most everyone out here are on wells.)

Another takeaway, not for us though, is friends with fireplaces and/or wood stoves could not heat their houses above maybe 55 degrees. Unless you have a high tech fireplace or stove, they do not heat a house - especially one with limestone facade on the exterior. (or if the house is too large for one fireplace)

I need to head over to my neighbor's place in a while to have another look at his generator. I fixed it maybe a month ago (completely gummed up carb) and fixed his repair attempt. Now something isn't right and they think the oil might have gas in it. This generator doesn't even have 50 hours on it and it's the ubiquitous Honda GX something.

Oh, Wonder Boy and Wonder Woman showed up late morning. To my utter amazement their chickens are alive, we need to put them in the coop late afternoon. Going to be a muddy mess.

Might take another bale of hay for his sheep. Okay, end of the midday update. Lunch was a BLT sandwich and two glasses of diet Cherry Coke. Not as tasty as chardonnay but tastes better than our water in jugs.

I want to thank you personally for all the updates. We live vicariously through your updates and appreciate the mess you are going through, but we appreciate even more the preparations you have done to be able to survive it

Dave

 

[ttazzman]

If those generator sales crap out, Grainger has some generators in stock but not Honda's which are showing backordered.

In my experience, they are pretty good about being accurate. If they say it is being shipped, it really is shipped.

Treefarmer

keep in mind that usually 6-12 months or so after a big generator event ....local craigslists will be full of gennys for sale at 1/2 price

also John is spot on with his post about fireplaces/gas-wood heating homes up to the 50s that was my sons experience this last week in Portland .......but its better than 30s

 

[dodgeman]

I have a better fireplace but not a great one. It has doors to close, and outside air source and a blower. I can run the blower off a car battery and inverter. If it was 30 out it would keep the house above 60 easily. Down near zero out, I’d guess 60 would be tough. Wood stoves are much better. I think the longest we have gone without power is 2 days. That same storm left my in-laws without power for over a week, they farm and have livestock. It’s keeping the animals in water that is tough.

 

[coaltrain]

John - I've been following along with great interest. As I said before we used to live off grid and still have most of that mentality.

But your predicament is like a wake up call for me. I have to reassess what we have and what needs to be done. I've been lax being we haven't had a power outage for more than 24 hours in about 20 years.

But I want/need to be ready for more. Not only for as you mentioned the political business recently. For me it's the economy which I feel just can't sustain. They can't just keep printing money without some kind of serious downfall and/or reset.

We have heat - big wood stove with around 2 full cord of firewood on hand. We have water - our spring is literally 20' from the front porch. Plus we live along a small river. We have light - still have our Aladdin lamps and high pressure Amish lamps.

Even though my wife hasn't been able to drive for the last couple years we keep her car. That's because it's a diesel and I always have between 500 & 1000 gallons of diesel on hand. Our main goal is to stay put through anything but you never know.

I don't really need electricity but it's nice to have. I have a small gasoline 120V generator which I purchased mainly to run 2 window A/C units. Most of our power outages come in the summer on those super humid sultry days which I can't take anymore. Because of the above I am insisting on a diesel generator of some kind once I hook something to the panel. I hate storing gasoline - now keep 10 gallons on stabilized ethanol free premium plus the generator full. I dump these jugs into my truck once a year and refill with fresh.

For entertainment we don't need much. I spend most of my downtime now reading. I have a Kindle Paperwhite with around 300 books in it at any given time. The battery lasts for weeks and I can charge it in my truck or wife's car. My wife likes to knit and cross-stitch so she keeps herself busy with that.

So....this is why I am following with such interest. I am looking for holes in my plan that I can fill within the coming year. We don't have any livestock so that isn't a concern - just our beloved Border Collie who is part of our little family.

I have to work on food some more. I currently only leave the homestead once every other week for groceries and try to keep 30 days of our most common used (and liked) goodies. I need to focus on that some more.

 

[Treefarmer]

John - I've been following along with great interest. As I said before we used to live off grid and still have most of that mentality.

But your predicament is like a wake up call for me. I have to reassess what we have and what needs to be done. I've been lax being we haven't had a power outage for more than 24 hours in about 20 years.

But I want/need to be ready for more. Not only for as you mentioned the political business recently. For me it's the economy which I feel just can't sustain. They can't just keep printing money without some kind of serious downfall and/or reset.

We have heat - big wood stove with around 2 full cord of firewood on hand. We have water - our spring is literally 20' from the front porch. Plus we live along a small river. We have light - still have our Aladdin lamps and high pressure Amish lamps.

Even though my wife hasn't been able to drive for the last couple years we keep her car. That's because it's a diesel and I always have between 500 & 1000 gallons of diesel on hand. Our main goal is to stay put through anything but you never know.

I don't really need electricity but it's nice to have. I have a small gasoline 120V generator which I purchased mainly to run 2 window A/C units. Most of our power outages come in the summer on those super humid sultry days which I can't take anymore. Because of the above I am insisting on a diesel generator of some kind once I hook something to the panel. I hate storing gasoline - now keep 10 gallons on stabilized ethanol free premium plus the generator full. I dump these jugs into my truck once a year and refill with fresh.

For entertainment we don't need much. I spend most of my downtime now reading. I have a Kindle Paperwhite with around 300 books in it at any given time. The battery lasts for weeks and I can charge it in my truck or wife's car. My wife likes to knit and cross-stitch so she keeps herself busy with that.

So....this is why I am following with such interest. I am looking for holes in my plan that I can fill within the coming year. We don't have any livestock so that isn't a concern - just our beloved Border Collie who is part of our little family.

I have to work on food some more. I currently only leave the homestead once every other week for groceries and try to keep 30 days of our most common used (and liked) goodies. I need to focus on that some more.

As much as I think industrial scale solar is a boondoggle, a small solar installation might make sense. We have a larger standby generator plus a portable unit but a small solar panel /battery backup ight save be useful when we just want lights, computer etc.

Patriot Power appears to be something like that but also seems very pricey for what it is. I'm not sure that's a good solution, just one I've seen advertised.

We keep a fairly good supply of food but I'd like to get some long storage food to have on hand. Those appear to also be pricey but if you are hungry, they would be cheap.

JC has done as well as possible under horrific circumstances. He's not only taken care of himself and his wife but also his neighbor's animals. I would only hope to do as well.

Treefarmer

 

[johncanfield]

Hi Stan and all of the Greenies . Dinner is down the gullet and working on my last glass of chardonnay. I filled up the motorhome diesel tank, filling my 50 gallon portable diesel tank with my gravity bulk tank took quite a while, the coach genny can now run for another six or seven days on about 45 gallons of desel (little load since the weather is good.)

The Mrs took out $500 in cash about three weeks ago - we usually keep about that on hand. With no power to run the cash registers and store servers, cash is king. On second thought if planning on a really bad disaster a thousand bucks would have provided a better cushion. Filling up five jugs of gas is like a fifty buck plus expense. If it was a really catastrophic event (like in the movies), ammunition, guns, food and water are the equivalent of cash or actually better. If government breaks down, cash is worthless. I am not a doomsday prepper by any standard but I am a critical thinker.

The Mrs took a one pint hair of water shampoo and I did the same. Wow, what a difference in the feeling good thing.

Lessons learned department - my Chinese non-descript gloves are basically junk. I have about five pairs of various kinds of cold weather gloves and the better ones are insulated well but they are falling apart. Leather gloves with some fake wool as a liner were actually the very worst gloves I own as far as cold weather performance. For you peeps in the southern states, buy quality gloves. I'm going to do some shopping at LL Bean. Our North Face jackets with liner performed excellently - we bought them 15 years ago. Buy quality, cry once.

And yet another lesson learned (learned it a long time ago) - keep various plumbing fittings on hand because when pipes burst due to a massive winter event like this is the big box stores get stripped of supplies. Inventory your plumbing and get a shopping cart and run down the plumbing aisle and keep throwing parts in the cart - seriously.

I might have mentioned this before but have those LiPo battery packs ready that you can start a vehicle with or charge a phone.

Also ordered a Milwaukee M18 chainsaw with their mega battery.

Times for lights out (as in shutting the genny down.) And again thanks for the support and kindness extended. It's been pretty stressful but not nearly as stressful if we weren't prepared.

 

[JD4044M]

Right now we are having a warm up melt. Driveway is bare of all ice and snow till the next time it snows?? So might be some warmer weather on the way from up north?

 

[etcallhome]

Right now we are having a warm up melt. Driveway is bare of all ice and snow till the next time it snows?? So might be some warmer weather on the way from up north?

Good to hear from you and you are doing OK.

 

[ttazzman]

The Mrs took out $500 in cash about three weeks ago - we usually keep about that on hand. With no power to run the cash registers and store servers, cash is king. On second thought if planning on a really bad disaster a thousand bucks



And yet another lesson learned (learned it a long time ago) - keep various plumbing fittings on hand because when pipes burst due to a massive winter event like this is the big box stores get stripped of supplies. Inventory your plumbing and get a shopping cart and run down the plumbing aisle and keep throwing parts in the cart - seriously.

again spot on regarding the cash ......also need to make sure you have small bills available as many places will require exact change since they have no change available

on the plumbing i might suggest from experience a assortment of shark bite to pex type fittings and some pex pipe of various sizes and you can cut out and repair most anything and the pex will then withstand a refreeze if it happens

we also keep some heavy extension cords 10 and 12ga and some heavy SO cord .....with assortment of non-attached end plugs such as dryer plugs , range plugs, twist lock gen plugs ..........so we can custom make power back feed cords in a emergency for various peoples (have a pretty good assortment built up of these from past issues but some never get returned )

 

[Herminator]

Thanks John for all the updates and going beyond to take care of the neighbors sheep. Hard to say if he appreciates it or not but you did exactly what should be done.

Some of the best reporting on the news comes from here.

 

[Gizmo2]

And yet another lesson learned (learned it a long time ago) - keep various plumbing fittings on hand because when pipes burst due to a massive winter event like this is the big box stores get stripped of supplies. Inventory your plumbing and get a shopping cart and run down the plumbing aisle and keep throwing parts in the cart - seriously.

I have on hand exactly that and this ↓↓↓

on the plumbing i might suggest from experience a assortment of shark bite to pex type fittings and some pex pipe of various sizes and you can cut out and repair most anything and the pex will then withstand a refreeze if it happens

Thank you for your posting johncanfield. There's nothing like good information for disaster preparation than from a person actually going through it.

Luck is the moment when Preparation meets Opportunity!

 

[Mackford13]

Thanks for posting & keeping us informed of your well being. Glad you made it through this & your both ok. Your good a man for taking care of your neighbors animals that way. Take care.

 

[johncanfield]

And yet another day in the adventures of living off the grid. Waking up tired again, I was pretty well whooped late afternoon yesterday.

Yesterday I discovered our plumbing (pressure and not gravity fill stock tanks) is in good shape and no leaks except for my shop office, I discovered water on the floor - I thought it was from snow that blew in the door corners but nope. I have repairs to make there. I roughed in the plumbing (sink, potty, shower) and installed the fixtures so I should have plenty of parts left over (cpvc fittings.) I've never used Shark Bite fittings, our addition uses PEX so I need to get set up for PEX repairs.

The Mrs needs to wash some clothes, on the boat when we were cruising she washed in salt water and rinsed in fresh water - that worked well. We have front loaders so I need to find out how much water the Electrolux machine uses, it's not mentioned in the manual.

Thought of another useful mention - we have a good bread machine ($250 class) and she makes a loaf of bread each week. Stores might have bread and milk now but they didn't a few days ago. Also we love homemade bread. Also have a good supply of paper plates, bowls, etc. Avoid using anything that needs water for washing if possible.

Signing off, I need to chill out...

Signing back in... just thought of one more article of clothing I need to improve - boots. I have Timberline waterproof boots and they are great when it's not frozen stuff you're walking on. Going to buy some good waterproof and insulated boots. Another lesson learned. Having cold feet all of the time ruins this living off the grid experience 😒.

 

[ddinham]

How Much Water Does a Washing Machine Use? (28 Examples) - Prudent Reviews

On average, washing machines use 19 gallons of water per load, and ENERGY STAR certified washing machines use an average of 14 gallons of water per load, which is 33% less than regular washers.

prudentreviews.com

So around 14 gallons.

 

[sty of the hog]

A fireplace is a poor choice to heat a home. It sucks all the warm air up the chimney. A good quality, properly installed wood stove however, can easily heat a small home. Our Lopi stove kept us at 72 degrees when it was 4 degrees outside. For a large home I would consider two or 3.

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk