Not a Prepper (But Maybe I Should Be)

When we lived in Utah, I used to chuckle a little at the doomsday prepper people. Self-reliance is highly valued in LDS culture, which is not a bad thing, but really, let’s not go overboard, right?  Most of my neighbors were investing in food and proudly outfitting their basements with food storage units, with the goal of having a year’s supply saved for each family member. The Utah Costco sold big tubs of ready to eat foods  and a contraption that would automatically rotate your cans for you, so that you would automatically use the oldest ones first.

I am not chuckling quite so much at this kind of thing anymore.

2021 in these parts was a year of “mosts” and “leasts.” The most rain in a single day in Sacramento (October)!  A month with virtually no measurable rain in Sacramento (November)!  The rainiest December on record (last month!). Snow pack in the Sierra went from next to nothing to 160 percent of normal in basically a few days, with most of that coming from the storm that brought down our power lines. Our power was out for nine days. At this writing, some people who live in remote areas around here are still waiting.

It’s not that I thought anyone else would necessarily take care of us. At least, I didn’t think I thought that.

But I guess I trusted the power company to keep the power on, and the water company to keep the water safe, and the propane companies to make deliveries like they promised. Our public utilities had been strong and trustworthy for as long as I could remember. Why would that change?

This week, local water companies pleaded for customers to reduce their water use because canals were damaged in the storm, and while they are being repaired (who knows how long that will take), the only water that is available is what was in the storage tanks. Propane companies reneged on their promises to make scheduled deliveries, and the power company sent out vague texts that declared that “restoration efforts will start soon and continue for several days.”

This is not so encouraging when you have been sitting in the cold and dark for more than a week.

It is making me think about what I can do to be more self-reliant. I don’t think I’m at the point of trying to store a year’s worth of food, though we did eat through a lot of our canned goods the first few days after the storm, when the road was impassable and the power was first out. I was glad that we had them.

I’m also glad I did one thing to prepare for winter this year: I had two cords of oak delivered and stacked not far from the kitchen door. A few years ago, we relied on those nifty energy logs, which burn clean and can be purchased from our local feed store. Except as time went on, more and more people started using them, and we occasionally had difficulties finding them.  Which was annoying, but not life threatening, because the winter wasn’t that rough around here. Plus, because those logs were a little expensive, we generally could only buy enough for a week or so at a time, trusting that they would be in stock when we started to run low.

If energy logs had been our primary heat source during the power outage, we would have been in trouble. The trucks that delivered the logs probably weren’t even able to make it to the stores, since the highway was closed for days. My friend who occasionally uses these logs to help heat her house was able to find some, but the salesman told her to “get there quick,” because they were almost out. And what would we have done on the days when we couldn’t even get out to the main road, before the county plowed the street, and when the highway was closed? You saw last week that the temperature in the house got down to 45 degrees, even with the woodstove roaring. What would have happened if we hadn’t had wood for a fire?

And though it wasn’t easy, wading through feet of snow to the woodpile, and figuring out a way to get the snow off the top  so that we could access the wood, and trying to avoid the rat droppings from the rats that decided that the covered pile was a lovely place to build their nests, at least the wood was there. I don’t want to think about what we would have done without it.

Another item to add to my “winter preparedness kit” checklist, which I should actually create and then double check  every September: aluminum foil. Lots of it. We were able to have hot food because I could wrap up things and place them on the narrow ledge of our woodstove. Costco tamales heat well that way. So do sausages, hot dogs and muffins. I even made a little packet of nachos, with chips and melted cheese. And since there was three feet of snow on the ground, we didn’t lose any of our frozen foods, because we were able to utilize the “outside freezer” (which was the three feet of snow on the ground).

This no power thing was surprisingly tiring.

I don’t think I would have made a very good pioneer. Wouldn’t have volunteered to join the Donner Party, loading my life in a covered wagon and walking/riding to California. I was grateful beyond words when the power finally came back late Tuesday afternoon.  Am grateful now to be sitting at the kitchen table with my hot tea. We kept the Christmas tree up, at least for the rest of this weekend, since we missed nine days of light and cheer when the power was out, that whole week after Christmas when it is acceptable to have decorations up still.  It’s bright now.  Everything basically seems back to normal. Except I am afraid that the “normal” we used to count on is gone; we surely will have more storms like this. The “once in a century” weather anomalies are happening every few years now.  But the gift of this storm was that it helped me see what I can do to be more prepared for the next one. Because it surely is coming.

(On a lighter note! This blog got a mention in another blog! My friend Shannon Karafanda is a Georgia minister who is the heart of #HolyMischief.  I love her and her passion for encouraging us to spread seemingly small mischievous acts of kindness and love.  Take a look at her Holy Mischief Facebook page; you can join the group and find inspiration there. And here’s a link to her “Ordinary Holy (Mischief)” reflection: Ordinary Holy Mischief . )