I've always got mine. Eating out with friends years ago when the power went out, no light in the restaurant. Held my flashlight over our heads with one hand and we continued with our dinner.
These days, almost everyone has a light...on their cellphone. I still carry a small, bright (and efficient LED) flashlight in my purse. Along with a small butane torch (not a lighter), my NukAlert, and a few basic meds. My jackknife goes into my pocket first thing in the morning.
Theres a bug-out-bag in the car (if we are both going somewhere further than 100 miles from home, there's two... both of us could still walk the 100 miles within 3 days).
I don't carry a bunch of water in the BOBs or vehicle. We usually have a quart bottle or two, but theres a Sawyer water filter in the BOB. We live in the Northeast... water is not a problem.
My Jackery is fully charged, as is the 12 volt LifePo battery. The latter is supposed to get connected to a solar panel and the LED lights for our storage containers this summer. They'd get repurposed (WTF, auto-corrupt?! It's never heard the word "repurposed" ...insisted it should be "reported") in a hurry if necessary. I also charged spare tablets, and put them in "airplane mode", and charged the various charging bricks. (I was shocked when I added them all up and realized there is an additional 120 amp hours of power just in that drawer)
It's Spring...I'm planting sufficient to supply both hubby and i, plus DS's family of five...just in case *something* happens that will prevent them from buying mostly fresh all next winter! Plus, I'm putting in enough storage/calorie crops (potatoes, beans, winter squash, root crops) that our entire extended family can survive if things go bad. If not, I'm sure local sales will be possible, or the soup kitchen will appreciate the donation.
We got the storage buildings cleaned, sorted, organized and labeled. Huge job...invaluable in how its made all the preps instantly accessible...but also if life bumbles on and our kids have to deal with the contents after we die.
I can now immediately put my hands on an oil lamp, a mirrored lamp shelf, and a bottle of lamp oil. Yes, it was handier on our home farm when we had at least one oil lamp sitting on a mirrored lamp shelf, with a box of "strike anywhere" matches velcroed to the underside of the shelf, but at least everything is together, and easily findable.
We have sufficient lye to make several hundred gallons of biodiesel, and there will be lard from the pigs currently heading to the woods pasture for the summer. Alternative feed stocks would be sunflower seeds (oil) or pumpkin seeds for oil.
I'm planning on growing a couple hundred oilseed sunflowers this year, for seed stock for a potentially necessary oilseed crop.
I stopped growing soybeans several years ago...I think I'd better find five or ten pounds of seed...open pollinated, which is gonna be tricky.
Soybeans can be a super valuable crop. It's a legumes, so puts nitrogen back into the soil. The beans are high in fat and protein...but like most beans, are loaded with anti-nutrients when eaten raw. Roasted whole soybeans are amazing nutrition. If you press the oil out, and feed the remaining solids (soybean meal), you've got a 45% protein source. Roasted whole beans...if you don't need the oil for fuel... are high in protein, fat and calories.
If we were still on our home farm, I would have filled up the 300 gallon diesel tank and 200 gallon gas tank. That would have covered us for 6 months, easily...close to 18 months with a strict rationing scenario. That doesn't happen here. The compensation is that all our sons are amazing creators...and they're all within an hour of the farm here. If things go bad for longer than a couple of weeks, I think we'll have multiple campers set up here. They all have some rural property, but we're the only ones with serious self sustaining infrastructure.
We've got 3, two years old steers to finish this Spring, 2 more for next Spring, and then three Waygu calves due in the next 3 weeks. If things went completely South, we'd keep a sow pig...but would have to find soneone with a boar by next Spring.
I need to top off a few supplies... bar and chain oil for the chainsaws, and vacuum pump oil (yes, we'll be milking by hand if the grid goes down. Until then, that little milker setup is worth its weight in gold!) I inventoried our salt supply, and decided to get an additional 4 plain blocks and at least 2 more that contain selenium. We are in an area where our soils lack sufficient selenium...if times change where we're not able to buy feed from out of the area, or we are able to grow all necessary calories, supplemental selenium is the difference between thriving livestock and dead offspring from white muscle disease.
I'm grateful to no longer be responsible for 50 high producing dairy cows, and an additional 70 head of young stock and beef cows. My vet medical inventory has become much more economical to maintain! DDIL insists on being pure organic (although does understand the requirement to use whatever is necessary to prevent suffering or death), but I can't keep myself from keeping a bunch of rapidly-going-out-of-date injectable vet meds...I shake them periodically, to resuspend solids. They're kept at 38°, in the dark. Various studies have said most of these particular meds were still perfectly efficacious after 15 years beyond the "expiration " dates.
Do I think its going to happen? No, not really. Do I think there is a non-zero chance of folks power going out for (at least) several weeks but NOT from weather? Oh, yeah...
Prepped enough that it mostly means a few minor tweaks.
Summerthyme
