Cold again, supposed to get a hard freeze tonight. Yesterday felt colder than it was. With the sub-freezing temps, it was very dry, but with the advent of the melting and the rain, humidity was HIGH and the damp cold felt REALLY damn cold. (srsly, some of you are laughing but it hurt it was so cold.) 35F at 930pm down from 38F and higher during the day.
As I figured I would, I got the chance to help out a couple of neighbors. (We are a neighborhood. I live on a cul de sac, and about half of us are ‘chat in the street, talk about the kids’ friendly, especially after the storms and hurricanes, etc. The other half we just never see except to wave as they drive by. And that is a bit of an issue but not one to solve in a day.)
I helped the family across the street get their 1950s era gennie running. It ran in the summer but wouldn’t start now. There were a couple of minor things, the metal piece you touch to the spark plug to shut it off was too close to the plug and was grounding it out and there was water in the fuel and carb. Drained a half cup through the carb and float bowl, reset the idle speed, and it fired on the 5th or 6th pull. Ran pretty well too. Put my meter on it, 57hz and 115v – so, well within range to be expected. Small engine repair is a real world usable skill and being able to get and keep your gear running could save your life. Youtube probably has someone fixing exactly your problem, but to learn small engine trouble shooting and repair in general, and be entertained by a guy who loves what he does, spend some time watching Mustie1.
Did a welfare check on the elderly couple down the block and found out they didn’t have heat, or a way to cook food because of the power outage, so I brought them a gallon of already hot water, a single burner coleman stove, and a Mr Heater Little Buddy . Unfortunately it looks like that single burner Coleman is out of production. That is a real shame because it stores easily and uses the same bottle as the Mr Heaters and Coleman lanterns. My wife loves it for Girl Scout camping. I’ve picked up a couple at yard sales or estate sales and there are two on ebay for crazy money. If you were going to standardize on 1 pound propane bottles, I’d recommend a small stove that uses the bottle, one of the Mr Heater Buddys, and maybe a lantern (and only because you won’t be caught with dead batteries).
The lantern is iffy, because the Streamlight lantern is so good, I can’t really recommend anything else as a serious area light. Anything you’re going to be moving around with you and setting in different places will always be safer if it’s not fire. I have a dozen of the cheap little battery powered LED lanterns from Costco, the kids use them at camp and around the house as toys. They actually work pretty well, and like cheap flashlights, buy a bunch and scatter them everywhere for convenience. But for disasters, when you need light, I love my Streamlight Siege. Mine normally lives on the floor beside my bed within easy reach. My wife loves her smaller Siege too.
Later in the day I got a call from my buddy about borrowing a space heater. I loaned him the one from the garage. It would have been pretty hard to say no to a friend with kids just to heat the garage (not that I would have.) It does bring up a point. Having multiples of items isn’t just a good idea for redundancy, what with two being one and one being none. Unless zombies are eating people on your front lawn, you are probably going to want to help people in your circle/tribe/etc if you can. Unless it’s truly TEOTWAWKI, people WILL remember your help or lack thereof, and it would be an extraordinary individual that wouldn’t look for payback later. Just sayin’. Help where you can. Build your community. Later you can help them build their own resilience.
Plan for today is more of the same, with some additional experimentation if possible. We’ll see if I get to it. And I just realized I was going to do a “why the 5 gallon bucket is the preppers multitool” post, but got completely sidetracked by my life… Jeez, it’s like I’m on instagraam jumping around shouting “look at me!!!” in a bikini. Now try to get that image out of your head. You are stocked up on eye bleach right? 😉
Keep stacking. And ask yourself the question I never asked about storms in winter, “What if the disaster comes when I’m NOT expecting it to?”
nick