Tips for Survival

As I touched on before, we were out of power from Thursday morning through last night. So I have come to you today with my tips and survival items for when you are snowed in without any power.

First up, a wood burning stove:

If, like us, you don't have gas heat/stove, this is a life saver. It kept the front of the house toasty as well as giving us a way to heat water and soup, etc. 

Keeps Jasper happy too...

And to go with the stove, you gotta have a stocked woodshed

Granted, this picture was taken AFTER using a large amount to heat our house and food, but you gotta be prepared and have wood on hand.

Next up: a 4WD vehicle

I live in a neighborhood that has a LOT of hills, and very rarely gets plowed in a timely fashion. Which means that, if we want to go anywhere, we either have to hike out to a waiting vehicle, or have a truck.

An obvious one, generator(s)

We got one generator back in 2006 when we had our last HUGE power outage (we're talking two weeks with no power), and then when Chad moved in, he brought his generator with him. So, we were able to run our multiple fridges, and charge our portable DVD player, etc. We also took turns having the toaster, george foreman, and my Keurig machine plugged in so we could eat things aside from soup.

I can't forget Chad's baby, his chainsaw

I don't know about where all of you live, but around here a chainsaw is a necessary part of life. And you gotta have a REAL chainsaw, not a sissy electric one. Chad was pretty much the golden boy of the neighborhood because as trees were falling and crushing peoples' fences, he was the one hacking them up, such as this one that fell from our yard and over the road:

Plus, all the wood cutting he did allowed for him to collect all this wood to restock our shed once it dries out a bit:

Another important thing that I can't just forget about is our quad

This was a much easier vehicle for Chad to be taking around the neighborhood with his chainsaw. It was a lot easier to ride in the snow than driving his truck around. Not to mention easier to maneuver around the fallen trees and limbs.

Last but not least, you gotta have games and books

Honestly, we didn't play a TON of games because usually Chad was out running around playing with his chainsaw or messing with the generators, but it's definitely a good thing to have on hand. I did a LOT of reading myself. 

Anyways, I hope you have found this post informative and useful in your future planning for long term power outages.

PS: my signature randomly showed back up again... don't know what happened, but apparently it's fixed.