community preparedness

I met with our new community preparedness team last night to firm up our plans for a crisis management plan. We decidedon a very short survey-basically, name, address, phone number, number of people in the home, ages and any disabilities that might make a family more vulnerable. We also ask whether the family would take advantage of a shelter if one were offered and whether they would need transportation. The survey will be printed on card stock. Red dots will go on the first tier homes. Those would be the homes of the elderly and the disabled. Yellow dots will mark the second tier homes. These are the families who are very isolated or the homes of single people who may need to at least be checked up on. We are planning a survey day when the fire department, council on aging, police department and the crisis team will be canvassing door to door. Our hope is to have 100% compliance and get this all done in one day. We plan to sit with folks to fill out the cards and take them back with us. If a family chooses not to participate, that’s fine with us. We are keeping the cards at our safety complex. They will be filed in three separate boxes. The reds, the yellows, then everybody else. The rest of the plan is very specific to our town. It involves communication, transportation, food, water, sleeping arrangments, sanitation and clean up.

We contacted both FEMA and MEMA (our state emergency managment agency) and got a lot of terrific hand outs. One of the things we recieved was a DVD for children on family preparedness. We will be handing one of these out to every family with children when we do the survey. We are also distributing a list of necessary supplies, and info geared to the elderly, people with pets and the disabled.

This was a pretty easy process for us for  a couple of reasons. There are only a few of us on the committee so reaching consensus is easy. We only have about 300 families to reach. Our town is pretty civic minded. Lots of people vote and volunteer. A lot of people have deep community roots. The street they live on may be named after their great grandparents.

If you are looking for crisis info, go to the FEMA website. They really have a lot to offer.

Bruce wants to go over my post on tools. He has a much longer (and better) list of essential tools.

I try to avoid much political talk here. I am no economic expert but I have a fair amount of common sense. I hope you are all getting stocked up on necessities now. I fear our dollar will be worth much less in the coming months. I know I went to town yesterday and then this morning. Gas had gone up 4 cents overnight  and by the time I returned home this morning, 2 hours later, it had gone up another 7 cents. Food is the place that inflation will hurt most people first. Stock up on essentials, seeds and canning equipment.

 

green

We are nearly ready for our first harvest of greens. Our greenhouse is small but we get quite a bit of food from it. Like everything else, there’s a learning curve. We are learning the intracacies of insulating it, planting schedules, appropriate plants and timing as well as insect control (aphids love the asian greens) and fertilizing. A greenhouse may be a good place to put your income tax refund. We are looking to put any extra cash into tangibles like food sources and energy efficiency. I hope we get enough of a thaw to pull some of the carrots and parsnips we left in the ground last fall.

Bruce is going skiing today and I plan to spend the day getting my early seeds planted. We have been so diligent about eating up the stuff in the cellar. I now have a list of what I ran short on and what I am giving away because I put up more than we ate. That list will help with my garden plan.

I put an ad in our little paper looking for greenhouse frames. I see a lot of them cluttering up backyards. If I could find a frame for free, I could reskin it for not to much and come up with more winter food space. I am wondering if I could keep it warmer if I raised rabbits or chickens inside. I fear that when inflation hits, it will impact food prices hard. The more I can raise, the better I eat and the more I have to share.

I made chicken and dumplings last night. It was so good. I can make dumplings in my sleep. They are one of those things that everybody loves. I am going to make more tonight, add some sugar and cook them on top of some stewed peaches. I plan to put together a bunch of my favorite recipes for my girls. I do so much by memory and feel but a hard copy is needed if I’m out of commission.

Dumplings

2 cups flour

4teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons butter

You can whiz all this in a food processor but then you have to wash it. I think it takes less time to use a hand-held pastry cutter.

Add a cup of cold milk and mix lightly with a fork. Cook in barely simmering liquid for about 20 minutes. Keep the pot covered the whole time so the dumpling steams.I stick a skewer in mine. When the skewer come out clean, the dumpling is done.

 

Your rebate

If you are lucky enough to be getting a tax rebate this year, you may be thinking about what to do with it. I was speaking with two woman down at my daughter’s school today and both are planning trips to Florida over the April vacation even though money is clearly tight for both families. The rational is that they are already in so much trouble that it doesn’t really matter. They also feel that the value of their dollars is slipping so quickly that they might as well have some fun while they can.

I understand how they feel but I certainly hope you will make better choices. But what is a better choice? Alternative energy or a reliable car? A freezer or a new furnace? Pay down debt or stock up the pantry? I sure hope you aren’t expecting me to have some magic answer. I have just come into a small amount of money and Bruce and I are struggling with our many options for spending it. We are lucky in that we have no debt so we have more choices. If I owed money to anyone, I would in fact, pay that off, especially if the debt was a high-interest credit card debt. We know we will invest in our home infrastructure. We will probably put in a new double-flue chimney. This will make it possible to install a wood stove in the basement which will significantly decrease our heating bill. We have a wood lot and with proper management, we will be energy sustainable.  I just ordered a new dehydrator. Drying food  is much less energy intensive than canning and the food takes up a lot less speace in storage. We are going to build a small barn too. We need space for pigs, a couple of goats and a flock of chickens. If we build it ourselves and use a lot of salvage for materials, the cost won’t be too high. Our final spend will be  for a better cold cellar. We need a spot for the crops that like it just above freezing like the carrots, apples beets,  and cabbage. Bruce came up with a terrific plan. We have a hatchway with steps leading from the yard to the cellar. It stays really cold in that space. Bruce is going to rebuild the steps and hinge them. He will then drop insulated boxes under each step. The stuff we store there will not freeze but will be protected from the warmer temperatures of the the cellar. It was wasted space and the steps were falling apart anyway.

That’s pretty much going to eat up the money. I am writing this while I listen to the Obama press conference . I sure wish I felt better about this bailout. I am afraid that the government is doing the equivilant of taking a trip to Florida with our money. It will feel good for a bit but then the bill comes due and somebody is going to expect to get paid. With what? I know that in my house, if we got into money trouble, we would do without and suffer until we got out of trouble. I don’t know if the American people would be willing to suffer through bank and auto companies failing. He sitting there talking about credit so folks can buy RV’s. I just don’t see RV sales ramping up anytime in the near future. I’m pretty sure that the life we used to have is not coming back. I hope you spend your dwindling resources on things that will ensure your family’s ability to stay warm and fed. We have all been dancing and the fiddler is standing there with his hand out.