Living without electricity

I never really, truly realized how fragile the life I live is until yesterday. I didn't experience a huge catastrophe, I simply lost electricity for about 8 hours.

We live on a five-acre parcel and have well water. The well has an electric pump, like most do these days. No water.

We have Comcast / Xfinity cable, Internet and phone. They use electricity.

We have electric garage door openers. There's a way to unhook them so they can be opened so the cars are not exactly held hostage to electricity, but we couldn't push a button!

With no electricity, and no way of knowing when it might be coming back on, the refrigerator and freezer were both off-limits. We needed to keep all the cool air contained as long as possible. Everything, and I do mean everything except a can of tuna, that I eat resides in the refrigerator. I keep my bread frozen 'cause I don't eat enough to keep it fresh. I don't like canned veggies, thus they're all frozen or fresh. You get the idea... I'm dependent on that fridge and freezer.

The Xfinity phone is supposed to have a battery backup that allows it to work for up to eight hours, but the battery failed. No phone service.

We had no idea whether we were the only ones hit or if it extended down the road to the neighbors. The thought that I'd go check the computer to see must've crossed my mind ten times during the outage! I go to the computer for everything these days.

No lights. No TV. No computer. No food. No water.

No water means no flushing the toilet unless we used the gallons of water I keep stashed for just such an emergency.

We finally uncoupled the garage door and went to get something to eat, drive the neighborhood to see if all had lost service, and charge the cell phones.

I've read that grocery stores only keep about a three day supply of food. If something happened and electricity went out across the country, we'd all probably starve in a week or two.

Can you imagine what it would be like to lose our basic creature comforts?

We don't even own a battery operated radio, something I plan to remedy. How long would batteries last if we were dependent upon them? The rechargeable ones would be worthless unless we had a generator or one of those survival radios with all the extra gadgets on it.

I plan to spend a little bit of time and money to stockpile a few things that might be helpful in the event we lose electricity for a period of time. I had plenty of time to think about what we might need to pick up, plus the fragility of our world, given the lack of TV and Internet!

I'd like a solar generator but that's over there on the wild-dream column for now as they're not exactly cheap. However, I do need to think like a camper and have a way to cook, light the area, get water in the event we are forced to 'survive' without those basic creature comforts. If it's just us losing electricity, no biggie. We can always go to a friend or relative's home. If it's wide-spread, even the gas pumps won't be working.

I do own a non-electric can opener. I could have opened that can of tuna.

Huh.

Where are all my subscribers? I have now posted two whole blogs, three with this one, and the world isn't clamoring to subscribe. I'll give you all another day or two then I'm coming to find you.

Oh, yes, almost forgot.

Blogs are supposed to be witty, too.

That is so not me.

Everybody has a blog

Now I have one, too.

Since everyone has a blog and only a few are actually being read by another breathing human being, I assume a blog is nothing more than a public diary.

Today I got up, ate breakfast and worked on the computer. I have yet to take a shower and the day is almost half gone.

I will try to regale you with more exciting news later if I happen to remember that I have a blog or feel I have pearls to impart.