Another day, another drunk, another drill

The star of the show this morning.

The stars of the show last night.

So last night yet another drunk hit yet another power pole in our neighborhood. That's one thing that's predictable about wine country: When you live in an area that produces something alcoholic as its primary crop, you will attract people who like to consume alcohol as their primary nutritional crop. With expected results: Knock down a power pole. Flee the scene. Rinse and repeat.

But these 10 - 14 hour power outages provide a great opportunity to see how my disaster relief skills work, especially if I'm on my own. Big Ag was on a business trip yesterday in Oregon, so when the drunk hit the power pole, it was about 7:30 pm and I was here by myself. 

And I soon realized that I did not have enough familiarity with 1) manually opening the automatic garage door while also (more importantly) re-engaging it so it was locked afterwards, so I could 2) drag the generator out and start it with no light and no one to hold a flashlight for me so I could see.  And let's not even start with trying to find all the flashlights, candles, hurricane lamps and lighters after the power had already left me in darkness. 

It turns out, the battery-operated candles I keep next to my bathtub for ambient lighting were my best friend in the first few minutes after the outage, since they just needed just the flick of a switch to light up and were out in the open and easy to find. They allowed me to search for and find all my other emergency equipment. 

And did I mention they are vanilla scented candles? No reason to ride out the apocalypse without aromatherapy.

So looking back on the 14 hours with no power, I got some things right and some things definitely need improving.

First, props to me for:

1) having enough oil in the hurricane lamps, and having them in an easy-to-locate space, plus knowing exactly where the battery-operated candles were.

2) I had all the wax candles in one area.

3)  I easily found the lighters.

4)  I knew enough about the generator that I could at least start it once daylight came around.

5) I was also able to bring in numerous solar lights from outside, as well as having tea lights, to light up the less important areas of the home.

So all that was good. But a scowl and wag of the finger at me for:

1) not being familiar enough with the generator to start it in the darkness.

2) not knowing how to re-secure the automatic garage door after opening it manually.

3)  not having candles, lighters, lamps and oil in ONE place, so there was only one place I needed to go in the house to find everything I needed. And also for not having lighters with the candles, and another with the hurricane lamps.

4) not knowing where the gas can was for the generator (luckily it had a fair amount of fuel already in it so I did not need to add more).

5) not keeping my devices fully charged. A 100 percent charge on my phone and Kindle would have been nice, not just for emergency calls and messages, but also for entertainment while I waited for the power to come back on. I DID have a mobile charger, which was great, but instead of having to use it on 50 percent charged devices it would have saved power on that to have everything on a full charge to begin with.

6) not having other things I'd need in a real emergency, like tools, conveniently located and close by. A true disaster is no time to have to head to the barn to look for the right wrench to shut the gas off.

On sale at Walmart, this looks like a good idea....

But these might be symbolically more correct. Wine Light, anyone?

My biggest plan for the future going forward is to invest in things that will light up the house immediately -- namely, battery-operated, "flick of a switch" lighting like small lamps, plus more good, LED flashlights, placed in EVERY ROOM of the house, including spare bedrooms and bathrooms.  And better organization so that all those things are close to each other and easy to find. But the lighting especially needs to be present and easily located in the first few minutes of any emergency so you can then see what you're doing, whether it's placing candles around the house, shutting off water or gas (in a true emergency) or starting the generator! 

Obviously, if disaster hits in the daytime, you hopefully have several hours before darkness comes. But I've noticed that disasters, like drunks, tend to want to show up at night, so it's best to be ready for that probability.

I learned a lot from this little preparatory drill and will be making some improvements in the next few days. 

How ready are you for a real disaster?

This is a drill

So after last week's power outage I've been taking stock of areas where we succeeded in staying comfortable and areas where we failed. In a way, a 12-hour power outage is a blessing, because it's a sort of practice drill for something that could take much longer to resolve. As you know, I'm not a tin-foil hat kind of lady, but having lived through a couple of major earthquakes I do know what it's like to not have electricity and gas for several days. If you've lived through a hurricane, tornado or blizzard, you probably know it too.

Right now our neighbors have three or four eucalyptus trees that are leaning significantly towards the power lines that keep our house and about 20 other properties in the area lit up. It's kind of a foregone assumption that they'll come down sometime in the next few weeks or months, but at least we now have a mindset of preparing for that eventuality. It's gonna happen ... it's just a question of when.

So doing a quick inventory of what worked and what did not last weekend, here's where we failed:

1.  We were woefully short on batteries. 

2. We had not stored extra lamp oil for our kerosene lamps. 

3. Most of our candles are either battery operated votives or highly-scented decorative candles, both inappropriate for long term use in a power outage. No one wants to live in a house that smells like a combination of Christmas Pine, Pumpkin Spice, something called "Sea Breeze," and the odd floral-scented aromatherapy candle. If Martha Stewart ever opens a funeral home, it will probably smell like our house did that day.

4. We needed a generator, as we have no woodstove or wood-burning fireplace to heat the house with when the grid is down. We do have a pellet stove, which can operate off-grid if necessary though, and that proved to be a huge plus once the generator was up and running and the stove was plugged into it. 

Having a generator will also allow us to do a dirty re-wiring of our well pump so we can get water if we need it. (We have a 4,000 gallon storage tank, but if it were damaged we could effectively be out of water in a disaster).

5. The main emergency wind-up weather radio I had in the house was broken.

6. None of our devices -- phones, Kindles, etc. were charged.

On the positive side, we had enough food and propane. Plus plenty of wine -- essential during times of natural disaster (in my universe). And both vehicles had full tanks of gas, something we always try to have going for us in case we're forced to pack up and leave quickly. 

And we had lots of pet food on hand, just like the disaster prep sites advise, so our cat and dog were going to be fine.

So what's next? Stock-up trips, both online and in person. I already bought lamp oil and batteries, plus our new generator will allow us to charge our devices, run our heat, and keep the food in our fridge and freezer from spoiling. We'll overnight-charge our devices a little more religiously from now on, too.

But another important thing is knowing what you already have on hand. We have both a percolator and a café press, but the day of the power outage we forgot we had them and so went without our caffeine fix for the day. Not a major disaster by any means, but if it's important to stock up on emergency supplies, surely it's even more important to remember what you've put by so you can use it when the time comes. I had several friends who forgot they had things they looked back on and wished they'd used. First World Problem.

So this has been an important wake-up call as to how quickly disasters occur and how quickly you may have to rely on what you have on hand, right her and right now.

This time it was more like a drill, but next time it may be more serious. So like having flood/earthquake/hazard insurance, having a generator and emergency supplies on hand are something you hopefully will only rarely need. But the day you need them, you'll be thankful to yourself for purchasing them.

Things Could Always Be Worse -- a Foodie Prepping Primer?

It seems like every time I start canning season, I also begin thinking of emergency preparedness. I'm not a Collapse of Western Civilization kind of gal, but I am most certainly a 7.0 Earthquake kind of gal, having lived through two of those suckers in my lifetime.

And so I reasonably ask myself at times like these if I'd be happy eating the stores I've canned and/or put up on my shelves. If the power was off for, say, two weeks or so due to a large quake, assuming we are well enough to have an appetite, the question then becomes 1) do we have enough food to survive, and 2) exactly how much fun would it be to eat what we've put up? 

Relishing (left) the apocalypse.

These are the only two questions that matter if you and your loved ones are in a disaster and are already safe, with a good source of water and shelter from the weather. It will come down to food. Doesn't it always? Whether it's a housewarming party or the End of The World As We Know It, that's what you will remember about the party when it's all said and done. So even at the conclusion of the future Earthquake Party, the question will be: What did we have to eat?

If you remember Jim Bakker, the preacher involved in some juicy evangelical sex scandal in the 1980s (with a wife who could not keep her mascara from fleeing the scene of her badly made-up eyes), he basically disappeared. Or so I thought. The other day I was channel surfing and found him, now hawking survival food supply kits on QVC. "It's our $99.99 Special 20-year Survivalist Package featuring MEXICAN food!" he extols. 

While I find him strangely amusing, there's one thing he and I agree on....just because the world ends, it doesn't mean Taco Tuesdays have to.

Anyway, I don't count what's in my chest freezer at all in my accounting of foodstuffs, since chances are it would be warm enough that within a few days anything we cannot consume immediately will spoil. This means for the first three days we'll be eating nothing but steak, ham and chicken. (Note to self: stock up on emergency, End Of The World-strength laxatives.) But ultimately, the safest and longest-lasting emergency source of food lies not in the freezer, but rather in the canning cupboard and the pantry selves.

I can make this delicious.

Rice, beans, quinoa,  various pastas and grains would probably become our staples, along with flour for making bread.  Beans would be especially important since lacking refrigeration, we'd also probably be lacking in animal protein after our chest freezer binge-feast (belch), except for fresh eggs. Since I'm mostly vegetarian, I would be OK here, and everyone else would have to be too. 

But the issue then becomes how to dress up all those beans and grains so that they are tasty, or at least interesting, since they'll probably be eaten two or even three times daily (perhaps with some canned salmon or tuna, which I've also put by). People in this situation always say something like well, things could always be worse, but really, I can't think of anything much worse than having to eat rice, beans and quinoa for two weeks straight. 

Of course having a good stock of wine, beer and other alcohol could help immensely, so that should also be at the top of any emergency preparedness food list in my opinion. Everything tastes better with expensive alcohol to wash it down.

But I think having a good stock of spices, jams/chutneys, relishes, and little gourmet items will ultimately make your family's life livable during times of crisis, as much as warm blankets and shelter do. You need to be able to dress up your staple ingredients with flavors, textures and surprises to keep those Lord of The Flies instincts at bay and keep civilization afloat. Sauces, sprinkles, marinades, aoli and other spreads (we have chickens and oil and therefore eggs and therefore aoli -- yum!). 

For me, I would plan on cooking everything in the solar oven (which even works on cloudy days, things just take longer to cook) or on the grill, and so that gives me lots of options for different tastes and textures as well.

Everyone should have one.

I do not plan on eating squirrel or gopher in stews, or insects, or nearby neighbors. That is not my kind of disaster. But vegetarian paella with canned mushrooms, peas and asparagus with some hard-boiled deviled eggs on the side, a fruit galette for dessert and some '10 Cabernet to accompany it all? I could live with that. 

I am sure there is a survivalist cookbook out there, but I like to see myself as a kind of a "San Andreas meets Ina Garten"-type heroine, creating lovely meals for my family spontaneously and cheerily, while the tremors rumble through, the stucco falls off in sheets and the National Guard personnel carriers pass by the road.

It's Bon Appetite at the end of the world, baby. And I feel fine.