Post by Ozarks Tom on Jan 1, 2017 21:08:30 GMT
Getting by, Country Style
A Diary of Sorts
April 2nd: Power went out about 7:30, not all that unusual being this far out in the country. The light wired between the meter and breaker box on the power pole is out, so it’s not our breaker, probably another drunk on AA Hwy took out a power pole.
Plenty to do this morning anyway, the garden needs tilling and seeding. Set out the tomato and pepper plants we started in the sun room, get the hoses out of storage and set up. Hoping the power will be back on when that’s done.
No need to crank up the 8.5 kw generator, the freezers will stay cold for hours unless we open them.
Monday noon: Still no power! Maybe it wasn’t a drunk on AA Hwy after all. I needed a shower, and the freezers could use a boost, so cranking the genny in the old milk barn seems like a good idea about then. I’d converted it to tri-fuel a couple years ago, which is good because I’ve only got 12 cans of gasoline. It’s exhausted through a hole in the back door with a flexible metal exhaust pipe, but I’ll leave the front door open just in case there’s a leak. I put an old tractor muffler in line, you can’t hear it running from 50 yards away. I know the routine by heart, but I’ve still got the steps listed on a laminated instruction sheet on the wall above the generator, just in case I’m not around.
1) Throw the breaker on the power pole to disconnect from the main line.
2) Open the valve on the 500 gallon propane tank behind the barn.
3) Open the valve in the barn coming through the wall.
4) Turn the generator to “ON”
5) Push the primer button for 10 seconds
6) Hit the “start” button
7) Let run for a minute, then hit the switch on the front to “demand”
8) Throw the breaker on the wall to back feed the house.
9) If the light on the power pole comes back on, reverse the steps.
After a shower I decided to go down to Bill Johnsons a couple miles away to see if he’s out too. He’s on a different feeder line, so maybe not.
Tried starting the Suburban, I’ve had trouble with it before after sitting for a few days, but jiggling the shifter usually gets it going. Nothing. Try my wife’s pickup, same results. Starting to worry now, my fertile paranoid mind is wondering if this is the “big one”. I’d spent a lot of money converting the ’88 Bronco to “old style”, supposedly EMP proof with no computers, and it cranks right up.
When I get to Bill’s I can see from the road he’s got his welder/generator hooked to his breaker box. It’s one of those trailer mounted rigs that runs on diesel, I wonder how much diesel he’s got.
Bill is the perfect image of an Ozark hillbilly, if he were wearing a straw hat and smoking a corncob pipe he’d be a dead ringer for a Normal Rockwell painting. Average height, but skinny as a rail, grey beard and longish hair, face creased and browned from years in the sun. Wiry strong, he’s helped me run fence, build barns and sheds, with stamina belying his 63 years. He doesn’t talk much, at least to me, seeing how I’ve only been here 15 years and I’m the new guy. I wasn’t surprised when he said both his telephone and cell weren’t working. I’d told him about EMPs and CMEs when he helped me set the three used propane tanks, but he’s thinking it’s probably a problem at the generating plant.
I asked him if his truck would start, he didn’t know, but when he turned the key he got nothing. He was starting to wonder then too.
We decide to go down to his brother Bob’s place about a quarter mile away to see how he’s doing. Bill & Bob are part of a large extended family in the area, I doubt even they know how many Johnsons there are around here. If you added 17 years to Bill, you’d have Bob. 80 years old and still cutting firewood and splitting it by hand. Bob’s on the same line so he’s without power too, but he has two chest type freezers and no generator.
We decided to go up to see if by chance Bob Jr was home, being a work day probably not, but we’d look anyway. Nope. Bob Jr manages a blasting company, contracted to the several quarries around here. Nice guy, dour like the rest of the family, but that’s where the similarity ends. He’s well over 6’, bald headed, built like a football player. I’ve never met his mother’s family, but he sure doesn’t take after the Johnson side.
Anyway, it was time to do some planning. I’d go home and get my spare 4 kw generator and some heavy cable, take it to Bob’s where Bill would hook it up to the box. Bob would run it for a half hour every 3-4 hours to keep his freezers cold. It’s converted to tri-fuel too, so I’d bring a couple 20# propane bottles along with a can of gasoline. I could refill the bottles as needed with a hose from the wet leg on my 3rd propane tank. Then I’d go to the Highlandville quarry where Bob Jr works out of to see if I could find him. Time was ticking away, no time to lollygag.
Back at the house, I tell my wife the plan, load up the generator on the little trailer, holster a .38, throw a 20 gauge shotgun and a box of shells in the back, and head out. There’s usually little traffic on our little 2 lane Hwy OO to the main road, but I see a couple cars sitting in the road dead, the occupants must have decided to walk hours ago. The highway to Highlandville is a different matter. Normally not heavily traveled, maybe 25 or 30 vehicles stalled in the three miles to Highlandville, people walking in both directions. I don’t stop, just weave around them.
At the quarry I find about 10 people standing around, Bob Jr among them. When I pull in someone wants to know why my Bronco is running when they can’t get their trucks started. I explain it’s an old truck with no computer, then ask Bob Jr to speak privately. I tell him what I think, and he tells me he’d already figured it out. He’s sort of a doomer too, even bought some junk silver off me in the past. We’d talked about different scenarios, this being one of them, so he’s not surprised when I ask if he could gather up some explosives and detonators before we leave. No problem, just pull over to the vault.
While he’s loading, a couple guys walk over, first curious, then asking for a ride. I could see this could escalate quickly, so I suggested we’d loaded enough, let’s go. Before I closed the tailgate I handed Bob Jr the shotgun. We got in the Bronco and drove off to the sound of cussing and a couple rocks hitting the back.
Bob Jr’s wife is a nurse at the County health office in Galena, about 15 miles from my house. That’s our next stop. When we pull up there are several people, including his wife standing outside. No time to explain, jump in, and we’re on our way to Crane about 7 miles away to pick up their son Darren at the welding shop, them home. We see a few old 8n and MF tractors on the road along the way.
It’s about 6:30 when my wife and I get to Bill’s place. He and Donna, Bob and Connie, Bob Jr and Earline, along with Bob Jr & Earline’s son Darren and his wife with their 2 young children are already gathered in Bill’s front yard. Bill is cooking on the grill, and it looks like any normal family gathering, but you could tell by their expressions they were worried.
Even if we’re wrong, it’s time for some planning, and time isn’t on our side if we’re right.
Due to intended lack of OPSEC, they know we’re “preppers”, so I’ve got some suggestions as to priorities. First, food. We can’t keep the freezers going indefinitely, and we can’t afford to let the meat especially go bad. Who has pressure canners? We’ve got two, Bill has one, Junior has one they’ve never used, but Bob and Darren only have water bath canners. Junior hasn’t bought the generator he’s been meaning to, so his upright freezers are starting to thaw badly. We decide to haul the 4kw from Bob’s to Junior’s periodically to keep his food from going bad before it can be canned.
I suggest while they’ve got the small genny, when the freezers are cold, throw every breaker but the pumps to fill every container they’ve got. That little genny will handle the pump, but not freezer compressors too. Bob has an old ATV that runs, with a little garden trailer to haul the genny back and forth.
Since Junior & Earline don’t know anything about pressure canning, and some of their food is partially thawed, I suggest they thaw some meat out tonight so I can pick them, their canner, and their meat up in the morning so we can start canning at our place. We’ve got a two burner stock pot range just for canning, plus a propane kitchen stove. Plenty of room for 3 canners, and they can learn how. Bill & Donna will start canning in the morning, while Darren will put his food in Bob’s freezer and wait until Junior’s lot is done. Even with 4 canners running around the clock my guess is it’ll be nearly a week before everything is canned. We take a quick inventory of jars, and even though my wife and I have over 30 dozen quarts, 15 dozen pints, and the other folks have a rough total of 20 dozen jars, that might not going to be enough. We decide if we run short we can dump out some preserves and other non-essentials to make up the difference.
Bob & Bill have quite a few head of cattle on their places, so they’re not initially all that worried about meat. I point out to them it won’t be long before a lot of hungry people start looking for food, and it’s a lot easier to protect jars than cattle. Besides, it would be foolish to let all that food in their freezers rot.
A little layout should be explained here: We live at the end of a mile and a half of gravel road. There are 5 other houses on the road, but only one of them we’d consider friends. Three of them dislike me intensely, long story, one we’re not righteously religious enough for, and the fifth are nice folks who are into the latest everything and expensive vacations. Bill, Bob, Junior, and Darren all live off Hwy OO about 2-3 miles from us.
A Diary of Sorts
April 2nd: Power went out about 7:30, not all that unusual being this far out in the country. The light wired between the meter and breaker box on the power pole is out, so it’s not our breaker, probably another drunk on AA Hwy took out a power pole.
Plenty to do this morning anyway, the garden needs tilling and seeding. Set out the tomato and pepper plants we started in the sun room, get the hoses out of storage and set up. Hoping the power will be back on when that’s done.
No need to crank up the 8.5 kw generator, the freezers will stay cold for hours unless we open them.
Monday noon: Still no power! Maybe it wasn’t a drunk on AA Hwy after all. I needed a shower, and the freezers could use a boost, so cranking the genny in the old milk barn seems like a good idea about then. I’d converted it to tri-fuel a couple years ago, which is good because I’ve only got 12 cans of gasoline. It’s exhausted through a hole in the back door with a flexible metal exhaust pipe, but I’ll leave the front door open just in case there’s a leak. I put an old tractor muffler in line, you can’t hear it running from 50 yards away. I know the routine by heart, but I’ve still got the steps listed on a laminated instruction sheet on the wall above the generator, just in case I’m not around.
1) Throw the breaker on the power pole to disconnect from the main line.
2) Open the valve on the 500 gallon propane tank behind the barn.
3) Open the valve in the barn coming through the wall.
4) Turn the generator to “ON”
5) Push the primer button for 10 seconds
6) Hit the “start” button
7) Let run for a minute, then hit the switch on the front to “demand”
8) Throw the breaker on the wall to back feed the house.
9) If the light on the power pole comes back on, reverse the steps.
After a shower I decided to go down to Bill Johnsons a couple miles away to see if he’s out too. He’s on a different feeder line, so maybe not.
Tried starting the Suburban, I’ve had trouble with it before after sitting for a few days, but jiggling the shifter usually gets it going. Nothing. Try my wife’s pickup, same results. Starting to worry now, my fertile paranoid mind is wondering if this is the “big one”. I’d spent a lot of money converting the ’88 Bronco to “old style”, supposedly EMP proof with no computers, and it cranks right up.
When I get to Bill’s I can see from the road he’s got his welder/generator hooked to his breaker box. It’s one of those trailer mounted rigs that runs on diesel, I wonder how much diesel he’s got.
Bill is the perfect image of an Ozark hillbilly, if he were wearing a straw hat and smoking a corncob pipe he’d be a dead ringer for a Normal Rockwell painting. Average height, but skinny as a rail, grey beard and longish hair, face creased and browned from years in the sun. Wiry strong, he’s helped me run fence, build barns and sheds, with stamina belying his 63 years. He doesn’t talk much, at least to me, seeing how I’ve only been here 15 years and I’m the new guy. I wasn’t surprised when he said both his telephone and cell weren’t working. I’d told him about EMPs and CMEs when he helped me set the three used propane tanks, but he’s thinking it’s probably a problem at the generating plant.
I asked him if his truck would start, he didn’t know, but when he turned the key he got nothing. He was starting to wonder then too.
We decide to go down to his brother Bob’s place about a quarter mile away to see how he’s doing. Bill & Bob are part of a large extended family in the area, I doubt even they know how many Johnsons there are around here. If you added 17 years to Bill, you’d have Bob. 80 years old and still cutting firewood and splitting it by hand. Bob’s on the same line so he’s without power too, but he has two chest type freezers and no generator.
We decided to go up to see if by chance Bob Jr was home, being a work day probably not, but we’d look anyway. Nope. Bob Jr manages a blasting company, contracted to the several quarries around here. Nice guy, dour like the rest of the family, but that’s where the similarity ends. He’s well over 6’, bald headed, built like a football player. I’ve never met his mother’s family, but he sure doesn’t take after the Johnson side.
Anyway, it was time to do some planning. I’d go home and get my spare 4 kw generator and some heavy cable, take it to Bob’s where Bill would hook it up to the box. Bob would run it for a half hour every 3-4 hours to keep his freezers cold. It’s converted to tri-fuel too, so I’d bring a couple 20# propane bottles along with a can of gasoline. I could refill the bottles as needed with a hose from the wet leg on my 3rd propane tank. Then I’d go to the Highlandville quarry where Bob Jr works out of to see if I could find him. Time was ticking away, no time to lollygag.
Back at the house, I tell my wife the plan, load up the generator on the little trailer, holster a .38, throw a 20 gauge shotgun and a box of shells in the back, and head out. There’s usually little traffic on our little 2 lane Hwy OO to the main road, but I see a couple cars sitting in the road dead, the occupants must have decided to walk hours ago. The highway to Highlandville is a different matter. Normally not heavily traveled, maybe 25 or 30 vehicles stalled in the three miles to Highlandville, people walking in both directions. I don’t stop, just weave around them.
At the quarry I find about 10 people standing around, Bob Jr among them. When I pull in someone wants to know why my Bronco is running when they can’t get their trucks started. I explain it’s an old truck with no computer, then ask Bob Jr to speak privately. I tell him what I think, and he tells me he’d already figured it out. He’s sort of a doomer too, even bought some junk silver off me in the past. We’d talked about different scenarios, this being one of them, so he’s not surprised when I ask if he could gather up some explosives and detonators before we leave. No problem, just pull over to the vault.
While he’s loading, a couple guys walk over, first curious, then asking for a ride. I could see this could escalate quickly, so I suggested we’d loaded enough, let’s go. Before I closed the tailgate I handed Bob Jr the shotgun. We got in the Bronco and drove off to the sound of cussing and a couple rocks hitting the back.
Bob Jr’s wife is a nurse at the County health office in Galena, about 15 miles from my house. That’s our next stop. When we pull up there are several people, including his wife standing outside. No time to explain, jump in, and we’re on our way to Crane about 7 miles away to pick up their son Darren at the welding shop, them home. We see a few old 8n and MF tractors on the road along the way.
It’s about 6:30 when my wife and I get to Bill’s place. He and Donna, Bob and Connie, Bob Jr and Earline, along with Bob Jr & Earline’s son Darren and his wife with their 2 young children are already gathered in Bill’s front yard. Bill is cooking on the grill, and it looks like any normal family gathering, but you could tell by their expressions they were worried.
Even if we’re wrong, it’s time for some planning, and time isn’t on our side if we’re right.
Due to intended lack of OPSEC, they know we’re “preppers”, so I’ve got some suggestions as to priorities. First, food. We can’t keep the freezers going indefinitely, and we can’t afford to let the meat especially go bad. Who has pressure canners? We’ve got two, Bill has one, Junior has one they’ve never used, but Bob and Darren only have water bath canners. Junior hasn’t bought the generator he’s been meaning to, so his upright freezers are starting to thaw badly. We decide to haul the 4kw from Bob’s to Junior’s periodically to keep his food from going bad before it can be canned.
I suggest while they’ve got the small genny, when the freezers are cold, throw every breaker but the pumps to fill every container they’ve got. That little genny will handle the pump, but not freezer compressors too. Bob has an old ATV that runs, with a little garden trailer to haul the genny back and forth.
Since Junior & Earline don’t know anything about pressure canning, and some of their food is partially thawed, I suggest they thaw some meat out tonight so I can pick them, their canner, and their meat up in the morning so we can start canning at our place. We’ve got a two burner stock pot range just for canning, plus a propane kitchen stove. Plenty of room for 3 canners, and they can learn how. Bill & Donna will start canning in the morning, while Darren will put his food in Bob’s freezer and wait until Junior’s lot is done. Even with 4 canners running around the clock my guess is it’ll be nearly a week before everything is canned. We take a quick inventory of jars, and even though my wife and I have over 30 dozen quarts, 15 dozen pints, and the other folks have a rough total of 20 dozen jars, that might not going to be enough. We decide if we run short we can dump out some preserves and other non-essentials to make up the difference.
Bob & Bill have quite a few head of cattle on their places, so they’re not initially all that worried about meat. I point out to them it won’t be long before a lot of hungry people start looking for food, and it’s a lot easier to protect jars than cattle. Besides, it would be foolish to let all that food in their freezers rot.
A little layout should be explained here: We live at the end of a mile and a half of gravel road. There are 5 other houses on the road, but only one of them we’d consider friends. Three of them dislike me intensely, long story, one we’re not righteously religious enough for, and the fifth are nice folks who are into the latest everything and expensive vacations. Bill, Bob, Junior, and Darren all live off Hwy OO about 2-3 miles from us.