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Title: Re: Thoughts on prepping for hard times
Date Started: April 20, 2025
Date Finished: April 23,2025

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(Note: This one's a bit long, but it should give a lot more
       context to the situation I wrote about in my post
       titled "Contingencies"[0].)

  Storms have been a nice change of pace from the humid
heat of the last week or so. The cold air blown in from the
west makes a lot of difference when it feels like you're
living underwater with 51% humidity and 80ºF temps in a
house with no working AC. It also became quite active in my
part of the world around midnight, so I'm sitting back
listening to talk about the stuff rolling in.

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  Imagine my surprise when I saw that Anna (agk) wrote
about my recent phlog post regarding preparing for some
potential financial trouble. I definitely appreciate the
view from someone who has experienced the situation I'm
kinda fearing for myself and my partner right now, as it
puts a lot of things into perspective. My partner has gone
through similar situations growing up, but he rarely talks
about it.

  First off, I do want to bring up about rainwater use. The
mention of filtration was more about keeping debris out of
the lines leading into the storage tanks, as I've been
learning how bad some clogs can get if leaves and larger
objects get stuffed in the conveyance systems. Our house
is in need of gutters to help protect its raised foundation
slab, especially around the kitchen addition, as it was
built to older building codes and allowed to stay as is
according to them.

  One goal I have is to get some lidded plastic waste
bins, and turn them into sealable water storage tanks for
both utility use (toilets, cleaning, etc), and later have a
proper purification system to make drinking water as well.
As someone with a passion for green tech and DIY, it's one
of the projects I've been sitting on until I could get the
resources, time, and energy to do so. Oddly, this might be
the easiest of those projects for me to tackle, outside of
a bit of gardening.

  As far as toilets go, I've got plans for that, as there's
a local place that sells composting toilets for fairly low
prices, thanks to the number of people from the surrounding
rural farmlands and forested off-grid lands coming into
town for them (along with incinerator toilets, which are
also an option. Considering I want to set up a garden for
herbs and food, composting is pretty high on my list of
things to get going.

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  From Anna:

> Don't your things have batteries? Don't they charge
> pretty fast? What do you need? A light, music, a
> fan, a clock, maybe periodic use of a PDA, phone,
> or general-purpose computer? The big one may be
> some way to keep food from spoiling. Learning to
> pickle stuff and make yogurt is way cheaper than a
> DC refrigerator.

  So, the reason for wanting solar is because grid electric
has been getting its price jacked up quite a bit in my area
as of late. Sewer and water are seeing a 4% increase this
July (and 4% more every year until 2030), gas was hitting
$150 for fairly little use from our water and central heat,
but electricity went up a good 10% or more and might keep
going. That's despite a nuclear power plant helping things
in the region, and plans for another reactor to go online.

  My stuff mostly has batteries, as I rely on a pair of
laptops, a phone, my used iPad and Kindle, and so on. Even
my clock radio on my desk is a weather radio with built-in
flashlight, but it's on battery with a hand crank and solar
panel for charging, and can act as a battery bank for any
USB-powered devices.

  However, I'm the outlier at home. My uncle isn't able to
do much physically, and isn't much of a reader, so his TV
and cheap hi-fi stereo are his only real distractions from
things right now, and they're not only on mains, but not as
energy-efficient as I'd like them to be. Likewise with my
partner's main entertainment: a gaming PC with a beefy GPU.
There's also the networking equipment (cable modem, wifi
router, my Time Capsule), house lighting, our space heaters
(which using them /is/ cheaper than the central heater),
and most importantly the kitchen stuff.

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  One of the things I didn't mention is that we don't have
a working vehicle at the moment. Two of them are bad enough
to not be road-safe, and the other (my uncle's) is totaled.
As such, we've had to deal with getting groceries delivered
instead of getting them ourselves, as the nearest proper
store is about an hour walk from where we live, and we have
no bikes[^0] or available help from friends and family.
We only order food twice a month right now (beginning and
middle of the month), so I've been ordering a lot of things
that can be frozen, or at least keep for long periods of
time. We just can't make that kind of trip on foot with my
uncle needing to be watched over and given care.

  A 12V DC fridge isn't all that draining on batteries, as
I've learned from watching vanlife vloggers. Freezing food
is another problem entirely, though. Keeping meats good for
15-30 days isn't easy unless you freeze it, and my uncle
and partner are meat eaters. I've been moving myself to a
vegetarian diet thanks to medical issues of my own[^2], but
even veggies have limits, especially in bulk, and even more
so when you don't have a decent pantry to keep them cool
and dry. We're making due until things improve, and I'm
building up more of a recipe book for myself, so it's all
good for now.

  In all honesty, if I were in full control of the food
stores (it's my uncle buying it), the pantry would look a
*lot* different. Rice (which I eat quite a bit of), oats
(which my partner dislikes), variety of beans and seeds,
red and russet potatoes, sweet and green onions, peppers of
all kinds, tomatoes, lettuce... I *very much* like my veg
dishes. I miss being able to make baby-corn-and-broccoli
stir fry, and anything with cabbage, as my uncle's sense of
smell makes him ill with certain scents (chemotherapy does
this to most people), but hopefully that will change soon.

(Aside: I mentioned living off of beef stew previously, and
        while I've been eating it, and I enjoy it, my body
        hasn't been liking it much. Once it's gone, I'm
        shifting as much off of meat for myself as I can.)

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  This took me 3 days to finish writing. That's how busy I
ended up making myself. Between finding out that my uncle
is being moved to a physical rehabilitation center for up
to 20 days, having to deal with bills for him, dealing with
chores, and talking about things with my partner, I've been
a bit of a mess.

  All that written, I've been working on everything in a
set of files (backed up in multiple places) in a folder
titled "Spring Contingency", just because I needed to laugh
about the situation. Everything from priorities, to all my
research, to prices I've found, and blueprints I've made
for my own plans around the house. Outside of a little
gaming with my partner, it's what I've used to keep myself
sane-ish over the last few days as well.

  It's 06:40 as I finish this, and I'm hoping to go to a
couple of local thrift stores that are within walking
distance of our home to look around for things to help our
situation, and maybe a new-to-me shirt to use until I can
mend a couple of my worn-out pieces. There's still a lot to
do with cleaning things up, and I think I'm at least over
most of my sleep debt from the last couple of weeks, so a
nice comfy shirt might be the mood boost I need right about
now.

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[0]: gopher://gopher.prismdragon.net/0/phlog/2025-04-19_contingencies.txt

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[^0]: My partner and I are keeping an eye out for a pair of
      affordable bikes, as I also want to have one to use
      with an emergency bike generator.
[^1]: I can't stomach eggs anymore, and I've developed a
      major sensitivity to meatfats and lactose. It's not
      a pretty thing when GERD gets triggered.