Re: [Homesteadingfamily] Coming up the road

>>>Careful planning on your part has paid off well.

LMAO over this one! More like bad experiences, but smart enough to figure it'll happen again! LOL
Actually, my dh has worked in the coal fields for his entire adult life, so his work has been seasonal. It just finally made sense to build & stock a cellar, and to do all the other things I suggested. I hope my experiences will help others.

One other thing I didn't mention. We rinse out our milk jugs, fill them with water, and freeze them. Then we use an ice pick for ice in our glasses & water jugs. These are also great for our coolers... just put the jug in with our picnic supplies or groceries from town, then refreeze them at home. No melting all over our stuff either!

As an emergency measure, when our electricity goes out now, we bring a cooler in to the kitchen with a jug of ice from the chest freezer, and put our milk/lunchmeat/mayo in it. It has helped to keep us from opening the refrigerator door during an outage. HTH

>>>The Winters here scare me a bit, I'm sure you
know how it is, being snowed in and no electricity for days on end. We had a
snowstorm here a couple of years back, and some poor souls didn't have
electricity back for 2 months!

A few years ago, there was a huge, wet snow one October. It broke branches out of all the trees because the leaves weren't off yet. That may be the same snowstorm you are referring to. It was a hard time for all! A generator was certainly a huge help to many at that time.

I think it is wise for all of us to figure out how to survive and maybe even thrive the way our grandparents did it. No electricity on our family farm until about 1950. No electricity on my dad's family farm until 1954... the year he graduated from high school! My dh grew up without indoor plumbing. I was little, but I remember my dad building our first bathroom with indoor plumbing. It can be done!!!! LOL

Blessings,
Teresa in WV

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