Seeing clear skies felt just a little bit strange this morning. For a while there — what’s it been, a week? — we were living inside a cloud. Visibility here on The Mountain was a hundred yards (at best), day and night. Rain came and went.
Our gauge showed a total of three inches from the systems that rolled through Ozarkansas. Now we’ll have a chance to dry out before arctic air arrives the second week of the New Year.
Deb (aka Mrs. Inside) spent yesterday cleaning and de-cluttering our living space in the camper — not the most pleasant task, and nothing that moves us forward in the cabin, but absolutely necessary. Likewise, I (Mr. Outside) dealt with my own list of unromantic-but-essential chores.
It was the last time I’ll check our generators and gas-powered tools before January 6th and January 20th. Though readiness is a steady state for us, we recognize that certain moments — total solar eclipse, incoming severe weather, Election Day, each for different reasons — call for prudent review of our preps and deliberate attention. This would be one of those moments.
All four generators started easily and ran unremarkably well. Ditto the two-strokes. I topped off the generators with fuel, same with the Ranger, and that left me with three empty five-gallon cans. Instead of putting off the gas run ’til next week, I strapped the cans in the bed of the truck and drove them to Casey’s in Flippin.
Pump price for ethanol-free 87 octane was $3.129, compared to $2.579 for regular gas. That 55-cent different translated to $8.25 more for those 15 gallons, every ounce of which is destined for engines more likely to sit than to run. The peace-of-mind is worth it to me.
And now we have full tanks and 25 stabilized gallons in reserve.
When I got back to The Mountain, I went through most of our systems. Everything checked out fine. This week I’ll tie-up loose ends — oil levels in our vehicles, electrolyte levels in the camper’s batteries, and so on.
Being wintertime, we won’t have a large reserve of fresh water. Our provisions are adequate, though we’ll make routine resupply runs today and next weekend.
I don’t expect everyone to see what we see and follow our example. As I’ve said before, this is simply who we are.
Typical Sunday today, notable only for an especially lazy start. I did take us by Harbor Freight (30% off anything priced under $20) and buy an inexpensive set of Forstner bits to use when I modify our antique wash stand into a bathroom vanity.
Deb and I also were drawn to the going-out-of-business sale at the Big Lots! store in Mountain Home. (Despite news yesterday that the company has agreed to a rescue offer, as many as 1,100 locations still will close.) Discounts weren’t anything to write home about, but shopping carefully allowed us to fill a cart. The best deal was a 30-pound bag of our dogs’ regular food at 10% off, right when we needed it anyway.
Prepping extends to pets, too.
And so, in a couple of days, we’ll begin to embrace the worst of our winter. I remember bragging a year ago that I resisted using the furnace ’til January, and this year we don’t even have a working furnace.
It’ll be interesting, but in this chapter of our American Life there are no real hardships — only challenges we meet head-on.
We’re ready.
While at the vape shop this afternoon, we picked up two packages of cleverly marketed (and aptly labeled) gummies.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB