Triple Whammy

So, we had no water from a water main break over a week ago, we had that earthquake hit, and now we've got a hurricane on it's way! I feel very lucky that the water main break was a minor blip in our lives. The earthquake I totally missed because we were driving back from picking peaches at Larriland Farms and our house was as we left it. Funny, huh!? But a great blessing that it wasn't worse. And there doesn't seem to be much worry about the hurricane from people I've talked to because of how far inland we are, but I'm more suspicious. Okay, so NO I've never been in a hurricane myself. I've only ever experienced the rain bands off a hurricane. You get that even in the midwest. But I think it's better to be prepared and wary than brushing the whole hurricane off as a minor puff of wind and some light rain. Mother Nature is unpredictable, folks! You just never know.

So, another plug for getting yourself prepared! And I'm not some crazy kook either, believe it or not. You can just go to the websites of the Red Cross, FEMA, and Ready.gov to see that it's an empowering thing to be prepared. Our government agencies want us to take the responsibility to prepare ourselves so that they're relief burden can be less. It's understandable. The more people that are prepared and are able to help themselves, the more the agencies can accomplish in the more severe areas.

Anyway... it's been interesting to see my 4-year-old son's reaction to the news about the hurricane. According to him, we'll be able to fend off the hurricane with our hose on full blast and we'll need to hold our car down with really strong tape so it won't blow away. Oh, and the paint on the car will blow away, so we'll have to paint it a different color - blue-green or green-blue (his favorite colors incidentally.) His logic is totally awesome.

Here are some cool preparedness things that make it easy to be prepared even if you live in a small place or are transient:

- MREs
- a volcano stove (you can burn propane, charcoal, wood or Fueled Up! in it. Cool!)
- Fueled  Up! emergency fuel. This stuff stores in a bucket for 30+ years, is safe to keep in your home and around food, and you can use it anywhere... well anywhere that's fire proof of course! It's perfect to use with a little portable barbeque grill.
- 2 liter bottles cleaned and filled with water. You can store these all over your house because they're so small - under sinks, under your bed, in a shed, etc. Just be sure to leave enough air space at the top to allow for freezing expansion if it's stored where it will freeze.


Wish us luck!