Anyone else getting their gear out to stay at home?

I was thinking the other day that if we needed more alcohol for disinfecting surfaces, I could break into the stuff I have for alcohol stoves (but perhaps the toxic additives to prevent drinking it would preclude use on hands or food surfaces).  Dried food for backpacking could come in handy.  Then there’s just the gear to go on a backpacking trip and get out of the house yet be away from people.  But probably the most useful thing for our reality at this point may end up being the ability to use water rather than TP 😂

Not as long as have electricity…. Which I completely expect to have.

My freezers have a solid 1+ month worth of food in them for several people.

I always use up my partial canisters after a trip – I use them for my morning coffee until they’re empty, so I don’t have any partials. But I do usually have a few canisters around (though I don’t need them unless we lose power). In your case, you might consider picking up a decent electric cooktop, or a crock pot/instant pot. You can pretty much cook anything in those and you only need electricity.

There’s not really anything in my kit, except for dehydrated meals, that would be useful if hunkering down for a period of time (I’m basically already in hunker down mode).

hopefully it won’t come down to backpacking food; it tastes plenty good with 20 miles in the mountains under your belt, much less so when sitting at the dinner table at home :)

I would guess most backpackers are at least a little ahead of the curve- water storage, water filters/treatment, emergency rations (ie bars, dehydrated food, etc), stove/canisters, etc

I’ve always, as long as I can remember anyways, have had 3-4 weeks of food/water on hand- nothing that goes to waste or spoils, just stuff that gets rotated in; like M B our freezer is pretty full of both wild and domestic protein, along w/ frozen bread, veggies, etc

“I’ve always, as long as I can remember anyways, have had 3-4 weeks of food/water on hand- nothing that goes to waste or spoils, just stuff that gets rotated in; like M B our freezer is pretty full of both wild and domestic protein, along w/ frozen bread, veggies, etc.”

Same here.  Don’t know when “prepper” became such a dirty word, but having at least a month of food/water on hand has always seemed prudent to me; I live in earthquake country.  Used to be an EMT and “the big one” was always in the back of our minds in training.  The possibility of the grid unexpectedly going down is very real here, probably more real than a lot of people are aware of.

I use N95 masks for work all the time…so I’ve got a good supply, knowing full well they do double duty in certain scenarios.  My first aid is always well stocked with basics and meds.  A gallon of white gas and a multifuel stove can go a long way….as does two quarts of denatured alcohol I usually have on reserve for backpacking.  And there are always some fuel canisters around.  Plenty of batteries, lights, water treatment options, local water sources I can access….

In regards to COVID, if I have sick people in my household I’ll be glad to be able to ride it out while going out as little as possible.

Not to go totally paranoid, but having grown up not far from the epicenter of the Los Angeles riots and witnessed that firsthand, I’m also fully aware of how quickly things can turn in that regard.  Once the first brick goes through a window it seems that all bets are off.

The electric hotplate is a good idea Doug, smart to have on hand if gas but not electric got interrupted.

yeah- forgot to mention first aid or lights (and batteries!) that most backpackers have on hand

Once the first brick goes through a window it seems that all bets are off.

that’s when it’s a little reassuring that your other big hobby is hunting :)

“that’s when it’s a little reassuring that your other big hobby is hunting :)”

Indeed.  God forbid we ever go there, but I’d rather have a rifle than not in the event we do…

One thing that always complicates stuff: whatever preparations you’ve made for emergencies, they’re probably only as good as those made by your family/friends in the area.  I.E., I can store plenty of water for my immediate family…but what about my mother-in-law up the street?  Or a close friend in the neighborhood?  I certainly wouldn’t turn someone away…

^ very true

PBS ended their newscast yesterday talking about some of the excessive hoarding going on and suggested that those that do have ample (or significantly more than ample!) share with  folks- elderly, handicapped, etc that might not be as fortunate.

I always have food, fuel and a physician around the house.

This whole “shelter-in-place” thing is VASTLY easier with electricity, natural gas, and treated city water piped to the house.

I’m President of an electric utility and we understand how vital keeping the power on is, mostly the system runs on automatic, and several of our generation plants are remote-start/stop.  The combined-cycle plant is staffed, but could potentially be short-staffed.  It’s more on the distribution side where we’re (and every utility) has some vulnerabilities – everyone loves to complain about rates, so it’s not like we’ve got redundant distribution lines running to your house nor twice the employees we need during normal times.  If a tree falls or a 40-year-old fuse holder fails, then a crew needs to go out and deal with it.  But lineman tend to be pretty gung-ho, get-it-down types.  Still, I imagine our outage response, especially after a large storm could suffer.  Good news on the generation and transmission side – there, we are more redundant (us and the industry as a whole) and design and operate the system with an “N-1” mindset – that a single failure somewhere doesn’t crash the system and almost always, not a single customer notices.

Back to thoughts as a backpacker – if for lack of labor or parts, the gas or electrical distribution system was down (and if the gas system goes down, so does the electric), I’m glad I have lots of sleeping bags and pads, and a very tight well-insulated house with some passive solar features.  When it’s over 40F outside, my heating system is off anyway.  We had -16F 2 nights ago, but March is (as typical) warming rapidly with mostly clear, sunny days.

You can use the 20lb tanks that are standard with gas grills. Call around and see if there are any at the local hardware stores. a coleman single burner that typically is used with the 1 lb bottles would run a LONG time on a 20lb grill type bottle.

Coleman Single Burner Stove

You’d probably need some sort of hose as well. Like this.

1 lb to 20 lb hose

David knows a lot about this propane stuff. I’ve paid  attention to his posts on propane because here on the obx losing power (electricity) is a fairly regular experience and Propane is the solution along with a good generator. After Hurricane Isabel we didn’t have electricity from the power co. for 8 days! Which brings to mind Doug’s reference to Meghan O’Rourke’s article. In our neighborhood at the time we had 5 families ( with kids) and one small generator which we passed around each day to chill down our refrigerators (Kids Don’t open that refrigerator door!) . We took showers (on a tight schedule) at a neighbors house that had a gas hot water heater, and we had neighborhood dinners at our house because we had a gas range and lots of Coleman propane lanterns. Only time anyone could remember a summer night(s) with no lights in sight, so another group thing was walking up to the top of the big Jockey’s Ridge sand dune to take in the night sky. We actually had a pretty good time.

Hopefully we can figure out how to generate some good memories from this current event.

“it tastes plenty good with 20 miles in the mountains under your belt, much less so when sitting at the dinner table at home :)”

I’d agree with most, but Nine Mile Meals taste pretty darn good at home too. I’d have no trouble using those a couple of times a week if it came down to it.

Oh and that reminds me. You can make a disinfectant spray from regular household bleach. Mix X? 8oz? to a gallon water:  I forget …. my younger brother found this on the internet (the stores seem to be out of disinfectant wipes in the “triangle” area of NC) and told me the correct ratio this morning but I’ve forgotten.

Anyway if you have an empty spray cleaner bottle and some bleach and also if you have some paper towels there’s your disinfectant spray AND your disposable disinfectant towelettes. One thing to watch out for though. The corrosive nature of bleach is hard on the hand sprayer pumps. I’d recommend cleaning/clearing that pump out when you’re not using it with some warm water to slow that caustic deterioration down.

I take something like that with me when I’m forced to “hit the road” and use it for things like gas pumps and door handles. Stuff you’re forced to handle pretty much right after someone else has handled it.

Ohh and also I’ve been (only) half kidding about steripens in a couple of previous posts. UVC will kill viruses in pretty short order so if you have something you want to disinfect and have a steripen…. just don’t look at it!

I used to have two weeks of water, but haven’t updated since I moved.

I just got four 7 gallon jugs – 1 gallon * 2 people * 2 weeks

More for earthquakes than this

I think anything would taste plenty good if you had nothing else to eat

I was getting a bit low on dehydrated food for backpacking so I ordered some more, more than I’d normally have.  I just leave it in the freezer.  Maybe take a couple years to use backpacking.

I recently got 8 cartridges of cheap butane (8 ounces each) from Korean grocer.  The closest Korean grocer to my new house charges $7 for 4, rather than $5 at my old Korean grocer.

I have a stove that uses these.  Brenda hates fish smell.  Occasionally I cook some salmon so I do it in garage.  My superior manipulation skills are overmatched by her stubbornness about getting her to eat it.

I use them to refill butane canisters for backpacking.  It’ll take me a couple years to use up my stash.

I just got a torch that uses the cartridges, like someone posted.  Start fires, kill weeds, cooking, toy.  The package is in quarantine for a couple days to let any covid-19 viruses die.

This, that, and the third!

I have a contractor from Wanchese who uses that expression.  Wanchese is a pretty interesting local fishing village that BTW sends guys and trawlers up to Dave’s Kodiak on occasion and was also a setting and source of many of the characters in the “Peanut Butter Falcon”. This, that and the third is a saying from Wanchese used instead of “This, That and the Other”  It’s a “colorful” place in a myriad of ways.

Anyway so the third is this: You can most likely attach that 20 lb gas grill tank to your stove and maybe even the hot water heater but it wouldn’t last as long though still might last a week of regular usage? Maybe.

And again I’ll bet some of our fellow bloggers like Dave Thomas will have more and better info.

I am so not worried about water.  We’ve got a 14,000-gallon pond.  Under 2 feet of snow.  We’ve got 3 Steripens, chlorine bleach, iodine tablets and crystals, a few decades worth of various filters, and can always boil it.  Come summer, we could do solar UV through PEET bottles.  And black containers under glass can get to pasteurization temperatures.  And there’s the Solar Death Ray of 144 mirrors on an old satellite dish for pasteurization / boiling without any fossil fuels.  I do keep several gallons of city water in a closet for power failures / ready earthquake response.

Like Jerry, we have an outdoor grill, mostly, to cook fish (30 sockeye salmon and 6 halibut a year) outdoors.  The BBQ has a side burner, so we don’t even have to go through a 1-pound-cylinder adaptor to do that, should the natural gas fail.  Although, one of the few things I’d do differently on the home design would be to run a natural gas line to the BBQ and basically eliminate any expense of running it.  Then propane tanks would be around simply as a back up.

Obx: yes, there are hoses that adapt a 20-pound propane tank to 1-pound appliances like a stove head or lantern.  Those are helpful in a pinch, but I’d suggest, instead (or at a minimum) the small brass adaptor valve between the 20-pound tank and 1-pound cylinder.   Those are $5 to $15 on eBay, Amazon or at Walmart.  Then you can refill your 1-pound green Coleman propane cylinders endlessly and cheaply ($0.70 instead of $4.99).

Always write on your propane cylinders and butane canisters in Sharpie their full weight when you first buy them and never fill them beyond that weight.  And if you overfill them, vent it or burn off the excess while the cylinder is cold.

I am not counting on a few canisters to do much ;)

Chris’s truck has more than enough  to hold us over for a while: extra diesel, generator, welder is the gen fails, a big propane tank  etc.

cool machine

hope everyone is well

Now you tell us. I was; after careful and thoughtful consideration attempting to offer a possible solution to this:

“We are almost out of propane at home and were told they are not sure when they can come  around to fill the tanks”

And This:

“I was thinking the other day that if we needed more alcohol for disinfecting surfaces, I could break into the stuff I have for alcohol stoves”

Now my fingers are tired from typing and my feelings are hurt.

Boo Hoo

To which she (they) replied: OK Boomer

;)

OK Jerry now it’s your turn

“Diluting your household bleach. To make a bleach solution, mix: 5 tablespoons (1/3rd cup) bleach per gallon of water OR 4 teaspoons bleach per quart of water

Follow manufacturer’s instructions for application and proper ventilation. Check to ensure the product is not past its expiration date. Never mix household bleach with ammonia or any other cleanser. Unexpired household bleach will be effective against coronaviruses when properly diluted.”

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/prevention.html

Bleach is sold in differing strengths is one problem. Buy the strongest (about 6.0% sodium hypochlorite) before dilution.

So you guys are all actually seeing shortages somewhere? or this is all dystopian prepping? Gad I was glad to get away from this stuff today with a nice hike in the snow.

shelves at stores bare – especially TP, Purell – don’t even think about it, some disinfectants left, some food products are picked over like canned soup and stuff

at some times, some stores are mobbed like the pictures of Costco with lines to get in around the block

11PM at Safeway – very few people, easy to stay 6 feet away from other people