Meet Anna May |
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Safer alternative lights By Anna May Kinney Self-Sufficiency Series #7 Forty years ago life seemed so much easier, television sets cost a couple of hundred dollars, made in USA or Canada and for a one time cost of putting an antenna on our roof, these sets would provide years of entertainment. Today we have Plasma, LCD and Projection Televisions and most people think nothing of paying $60 a month to get either satellite or cable. If you are not an electronics expert, and over fifty you are probably feeling a bit lost switching to HDTV and finding out that your VCR or Digital Recorder will not be able to record off the new television channels. On a more serious note, that will affect each of us our simple incandescent light bulb will soon be a thing of the past. We all want to reduce our electric bills while cutting our carbon footprint, but we don’t want to bring hazards into our homes. What I want to talk about today are the inexpensive, safer and even better energy reducing choices you have available without having to use these dangerous Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs). The safety of the CFL I know, I know, electric companies and the government have been promoting these lights as being efficient and the answer to going ‘green’. But take it from a long time environmentalist these bulbs are one of the worse things you can put into your home and anything but ‘green’. First of all; YES, they are right that they contain very little mercury, lots less than the old thermometers that they outlawed a couple decades ago. Only difference is that what little mercury that is in these bulbs is in the form of a mercury gas that when dropped and expelled from the said bulb will contaminate everything in the room where it broke. And IF this dangerous break takes place you must immediately leave the room, closing the door behind you, THEN get some help or professional instructions on how to clean this up. Some of you insist that these lights are going to save electricity, but the facts are not what you think, first of all these lights must be on for a few minutes before they start saving money, so if you are going in and out of rooms, turning lights on and off within a couple of minutes, those “12 or 22 Watt” CFL bulbs will be using a lot more power, even double for the small amount of time it’s on. (There is a LOT of good information about the dangers of using these bulbs at this website. This is a quote from -http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2007/05/02/caution_about_compact_fluorescent_lighting_cfl.htm “Second, CFL's don't even deliver on their original premise of efficiency. In order for a CFL to 'warm up' to full capacity, you actually have to leave it on for at least 15 minutes. Every time you turn it on. So what will most people do? Leave it on ALL the time of course! This is comparable to the genius of the low-flush toilet, and maybe it's the same bozo who thought of both.”) They do not work well in many different light fixtures and have even been filmed catching fire in some; I’ve seen a few of these videos. This is besides the smell that comes off the bulbs while being used; experts claim this is the mercury gas escaping. Then there’s the problem of the negative electricity emitted from these bulbs, which cause everything from minor skin itching, like I had, to migraine headaches and vision problems. Add to this the report I just saw on 16 by 9 on Global television of people with severe burns on their faces caused by the Ultra violet emitted by these CFL bulbs. This is a link to 16 X 9 and one story about CFL http://www.globaltv.com/globaltv/globalshows/16x9/2009.01.04.topStory.html The video here shows a woman with UV burns on her face from these bulbs. This report explains about dirty electricity, please take the time to read and see the video at the bottom of the page. http://www.globaltv.com/globaltv/globalshows/16x9/2009.01.04.segment01.html Sorry, but I do not know WHY our government, would recommend such a dangerous product for us to use in our homes and around our children. BUT even if you can’t afford the higher priced LED lights right now, there are a few things you can do to both lower your electric usage and still be safe. Safe Alternatives I’ve taken a couple of picture of what I’ve done in my bathroom to help you understand how it works and saves money. There’s one picture of the solar lights that I place on the wall next to my bathroom mirror, these lights spend the day outside being charged, I have a lot of them, so I can switch batteries, put the dead batteries out to charge and keep a set of lights in the bathroom all day. Initial investment about $50 for two sets of lights bought on sale at half price. Cost to use $0, batteries last for about four years. It just takes a little discipline to remember to take them out every morning to be charged. If you have enough lights, when you bring them inside remove the batteries of the ones you are not going to use right away, then if you have a couple days with no sun you are all set. The other picture is of the ceiling light fixture, or should I say lack of fixture, as we had to take off the decorative glass holder off, and replace it with a unit where a light bulb could be screwed in, and it also has plugs on the side to plug in the LED string of Christmas lights, these lights take about 2 Watts of power to use even better than even what the CFL claim is and enough light to use the bathroom for most trips, the incandescent bulb is 25 Watts, and only used when one needs more light like to shave or put on makeup. When the light switch is flipped on, only the LED string of lights comes on, you will have to pull on the higher 25-Watt light (buy a good supply of these while they’re still legal). These mild changes can be done in any small room where a lot of light is not needed. We have a larger string of LED Christmas lights in both the kitchen and living room each of them use 2.6 Watts and give enough light to do most evening chores and read. In my case these are plugged in and not set up like in the bathroom. I sure hope this helps some of you to make safer choices while cutting your electric use. The End. |
The first step to becoming Self sufficient Reducing dependency By Anna May Kinney Self Sufficiency Series, Article 6 Now that we all have an idea of how to prepare for emergencies, let’s talk about becoming more self-sufficient and right now with the economy like it is, who wouldn’t benefit from learning how to reduce their cost of living? While being totally self-sufficient is probably unreachable for most of us, I’ll try to show you some small things, and even a few large ones that you can do to both lower your cost of living and reduce your every day dependency. One of the first steps is understanding what it cost daily to keep necessities within your home working, and differentiating between what is a necessity and what we can really do without. ELECTRICITY: Everyone would say that electricity is something we can’t live without, and even though a few do manage to live off the grid and provide all their electrical needs with solar or wind generators, for the majority of us, this is out of reach. With the current cost to purchase either a solar or wind system to run an entire home on (Generally a typical home solar power system is about $30,000 after state and federal incentives), this includes batteries to hold the power for when needed, a ‘heated’ room to store the numerous batteries and inverters that change the power from DC to AC. It would take a high-energy home over twenty years to pay for all of this, and before a person would have it paid off he would have to re-invest in new batteries, as they don’t last forever and wear out every few years. Most of us don’t use enough electricity to make a solar or wind-powered system pay for its self even after 20 years, and being it’s so easy to cut our consumption in half, or even further without such an investment I don’t know why anyone would consider making such an outlay of capital. I’m not saying that all solar power should be rejected, there are inexpensive mini solar systems like the one I have here run by six low cost solar panels that keep three battery packs (three batteries each with 1200 watt inverters) charged that provide the backup power needed to carry me through an unexpected blackout. When there are a sunny days with little threat of an approaching storm, I can run my computer, monitor and sound system off the solar panels during the day and if need be after sunset the batteries can be used to run these things even longer. Each unit allows me to plug something like a refrigerator, freezer or even a hotplate into and depending on the size of each appliance it runs from a few minutes to a couple of hours under blackout situations. So when there’s a storm on the way, I make sure that each unit is not drained of its power and allowed to get a full charge; then leave them unused till the chance of a power outage is past. I even have one three battery unit in the kitchen which I keep topped off by plugging it into the house power once a week, this one has a 1500 watt inverter, large enough to start up the water pump. Each of these units was an expense but by waiting till they were offered at 33% off I was able to purchase them. Before we can cut back on something we use it helps to understand how much we use, and when it comes to Kilowatts and electric consumption many find it confusing, so let’s start by taking our last electric bill and taking a good look at it. There you should find how many days it was from your last meter reading to the meter reading that this bill was for. Some places read meters every thirty days and some like here in Quebec do the readings every two months. Once you have figured out how many days you have been billed for, look for your consumption. Now, with your calculator in hand, take the number of kWh you used on the current bill (in my case that would be 580 kWh) and divide that number by how many days the bill was for (For me that was 60 days) this will show you how many kWh you used per day. (By my dividing total consumption 580 kWh by the number of days 60 I can see that I used 9.6 kWh hours each day) Once you have done this with the current bill, write it on your bill and keep it for future reference. Next figure out what the flat rate charge your electric company charges you just to be hooked up to the power system, this is usually listed separately, then subtract it from the total of your bill. Example; my total bill was $61.83 for 60 days, with a service charge of $23.98 (.4064 cents a day JUST to be connected) subtracted from the total bill that gives me a cost of $37.85 for two months of electricity, OR $18.92 a month. By now you are a bit shocked to see how little electricity I use per day when compared to the bill you have in your hand right now. Just remember I’ve been employing these money saving habits for a long time now, constantly reducing my electric bill and through this next series of articles hope that by next year at this time you’ll be marveling at the electric bill you hold in your hand. |
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The special needs of babies and pets By Anna May Kinney Self-Sufficiency Series – Article #5 Emergency planning for babies Everyone who has ever raised a child knows that a baby has special needs. While we don’t all have little ones in our lives, most of us have grandchildren, nieces, nephews or neighbors with small children and during an emergency, when people reach out to help each other, any of us could find ourselves caring for a baby or young child. Start by placing a current picture of your baby inside your backpack with other valuable papers, such as your baby’s birth certificate, medical records, and a list of any health problems or special needs your child may have. Remember when packing your family’s water supply to add enough for mixing formula, baby cereal and for the extra cleanup in caring for baby. Pack some mild dish soap, a bottlebrush and whatever you need to guarantee clean bottles. Bottles filled with a little cold water, shook and dumped will clean faster and with less hot water than bottles left dirty to dry out. Like I mentioned in the first section on making 72 hour kits, families with small children or babies who would find it difficult to carry a baby and manage a toddler or two, should consider purchasing a couple of those suitcases on wheels, even older children wearing their own backpacks could pull one of these along. Babies and toddlers need their own specialized emergency supplies, which you can pack in an individual backpack or along with group supplies in a larger suitcase. Seeing that a baby grows from size to size so fast, these kits need to be updated monthly and when it comes to diapers it can get a bit confusing. Many moms are going back to cloth diapers, if you have enough cloth diapers that you can spare a three day’s supply packed away that’s great, but if you must buy disposable diapers for such an emergency then go the next size up, by doing this you always have a diaper that will fit if an emergency happens and you can rotate monthly so no disposable goes to waste. When refreshing your kit, use the last disposables in there for when you are traveling, visiting or on a shopping trip. If you’re a breastfeeding mom, bring all the supplies you’ll need like a pump, pads, bottles for when you just can’t nurse and any personal supplies you’ll need. Make sure to pack a few cans of formula, a brand you have tested out on your baby and know he will eat. This may sound weird as you intend to breastfeed your baby, but in an emergency situation you need to prepare for anything that might happen, that might mean an accident that would make you unable to breast feed for a day or two. Don’t forget a diaper pail or a selection of plastic bags for the disposal of soiled diapers, baby wipes, and pack extra of these for the rest of the family for when soap and water are limited. Some antibacterial hand wipes are also a must. Include a few pair of thin latex gloves that can help when dealing with injuries, and a messy clean up. In a waterproof container have any medications your baby may need, teething gel, thermometer, a suction bulb to clear nasal passages, extra pacifiers and sunscreen (even in cold climate, exposure to sunlit snow can create serious sunburns). A few other things you should pack: He’ll need extra pajamas, undershirts, bibs, washcloths, towels, tissues, toilet paper, diaper rash ointment, baby lotion, and don’t forget his favorite toys. To warm milk, water and cook baby cereal or meals you’ll need a portable stove, fuel, matches and camping utensils (a camping store has a vast supplies of this stuff to choose from). Using a thermos bottle will help keep hot water available between lighting up the portable stove. Keeping your baby dry and warm is important so you’ll want to have a few receiving and emergency blankets. The latter can be wrapped around both of you, holding in as much as 80% of your body heat. Emergency planning for pets While we would never think of leaving a helpless child behind when evacuating, many fail to realize just how dependent our animal companions are. An animal’s chance of survival is very thin if he’s been left to tend for himself, not to mention the emotional impact this makes on him. So when making your family emergency plan, also decide if you will be able to take your pets along or have to board them with family, friends or a shelter. And who in the family will be in charge of collecting them. If you’re plans are to stay in a motel/hotel check ahead to find pet friendly places you can go to. Talk with family members or friends and see if any of them would take your pets for a short time during an emergency. What ever you do don’t leave any of your pets behind. Whether it’s an earthquake, hurricane or tornado, our animal friends seem to sense something is about to happen way before we humans know anything. This feeling of danger can make your pet act in an uncharacteristic way. Animals who have never run away, or gotten lost, are more prone to run off in fear, often looking for a place to hide out till the danger is past. Even if your dog is use to being outside off leash, when there’s an approaching storm or he seems to be a bit fidgety or nervous, kind of clinging to you, keep him on a leash whenever taking him out doors. If you have a small pet such as a hamster, mouse, reptile or fish you need to do the same as you would do for a dog or cat, just pack their emergency kits with what food and supplies they will need to survive for a minimum of 3 days. Remember to tighten and secure latches on small rodent, reptile and birdcages. If you must evacuate and have to leave a large aquarium behind, place it on something steady on a higher floor if there’s fear of flooding, for all other emergencies set it on the floor, place pillows around it for protection, and a piece of plywood over the top slanted so air can still get in and out. Have an emergency battery run filtration system so your fish will be all right if the power is off for a couple of days. If your pet has reacted badly in the past to thunder and other storms, there’s a greater chance he’ll get panicky during an emergency, may even bite or scratch, so it might be wise to keep a mild sedative on hand for such emergencies. As soon as one sees a change in their animal’s behavior they should confine them to one room in the house, or if they are use to being crated at night or for trips, place them inside their crate/cage, this will relax them helping them to feel more secure. Even if you are not evacuating right away, place your cat into a pet carrier so he can’t run off and hide. Cats are often left behind, because even when they have not gotten outside, they are so great at hiding that at the last minute people can’t find them. Just like you have emergency backpacks for each member of the family, buy a small child’s backpack for your pets. Large dogs can actually wear one containing some of the lighter stuff they’ll need for 72 hours. Backpacks for small breed dogs can be attached to their crates or pet carriers or carried by a family member. Start by keeping a good picture of your pet in your backpack, this will speed up recovery in the case you are separated during an emergency. In their backpacks, place their medical/vaccination records in a waterproof container, medications and a pet first aid kit. They’ll need 2-3 quarts of water, (you can carry that) dry and wet food, water/food bowls, a cat litter/pan, a few towels in a plastic bag and can opener. Write down the name & phone number of your veterinarian and another in the an area you maybe evacuating to, what they normally eat, and their feeding schedule in case you have to leave them with a stranger for a day or two, and if they have any emotional or health conditions to watch out for. By following a few simple steps you should help guarantee that when the emergency is over, every member of your family will be together alive and healthy. |
Finishing our emergency kits and special needs By Anna May Kinney Self Sufficiency Series, Article 4 It’s time to expand on what we need to put into our emergency kits. By now everyone has packed two quarts/litres of water for each person in their family/group. The next step is making sure you have enough water for hygiene and food preparation. The experts say that this should amount to two more quarts/litres a day for each person. (Small children and babies will need as much as adults, and even more when it comes to hygiene.) You’ll need personal care products, such as sanitary napkins, toilet paper, soap, toothbrushes and anything you’d need to get through three days. Add to this a package of garbage bags for sanitation, and twist ties to keep them tightly shut. I’ve added a small stack of newspapers, placed and sealed in a good plastic bag and a five-gallon pail with good lid, also for sanitation. Most people have no idea what to do in an urban situation where there’s either no toilet or no extra water to flush. By all means you do NOT want to use the toilet and just leave it not flushed for three days. Unlike a wilderness camping trip, there’s no place to dig a hole and bury the evidence, so what do you do with human waste? This is where the newspaper and five-gallon pail (better known in the North as a honey bucket) come in handy. When you have to “go” empty the bladder first into the honey bucket. Men have an easier time with this, but for women it’s better to do what we do when asked for a sample in the doctor’s office. For this reason, I always keep a good wide mouth jar for such an emergency; it can be discretely used and dumped into the five-gallon pail. SO much easier and tidier than straddling a pail (especially if you have pants to drop.) Next, take a couple of sheets of newspaper, squat over them and do your business. IF by any act of God you forgot the toilet paper, the extra newspaper can also be used for this purpose. Next fold it up into a neat little package and deposit it into a large garbage bag, close tightly with a strong tie and keep outside till it can be safely disposed of. If your situation goes on too long or you have too many people sharing a bucket it may need to be dumped. Often this can safely be done in a wooded area, or even a back yard away from the house, or in a city environment in a rain/sewer gutter/drain. Do NOT use the bucket for feces. Everybody needs to have at least one change of cloths, footwear, blanket, sleeping bag and a whistle to attract attention. Families need to pack a few basic tools such as a hammer, wrench, screwdriver with multi heads, pliers and work gloves. While it’s recommended that families pack candles, matches and a lighter, what I do to provide light when there’s no power is much safer. After purchasing couple of sets of solar garden lights, ones that have a hook at top for hanging, put them out most every day, keep the batteries charged, bring them in at dusk and to save the batteries for when they are needed they can be easily removed. Mine are lined up in front of my television set, oldest on the right etc. At night I take a couple of these lights, they go in the bathroom, hallway, my bedroom and the kitchen, the rest of the batteries are there for emergencies. These lights give off a lot more light then most people would believe, they can light up a good sized area for their small size, and the best part is if you have to go through a power failure for a few days, they do not need a lot of sun to recharge. You can also buy extra batteries, and once the first are charged, put the lights outside the next day with another set of batteries in them, and just keep rotating. I have two of these lights sitting on each side of the bathroom mirror and for most things the light they offer is enough not to have to turn the electricity on. This is also what’s used in my basement during a severe storm. They are easy to use and no danger of fire. Other things a family will need are: a portable stove and whatever kind of fuel it uses, but always remember that no matter if it is charcoal or propane, you can never use these stoves indoors. They must only be used where there is plenty of ventilation like in an open driveway, backyard or on a patio deck and never run a generator inside a garage, basement or home. Special needs As we age, many of us have special health considerations, whether it’s just the gradual decline of our eye sight, incontinence or that we can’t eat without having our false teeth. Each of these things has to be addressed so we are prepared if we find ourselves away from our homes and supplies. If you or your spouse has a disability and lives in an independent private home, contact your city or county government's emergency information management office. Many local offices keep lists of people with disabilities so they can be located quickly in a sudden emergency. You should also keep a list of what medications you take daily and any special support equipment you need to maintain health, and discuss these things with your closest neighbors. If you are dependent on dialysis or other life sustaining treatment, know the location and availability of more than one facility, and plan an alternative route for getting there. If you have a severe allergy, chronic- medical condition, or have a special medical need you might consider wearing a Medic Alert bracelet. Diabetics need extra insulin, syringes, needles, insulin pens, a small container to store used needles and syringes. It’s best to keep frozen water in small containers, plastic bottles or ice packs your freezer in have ready a small cooler in which to pack your insulin and keep it cool for time when there’s no power or if you must evacuate. You’ll also need blood glucose testing equipment with batteries and a recording book. It’s also important for Diabetics to have appropriate food and water to maintain healthy blood sugar levels. Make a list of all food or drug allergies and all the medications you are taking. Keep this list with you and a copy should go to any family member who might be responsible for you during an emergency. On the list of medications, specify what the drug is taken for, also include the generic name, daily dosage, and contact information and name of the prescribing physician. Prepare the same type of list for each child or senior parent you have with a disability or special need, make these list available to other caregivers, to schools and inside their emergency kits. The visually impaired need to pack: An extra pair of prescription glasses Vision aids such as magnifiers, binoculars or an electronic travel aid An extra white cane Talking or Braille clock Large print timepiece with extra batteries A whistle or noisemaker Writing pads, pens, pencils for communicating Other emergency things to pack for special needs: Latex-free gloves for potential care givers Spare deep cycle battery for motorized wheelchair or scooter and a can of seal-in-air to repair a flat tire. A lightweight manual wheelchair for backup Spare catheters (if applicable) Whatever is needed to keep life sustaining equipment operating during a power outage. Specific supplies that are for your own special needs. Most city and state offices of civil defense offer pamphlets to help those with special needs or those caring for them. There are also sections for the general public on how to help a person with a disability or special need. Prepackaged kits can be obtained from the Red Cross and other emergency agencies.
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Preparing our emergency kits
By Anna May Kinney Self-Sufficiency Series Article #3 The Basic Kit
Now that our plan is on paper, and we each know what to do first when something happens, the next, often baffling, question is what is an emergency kit and what do we need in them? I understand - if you’ve never had to go without a store or utilities for a few days this can be rather confusing. Like, say your house were on fire? You’d know what to grab first, that’s a no brainer, it would be Kids, other family members and pets, then you’d grab family pictures, the insurance policy, your birth certificates, you know what I mean? We’ll talk about that too, but for right now all we are going to be looking at is what you and your family absolutely need to survive on your own for 72 hours.
Most of us will have many of the things that are needed to fill an emergency kit just sitting around the house, but with them scattered it can take precious minutes to gather things together when needed. Putting them into your emergency kit and then using them daily is not the answer either you or another family member could easily forget to put them back. This is why I strongly suggest that even though you have some or all of these items, that you get duplicates, ones that won’t be used on a daily basis, something you can leave in your emergency kits.
Everything you put in the kits need to be checked out every six months - making sure the batteries are still good, and replacing water bottles with new ones, rotating the food with new food. The older stuff can be used for lunches, or after school snacks, but you do want to guarantee that your backpacks are always full of fresh healthy water and food. Rotating will also saves money cause there will be no wasted water or food. The basic list is:
Your written Plan with contact info
Children’s ID’s
Water
Ready to eat food
2 manual can-openers
Flashlight and batteries
Battery operated or wind-up radio (extra batteries here too)
First aid Kit
Items for Special needs
Cash Start by making copies of the plan that you wrote up for your family last week and tuck a copy of this plan along with all contact phone numbers into each backpack. Each child will also have a card stating the child’s name, age and home address, parents names and contact info in case for some unforeseen reason the family becomes separated. When an emergency occurs these cards should be taken out of the backpacks and fastened onto the inside of each child’s jacket or sweater. Parents need to have small recent pictures of each child tucked into their backpacks. This could greatly speed up finding a missing child. Water - Is at the top of the list for a good reason, while people can survive a long time on little or no food, they dehydrate and face serious health problems and even death when deprived water. Whenever the outside temperature is extremely hot people may only have hours before their bodies start to react.
How much water does a person need a day? A couple of those 16 oz. sport bottles are not enough. Every person in your family needs to have at least two litres/quarts of water available each day. That means six quarts for each persons backpack. No where on any of these lists have I seen mention of what all this water weighs, so I took your average plastic one litre/quart bottle and weighed it, can you believe that just one of these bottles weighs 2 lbs?
Now we are talking about a lot of weight, that is twelve pounds in each backpack for three days of water - - 6 litres/quarts. All of this is before you add everything else on the list that each person should have. (Remember that this is the basic list there will be more to add later).
While this is fine for teenagers and adults, small children will not be able to carry such a heavy load and should not be expected to. That’s why I recommend that those with large families get a large cooler with handles, some even come with wheels. Fill it with quart sized bottles of water, maybe even some food will fit in and then each member can keep a small bottle or two in their backpacks. Small bottles can be easily refilled. If you don’t have a cooler, one of those portable suitcases on wheels can be filled with water bottles, but whatever you choose is better than over filling the backpacks and making them too heavy.
Food - Think protein, calories and convenience. Things that will not spoil, such as energy bars, nuts, dried fruits and canned goods. Small plastic jars of peanut butter can easily fit into the smallest backpacks, and offers protein, salt and calories. It is an item that will not go rancid for at least a year if unopened. If your child has a peanut allergy, peanut free almond, sesame or cashew butters can be purchased at health food stores.
Forget about fruit juice or sodas, they usually only make a person more thirsty, a bottle or two of electrolytes is a good thing to have packed if you are facing extreme heat.
Canned foods like ready to eat soups, pasta and baked beans can be eaten straight out of the can, even if they can’t be heated up. Avoid chips, crackers and sugary cookies they take a lot of room and offer little nutrition and their shelf life is not that long. Each family needs to pack things that their family will eat, for some that might be a variety of canned meat, or fish, others might prefer ravioli. Just remember you are packing food for three days, and when people are under stress they tend to eat more than normal.
Next thing to do is make a list of all the food packed, and which is for what meal, then stick to it. You’ll have at least nine meals to prepare for, so if someone wants more in meal one or does not like that meal and wants to eat what’s planned for the next meal you might find yourself in trouble by day two.
Why two can openers? Well I would not want to be stuck with a bunch of canned goods and have the only can opener around break. It’s also a good idea to pack them in separate backpacks.
Flashlights - I suggest these new tiny hand crank flashlights that have three LED lights, they are inexpensive and are so easy even a small child can crank them. One in each backpack would give everyone a feeling of security. If you do use a battery flashlight, make sure you have a good supply of batteries with you.
Portable radio - Again I am a firm believer in hand cranking what one needs, most of these also come with batteries, but if the batteries die and you need it, you can crank for a couple of minutes and listen for about ten. The one I have is solar, battery and hand cranked and it takes nearly no sunlight to play this radio and charge it’s long lasting battery. Highly recommend that each family have a small weather radio, unless that feature is built into your other portable. Again pack some extra batteries and rotate every six months.
First aid kit – Good first aid kits can be purchased at most pharmacies, but remember to pack prescription medication, baby formula and anything a special needs person might require. (Next article will address a kit list for both special nneds, seniors and pets.)
Important papers and keys – It’s a good idea to always know where your important papers are, best to keep birth certificates, marriage license, insurance papers and stuff like that in a locked box at your local bank. For everything else find a safe secure place to keep them together, and always have an extra set of keys kept with the papers - ready to grab and put in either mom or dad’s backpack when the time comes.
Money – always include some small denomination bills; such as $5 and $10 bills, and in each backpack include a small change purse filled with quarters for the time you need to use a vending machine or a payphone.
Remember this is just the very basic list of what you’ll need there are many other things that need to be discussed and added to this list. More next time.
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The first baby-step to Emergency Preparedness: The Plan
By
Anna May KinneySelf-Sufficiency Series Article #2
We all know that a disaster can strike quickly and with little to no warning. It can make you have to evacuate your home and neighborhood or you might wind up confined in your home for a few days with no public services. No matter which scenario is discussed you need to have figured out what your personal needs will be during those first critical 72-hours. You should gather together, now, those things that will make you self reliant until emergency workers and supplies arrive or until you are moved to a safer place.
Having lived without going to a grocery store or even off my property for up to seven months at a time, I’ve learned some valuable lessons about how to be prepared for most anything that can come along. Knowing that we need to prepare this 72-hour emergency kit, I scoured numerous websites set up to help civilians prepare for any unexpected occurrence that might happen. Some places offer basic kits, but most only list the minimal things that are needed and let you figure out the rest. I found much of the information incomplete and feel many people are left confused and not knowing where to begin. I am hoping to make things a little clearer by taking it step by step.
Always remember that no matter how well your local first responders have prepared, there are circumstances that can quickly overwhelm them, delaying the time they can reach out to everyone. And as important as getting the supplies you will need to survive 72-hours on your own, it’s more important to start with a well-made plan.
The Plan:
It is vital to schedule a once a year meeting with family members or those you share a home with to design and/or update a plan that will outline everyone’s responsibility when responding to an emergency. (When you have small children you might want to have little refresher courses every six months or sooner. While most adults should be able to maintain such information, children and special needs adults may have trouble retaining stressful information.)
Take the time to discuss every person’s fears and explain that by making a plan and having strategies they will be minimizing the negative affects of any disaster.
Draw a floor plan of your home that shows the locations of windows and doors (exits). Mark with a red X or other distinguishing marks where each utility cutoff is located. Like the gas turn off switch, or the breaker that shuts off the electric power entering a home. Organize extra clothing, first aid kits, tools and other emergency supplies into one closet or area for fast retrieval. (I will be telling you what to stock your kits with – but that is step two and will be my next article.) Make copies of this floor plan for each person, and some that can be taped to the back of the door to every room.
Discuss alternate reunion locations and strategies if a disaster strikes when most or all of you are not home. Review disaster policies and plans for your children’s school, your or your housemate’s workplace. Make and keep updated lists of key addresses and phone numbers, passing out copies to each family member. If you have an extended family or circle of friends in the area you might want to exchange information with them so to maintain contact, or let them know where they will be able to find you.
Then there are those personal situations -- which parent works closest to the daycare center? Does the daycare have an emergency plan and what is it? Does one parent need to retrieve their small children? Many of us have senior parents living with us; so who returns home to pick up grandma, grandpa, or the family pet? These things must be all figured out ahead of time, and alternative auto-routes mapped out in case of road closures.
During emergencies it’s best to stay off both land lines and cell phones to allow needed emergency calls to the fire department, emergency medical personnel and police to get through. Those who have to contact the utility company or their child’s school will be grateful to find the lines not tied up by those making personal calls.
Once you have your plan, it’s time to start looking at filling your family’s survival kits with what is needed for three days on your own. If you can, I suggest copying this page and pasting into a Word type document or printing it out for future reference.
Regaining Our Independence By Anna May Kinney Self-Sufficiency Series Article #1
Since the 1940’s we’ve seen North America change from a rural, more self-sufficient population to a dependent urban society. What does this mean to the general population? What does it personally mean to each of us?
Since the late fifties, early sixties our skills and professions have focused on specialization. We have been convinced that we only need to be good in one or two things to support our families and live a fairly good life. This is one of the biggest hoaxes there is. People used to know how to do most small jobs around the home. Woman made their own bread and baked goods, made clothes for themselves and their children, even cut their husband’s and children’s hair. Men did not hire plumbers to fix a leaky faucet, or a roofer to repair a leaky roof, change the oil or spark plugs on his car - and they could even paint the outside of their home without hiring someone to do it.
Somewhere along the way society taught us that you just do not do these things. Instead you buy your bread in a store, take your car to a garage, and pay out hard earned dollars to do the small repair jobs we use to think nothing of doing ourselves. People figured that they were earning so much an hour that taking time from there work to perform these ‘simple’ jobs that could be hired out would ‘save’ them money.
So what has happened is that slowly over the last forty years, people have lost these skills and not passed them down to their children and grandchildren. Just take a look at today’s assortment of cookbooks and you can see where this is all going. Since the 60’s it’s been called “homemade” cooking when a person opens a can of this, a package of that and mixes them together. It’s not really homemade if you’re using a bunch of commercially made processed food - and if you don’t have it sitting on your pantry shelf, you’re out of luck making that dish for dinner.
Whether you know it or not, this entire way of living - cooking, taking care of ourselves -has been manipulated by Corporate America to make us into a nation of people who have NO choices and must spend their hard earned dollars paying other people to process their food and do all the little jobs we’d rather not do ourselves. And while that has been alright during the economic highs of the last few decades, these lack of skills are the reason that many societies have declined and fallen through the ages.
Over the years I’ve preached and preached that we need to go back to doing things the way our great grand parents did them, and about how society needs more back yard gardens, more farmers and fewer city dwellers. But even in cities, people can take their lives into their own hands; use every available space to grow food, while teaching themselves to multitask. Changing people’s attitudes is not easy, but now with the economic crisis, and the United Nations’ report that this is just the beginning of a decline that is going to last at least a decade, people are starting to want to know how to do things and how to become more self-sufficient. That is what I’ll be writing about on this blog.
I am hoping to help you all make some positive changes, showing you the differences between Emergency Preparedness, Self-sufficiency and then how to be a survivalist. By taking baby steps, learning a little at a time, YOU can become as independent as your ambitions warrant and within a year anyone can significantly lower their cost of living.
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