Blessings Darlings!
Lots of folks still without power here on the East Coast. Word is that in Charles Town WV the Burger King, KFC, FOOD LION, etc have had to throw out all their frozen and refrigerated foods. That's a heck of a lot of food!
I have full freezers here - both the freezer part of the refrigerator and the free-standing upright 14.7 cubic foot freezer. What, you ask, would *I* do in an extended power outage during the summer?
FIRST - I'd see if I could get any dry ice. I know that AirGas in Martinsburg sells it, but don't know their hours and have not tried to see if they are open during this since, well, I don't need the stuff. Yes, I have emergency cash on hand to pay for that.
SECOND - I'd wrap the freezer in blankets. I sure don't need them now! And the freezers being so full they'd last 3 days or more with added insulation.
THIRD - I'd can the freezer contents, using a propane-powered camping stove and a case of propane I keep around JUST in case that. Frozen fruits would have sugar and spices added and be canned as pie filling in quart jars (I'd add corn starch when making pies later). Veggies would go in pint or quart jars - and I suppose I might not 'can' them and might make pickles of them instead. The pickles could be water bath canned if power continues out once they are 'done'. Boneless meats go in pint jars, bone-in go in quart jars and get pressure canned. The pork jowl would finally get smoked! The pork shoulder would be smoked, pulled, then canned (maybe in BBQ sauce).
The chicken livers I don't know WHAT I'd do with. Probably make rumaki and eat them rather than try to preserve them further.
Obviously, if we had any ice cream we'd have eaten that early on.
And, of course, we DO have a generator, but in an emergency I might use that only to pump water rather than run the freezer.
Look, it's not like I've got a freezer full of microwaveable dinners or other majorly prepared foods. It's full of 'ingredients' rather than food, as Sharon Astyk might put it. That means that I can MAKE the raw ingredients INTO food and preserve the food.
Showing posts with label Power outage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Power outage. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Monday, July 26, 2010
Powerless
Blessings, Darlings!
It's been bloody hot here lately - massive heat wave, more days over 90 degrees so far this summer than we usually get ALL summer, many days over 100 degrees.
What happens at the end of a heat wave? MASSIVE THUNDER STORMS. Which came thru' yesterday afternoon. At 3 pm the temperature had been 99 or 100 degrees. At 4 pm the temperature was lower, but humidity was 100 percent, there was thunder, pouring rain, and we had no power. For that matter, 400,000 of our closest friends and neighbors had no power, either.
We being, well, into books, we just broke out the reading we were behind on and sat on couches by windows and read. Then napped. Three hours into the blackout I broke out the radio and found out just how widespread the problem was. Not as bad as when Hurricane Isabel came thru', but the worst we've had since then. Lots of roads closed from downed trees, and the trees took down power lines.
Oh, and since power was out at one of the water stations .... again with the water restrictions. Not that anyone was going to water their yards after the rain, or was going to run their dish or clothes washers with no power, eh?
Since we are Prepared For Most Things, I did the cooking part of dinner outside (steamed chicken for 10 minutes, cooked bean thread in same water for 5 seconds). I moved the 1.5 liter bottle of iced tea from the big freezer to the fridge. I did go to the town north of us (where power lines are all buried!) and get a little dry ice just in case we ended up late on the repair list - BGE officials weren't ruling out repairs taking several days.
We got lucky - power was back here at 11:30 pm. Fans! Air conditioning! Most important: we could work today, and that's apparently tied in to paying our bills. And I could can the cherries today that I'd bought but NOT canned when it was 100 dang degrees out.
How's summer treating you?
Frondly, Fern
It's been bloody hot here lately - massive heat wave, more days over 90 degrees so far this summer than we usually get ALL summer, many days over 100 degrees.
What happens at the end of a heat wave? MASSIVE THUNDER STORMS. Which came thru' yesterday afternoon. At 3 pm the temperature had been 99 or 100 degrees. At 4 pm the temperature was lower, but humidity was 100 percent, there was thunder, pouring rain, and we had no power. For that matter, 400,000 of our closest friends and neighbors had no power, either.
We being, well, into books, we just broke out the reading we were behind on and sat on couches by windows and read. Then napped. Three hours into the blackout I broke out the radio and found out just how widespread the problem was. Not as bad as when Hurricane Isabel came thru', but the worst we've had since then. Lots of roads closed from downed trees, and the trees took down power lines.
Oh, and since power was out at one of the water stations .... again with the water restrictions. Not that anyone was going to water their yards after the rain, or was going to run their dish or clothes washers with no power, eh?
Since we are Prepared For Most Things, I did the cooking part of dinner outside (steamed chicken for 10 minutes, cooked bean thread in same water for 5 seconds). I moved the 1.5 liter bottle of iced tea from the big freezer to the fridge. I did go to the town north of us (where power lines are all buried!) and get a little dry ice just in case we ended up late on the repair list - BGE officials weren't ruling out repairs taking several days.
We got lucky - power was back here at 11:30 pm. Fans! Air conditioning! Most important: we could work today, and that's apparently tied in to paying our bills. And I could can the cherries today that I'd bought but NOT canned when it was 100 dang degrees out.
How's summer treating you?
Frondly, Fern
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