Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Be Prepared
















Spent the weekend doing lots of odds and ends around the shack. I went through the Bug-out Bag and emergency supplies to make sure the flashlight and radio had good batteries and that the food and water weren't five years past their expiration dates. I usually check everything when the time changes, along with the smoke alarm and furnace thermostat batteries, but the Missus had the special about 9/11 on television so I figured why not do it while I'm thinking about it.

I'm not a black helicopter/conspiracy theory kind of guy but I had a relative killed by a tornado, I've been through several power outages - the last one was four or five days long - and I live next to a grain elevator that brings anhydrous ammonia in on railroad tracks that are little tiny things that are about 100 years old. So, it's not that it can't happen. If it does happen, I don't want to be looking around for a flashlight that works or wondering how I'm going to get out of Dodge when the tanker car of anhydrous is laying on it's side. So I got some fresh gas treated with Sta-Bil for the mower and the tractor and about the only thing left is to fill up a few more gallon jugs of fresh water so I'll have enough to take care of the animals for a few days if the power goes out.

I finished up the swing arm bolt for the Rickati after having to hit two different hardware stores for a couple of 3/4" fine thread nuts - I must be the only guy in the county who uses fine thread bolts.* But there's progress being made and that's the plan anyway. And if you're going to be prepared, you definitely need a plan.

* On the advice of counsel, this post was edited from it's original form.

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