Yesterday here in Mississippi we got hit with a rare snow storm. What was so rare about it was how much snow we got. The last time I measured it was at 8 p.m. and we had 7 inches total. That is not normal for here at all!
This is our deck at 5 p.m. and it was still snowing.
The whole area came to a virtual stand still as Mississippi is not equipped with snow plows and salt trucks. A few counties enacted curfews on traveling not allowing anyone on the roads except for emergency crews from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m. this morning. Hundreds of schools, government offices, businesses, stores, child cares and medical offices closed yesterday and are closed again today.
Now while my family is use to dealing with weather like because we lived most our lives in Michigan, most people down here are not. We had several family members calling us to check on us and when they found out our power was out they wanted to come and get us and take us to their houses where they had power. We told them that we would be fine since we were prepared to deal with things like this.
When the power first went out I went into action gathering the things we would need for a long term power outage. For long term I mean 24 hours not weeks or months. Any way the first thing I did was gather up all the oil lamps and place in much needed places along with boxes of matches. Then I set candles out every where I could along with boxes of matches for secondary lighting if needed. I gave everyone a working flashlight along with an extra set of batteries just in case the batteries in the flashlights died.
Then I pulled out the subzero sleeping bags in case we were with out power all night. I brought all my plants and seedlings into the kitchen then hung blankets over door ways to shut off all but two rooms in the house. Hubby and son had just went that morning and picked up some more kerosene but the house is to big to heat more than 2-3 rooms with the big kerosene heater.
In order to save on kerosene I pulled out warm robes, snuggies and sweathers for everyone to layer up in. After that it was a matter of what and how to cook a hot meal for us.
My son had bought a package of frozen pulled pork the other day so I pulled it out of the freezer and place it in a pan over tea lights to heat up.
Now while my family is use to dealing with weather like because we lived most our lives in Michigan, most people down here are not. We had several family members calling us to check on us and when they found out our power was out they wanted to come and get us and take us to their houses where they had power. We told them that we would be fine since we were prepared to deal with things like this.
When the power first went out I went into action gathering the things we would need for a long term power outage. For long term I mean 24 hours not weeks or months. Any way the first thing I did was gather up all the oil lamps and place in much needed places along with boxes of matches. Then I set candles out every where I could along with boxes of matches for secondary lighting if needed. I gave everyone a working flashlight along with an extra set of batteries just in case the batteries in the flashlights died.
Then I pulled out the subzero sleeping bags in case we were with out power all night. I brought all my plants and seedlings into the kitchen then hung blankets over door ways to shut off all but two rooms in the house. Hubby and son had just went that morning and picked up some more kerosene but the house is to big to heat more than 2-3 rooms with the big kerosene heater.
In order to save on kerosene I pulled out warm robes, snuggies and sweathers for everyone to layer up in. After that it was a matter of what and how to cook a hot meal for us.
My son had bought a package of frozen pulled pork the other day so I pulled it out of the freezer and place it in a pan over tea lights to heat up.
It took about and hour for the pulled pork to thaw and become hot so we could eat it. I made pulled pork sliders and we had potato chips, celery sticks, green pepper strips and carrot sticks for supper along with ice tea to drink. It was not a fancy meal but it was filling and we didn't go hungry. :)
I had also pulled the geny out of hiding when I was gathering everything I thought we would need and while I continued gathering things up my son filled the geny with gas and got it ready to go. I keep my geny in hiding because to many people have asked to borrow it and that is one thing I will not loan out. My hubby is on oxygen and must take some meds using a nebulizer. He needs that geny during power outages.
The power came back on at 7 p.m. and stayed on for an hour then went off again. It finally came back on at 1 a.m. and so far it is staying on. I had told my son yesterday morning that he had better make sure he had is Gameboy and cell phone charged in case we lost power and I made sure my Kindle and my cell phone was charged just in case the power went out. Hubby charged his cell phone to. It was a good thing we did because the Kindle and Gameboy gave us some thing to do and the cell phones were ringing off the hook because family kept calling checking on us.
All in all it didn't get to bad. We never started the kerosene heater or the geny because we really didn't need them. It only got down to 50 degrees in the house and because we were all laying around the den bundled up we were warm and cozy.
People think I am weird because I enjoy little prepping lessons like this but they help me find holes in my preps, test my endurance and gives me a chance to learn what life was like for my ancestors and what better lessons can we learn than that. With all the options we have today they make the hardships we might endure seem like nothing compared to the life they lived daily for years and years.
So I say Thank God for preps and that he has given me the chance to acquire them. For with out them life would be a lot harder.
Prepping Granny
I had also pulled the geny out of hiding when I was gathering everything I thought we would need and while I continued gathering things up my son filled the geny with gas and got it ready to go. I keep my geny in hiding because to many people have asked to borrow it and that is one thing I will not loan out. My hubby is on oxygen and must take some meds using a nebulizer. He needs that geny during power outages.
The power came back on at 7 p.m. and stayed on for an hour then went off again. It finally came back on at 1 a.m. and so far it is staying on. I had told my son yesterday morning that he had better make sure he had is Gameboy and cell phone charged in case we lost power and I made sure my Kindle and my cell phone was charged just in case the power went out. Hubby charged his cell phone to. It was a good thing we did because the Kindle and Gameboy gave us some thing to do and the cell phones were ringing off the hook because family kept calling checking on us.
All in all it didn't get to bad. We never started the kerosene heater or the geny because we really didn't need them. It only got down to 50 degrees in the house and because we were all laying around the den bundled up we were warm and cozy.
People think I am weird because I enjoy little prepping lessons like this but they help me find holes in my preps, test my endurance and gives me a chance to learn what life was like for my ancestors and what better lessons can we learn than that. With all the options we have today they make the hardships we might endure seem like nothing compared to the life they lived daily for years and years.
So I say Thank God for preps and that he has given me the chance to acquire them. For with out them life would be a lot harder.
Prepping Granny