Thursday, September 19, 2019

The Collapse XXXII: A Slight Interruption Of Power


08 Sep 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

This letter represents the first of what I assume will eventually become a standard practice: it was first written out in a journal, and then transcribed to the computer.

When the power came back on.

Yes, you read that correctly. We had a power outage two days ago. It lasted for 5 or 6 hours, then came back. The same event followed the day after. Prior to actually sending this letter out, the power was off for the better part of the day.

The first time jolted me into a state of action – indeed, I had been expecting this for some period of time, but not quite so soon.

My two biggest risks, of course, remain water and refrigeration. Refrigeration, as you recall, I had seen falling off already and so my refrigerator was almost empty anyway. I left it closed the first day until it came back on, then checked into what I had left. My milk was almost consumed, as was my yogurt – so that became dinner. My frozen foods had been dropping off for some time, so I had little enough concern myself with there, except to use up the meat in the yesterday or work to turn into jerky as soon as the power came back on. The fruits and vegetables came back out onto the counter – One more round of dehydration happened as soon as the power came on, and then one more yesterday. At this rate, I shall unplug the refrigerator tomorrow, let it thaw, clean it up, and then shut it. I can always using for storing other things.

The other worry is water, of course – not that my pump is far away, or deep, but it is rather convenient to have it brought into the house. But, sadly, convenient or not, it seems likely that this will end a little sooner than I intended as well. (On the bright side, I suppose, I can drain the water from the non-essential pipes much earlier this year).

I have the manual attachment for pumping, so I made sure that was ready to go. I also made sure that the 5 gallon bottle I had for the convenience of drinking (As I had none on the refrigerator) was filled up, which will probably become the new mechanism of managing my water supply (with a hose, one can fill up a 5 gallon bottle without a great deal of effort. And one does not have to trudge outside quite as often). Watering the garden is going to be more troublesome of course, as I am not quite sure at the moment how I am going to take care of that – but we are entering Autumn right at the moment, so I will have some time to ponder the situation. Fortunately the bees take not water and the quail little, and the indoor rabbits can be managed along with me.

There are a host of problems that I am going to have to work out more fully – showering, of course, as well as simply flushing the toilet – if I can find some bricks, I can load the tank a bit more that way and reduce usage. Washing clothes – my fancy small clothes washer I bought myself will do me no good at all with neither power nor water.

Other things I have prepared for – light of course, and heat, and at least boiling water – but now have to be more fully laid out. I have started a list of what it will take as I begin to start to need to do these things in a more formal fashion.

But for now, the lights are on, the water is in the house and hot, and the toilet flushes. I treasure these items all the more because, all too soon, I fear they are going away.

Ice. Ice requires electricity and water in the summer. I shall perhaps miss it most of all in my drinks.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

11 comments:

  1. will he have to dig a sanitation pit? i take it he has septic system?

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  2. Deb, I will have to go back and look - but I can assure that on the property on which this is based, there is an outhouse. I know. I used it growing up. I think I even have it on the sketch I have for Seneca's layout.

    But it will be miserably cold.

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  3. good thinking
    my mom washed every day but saturday or other special days using the washstand on really cold days
    she admitted to giving it a lick and a promise as long as the visible bits were clean her mother didn't know

    on saturdays they literally bathed in a tub in front of the fireplace with water heated on the stove this was in europe before wwII

    i have 2 potty chairs and lucullius might like such a thing to carry to the outhouse for emptying . this way he can stay inside in the snow times

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  4. i am sorry i meant seneca!

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  5. Deb, I have seen arrangements with plastic buckets, toelet seats, and sawdust. He is a clever fellow, that Seneca. I am confident he will come up with something.

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  6. Good chapter. It's realistic, I think. Even though many of us prepare, we'll all still be trying to figure out things at the last minute. I know I will.

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  7. Thank you Leigh. On the whole, this has been a great mental exercise for me.

    And yes, we will all be trying to figure things out - as some wise person said, No battle plan survives first impact.

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  8. On washing clothes.

    A 5 gallon bucket, a toilet plunger for an agitator (or make one from a bit of wood and a disk of ply) cut a hole in the lid for the agitator handle. fill about 2/3 of water of whatever temp is relevant/possible. Add soap, replace lid and plunge for a minute or so, then add clothes, and get your aerobic workout for the day. You can rinse in the bucket also if needed.

    It's work, but it works.

    When I was sailing long voyages, a week or two, we'd toss the clothes in a heavy net bag and drag it behind us for an hour or so, then rinse if we could. But standards can get a bit relaxed at sea :)

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  9. Wow JR - That's brilliant! Thank you so much for sharing - and thanks for stopping by!

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  10. While I was in Saudi for a year, we used a Rubbermaid two bucket mop system with the mop squeezer. A plunger with 1-2 inches holes cut into it made a great agitator.

    Bucket one was soapy water, bucket two was rinse water. We pointed the squeezer depending on if we were squeezing soapy or rinse water. You started with underwear and such and progressed to nastier clothing. When the soapy water was too nasty you drained it, refilled with rinse water added some soap to the old rinse water and continued.

    A double twisted 550 cord with stout tension was our clothes line.

    Worked well as later we added a hose connection to both buckets so a simple opening of the tap drained it.

    You NEED a 4 X 4 X 4 drain pit as not to get a nasty biting bug swamp where you're washing. Obviously don't allow your dirty water to contaminate your drinking water and cooking facilities. If we had a septic system toilet we might have used that water for flushing.

    BUT make sure the SOAP your using will not harm the septic tank. It's a bad idea to add Clorine, too much fats, oils and harsh chemicals to it. It's a living biome in there.

    Where would you get a septic tank pump out and renewal of biome?

    Something to think about if you have extra people using the septic. They are sized for the average amount of adults living in that home plus a little for surge use.

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    Replies
    1. Michael, thank you for the insights on the practical input on actually using such a system.

      While Seneca is fictional and some of the aspects of his life are, in point of fact The Cabin actually exists - in this case, it has a septic tank - in this case likely sized for two people, so far as I understand. The Ranch is also septic (although much bigger, of course.

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