A Cautionary Tale

[bee_pipes]

My wife and I have been members of a yahoo group called Organic Homestead Gardening (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/organichomesteadinggardening/) for a number of years. It is a high volume list and has provided us with a number of outstanding ideas to put into practice around here. I would recommend monitoring this list. The posts copied here will have rolled off by the time you look, due to the volume. The founder, a fellow named John, lives on a piece of land called the Last Penny Farm, on a stretch of Kentucky between the Cumberland and Ohio Rivers. They were hit by the recent ice storm and without power or phone for a few weeks. He started writing a diary of what was going on and running through his head during the time.
John is the definition of a frugal lifestyle. They grow their food and get by on as little as possible. You don’t need a lot of expensive gear to get by. The name Organic Homestead Gardening may sound like he’s some sort of tree hugger or granola munching fanatic. Just the opposite. He is a very practical sort of fellow and lives the way he does because it makes sense. He does have a profound respect for nature, but it is not carried to the ridiculous extremes fashionable in the metropolitan areas.
If you have any hopes for the government, FEMA, National Guard, etc. bringing assistance to your area in times of emergency, you should take a look through this. It is Katrina writ small. We are heading into some rough times and reliance upon yourself, your family and neighbors is all that’s going to get you through it. I don’t mean to sermonize or start a chicken little thread – there’s plenty of that going on in the political boards at the bottom of the forum. But if you are looking for solutions to potential problems of the future, this fellow has got them. Personally, I know there are problems and a lot wrong with the world, gov’t, (fill in the blank) but it is just too unproductive to dwell on these problems, rather than find the solutions to head off these problems.
I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I did, and find some inspiration to making preparations of your own.
Regards,
Pat

In the dark: ice storm 2009
Ice fell overnight in the form of hominy snow. A slow rain began first. As the sun set, up came the wind and down went the temperature. Before midnight trees glistened, and spoke like old dried bones before the breath of the north winds off the rivers.
Without awakening Kim, but as fast as I dared, I drew a bathtub of water, and sat buckets under the roof edge to capture whatever moisture the clouds bore, for I knew the power carried in the overhead wires soon would sing no more until the storm did its damage.
Into the well house, I held up the coal oil lantern, checking the inner temperature one last time before draining the water lines, and securing it as best that I could do before returning to the cabin to lay out the kindling, in the wood stove, knowing it’d soon be working overtime to heat the cabin, not knowing even for how long.
Replacing the batteries in Kim’s small transistor radio, little did I know then that it’d be our only contact with life outside these rivers for most of three weeks ahead.
I plugged in her trac cell phone daughter Debbie had given Kim just cause she never could ring through to our land line at night…ahem, someone stayed on internet til the wee hours just before dawn. I forget now who that someone is.
I also plugged in the greenhouse cell phone (a t & t) that went with last years big garden. Not sure what will come of the greenhouse this season as it has yet to be discussed.
Cell towers came down with limbs from ice coated tree limbs and cell phones were of absolutely no use for most of the month. And still, some days, they won’t let us get out on them unless we drive for miles away from these rivers.
1/26/2009
Our power is off. Matches and candles I’d put out last night will wait til dark arrives, the lamps would be put to use as soon as Kim awoke to start her day of worry, for she was born in town, after the war and long after the depression of 1931 and the crash of the stock market. But I’d been without electricity during most of my growing up years, burning solid fuels in a pot belly stove, or a single fireplace in which we also cooked many a meal for the family. With a short path out back to the privy which every one of us used as did most all the area around.
I knew no help would arrive until long after the trees shed their tremendous burden of ice, snow, and water. Overnight, I watched the rains fall and the ice grow along the wires grapes stretched their arms across. Ice wrapped tight around the huge oak trees that surround our homestead, yet stood upright, strong and ready to protect us from harm like a fortress of trees not yet bending beneath the burden of ice heaped upon their backs.
All the night through I remained alert, ready for whatever danger the storm brought along. As the sun came up the day was dreary as the rain continued, and ice pebbles pelleted the metal roof of our cabin and out buildings like b bee’s bouncing off tin cans. Their tapping soon became a melody that provided its own type of tune.
Our cabin held.
As ice built up on the roadways, we watched the younger generation speed up and down the road going nowhere for the stores soon sold out of everything on their shelves, and gasoline pumps could no longer operate without the electricity to power them. No one offered gravity fed fuels, not even kerosene; all had to be pulled from tanks buried in the earth or not at all.
The world shut down by dark. Nothing could move on that solid sheet of ice outside, not even road crews tho they did the best that they could, making sure the brine was down before the storm arrived, then waiting. Always waiting to see what it left behind when it stopped. IF it stopped, which they always do.

Schools and everything else is closed. The radios didn’t tell us that, the weather spoke those things to us. That night the telephones lines went down as trees began to bend then break under the continuing loads of ice showering down upon them. Air waves were silent. Not even they had electricity enough to send a signal out.

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When the weather shuts things down you quickly find out who your friends are. Our new neighbors were the first to venture out. Riding four wheelers, I watched them leap over downed trees and limbs as out they came from their dead end lane down which they and two more families live. Bringing their chain saws and pulling a small trailer heaped down with seasoned oak, they made their way down our drive, dodging barbed wire downed limbs had lain on the ground, and around obstacles thrown out by the storms they came right up to our front door, surprised to find me standing out front watching them weave their way through the debris.
Neighbors helping neighbors. Young helping oldsters. Oldsters helping the younger ones. The senior center was closed, and the assisted living apartments as well as the rest homes were without. Without power, without water, without much food, without help for shifts could not change as the roads were too hazardous even for emergency vehicles even if 911 had of worked which it didn’t. Nor telephones. Nor cell phones. Nor ham band radios that were not auxiliary powered.
A few of the younger people helped clear the roads of debris. Others made a few bucks sawing downed trees off houses, tarping roofs limbs had penetrated, while other folks who contacted insurance companies got paid to do what most of us did cause it needed doing.
Most every tree within eyesight has lost its top-cover. No place for nesting by our feathered or fur beings. They also needed our help and it is our duty to come to their aide or rescue. For we are stewards of mother earth.
Late that afternoon, I kept hearing the cry of an eagle. For too long, I heard but ignored it, for I was pre-occupied pushing wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of firewood up to the cabin for Kim to pile on the porch to have handy for the ever increasing storm. “Wonder what it is trying to tell us?”, Kim asked.
Turning, I focused on it as it dipped and wove its way around and between the oaks. It cried, and then I heard a fainter cry in answer. Out into the woods I went in spite of Kim’s pleading with me not to. From the woods, a mighty oak limb split, taking a young laying eagle and her nest down with it, trapping them beneath the weight of the iced over limb against another fork ten or so feet off the ground. I asked Kim to fetch the rappelling rope, which she tossed out to me. The first few tosses I missed the limb I sought but hit it on my third try.
With a bow saw held in place under a gallous of my bibs, up the tree I climbed, slipping often until I finally got a leg hooked over the fork. Kim tried to talk me out of the woods, and begged me to not climb a tree but I had to. No one else would have. And a good eagle would have died.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been eye ball to eye ball with a mother eagle on nest. This time was a bit different circumstance, but she was in trouble and I her only help before death. Her own guardian angels were working over-time protecting her and summonsing additional aide and assistance.
Using the bow saw, as she sat deathly still, I sawed away a larger limb wedged above us, and I pushed it far out so it’d fall to the ground out of the way. With my sweater, I got the bird inside it and gently lowered her to the ground; the he eagle circling above shouting at me all the while.
It lay still on the ground. Kim told me that it seemed like its wing was injured but once it was safely back on the ground again, and I had the bird out of the sweater, I found a sliver of wood had gone through one wing tip so I eased it on out, and treated the injury with what I had on hand.
The nest was an older one. Probably one used by a hawk or an owl. As the eagle flew over again, singing out to its mate, the she bird took wing and rose up to meet him in the air, reminding me of a kite I once flew when I was a boy in Lynch Kentucky first learning how to.
Day 3:
This third day of the storms shows us how ill equipped other folks are for handling emergencies of any kind. And how we were protected us from the wrath of the storm and the destruction others suffered were like a war zone.
We lost a lot too, just not as much as others around us did. We were blessed and protected by the old ones that often walk in my gardens and sing songs about hunting, old enemies, a warm fire, and friends. I am surrounded by many guardian angels and old ones that once roamed this land when it was young.
Wood heat, by itself won’t warm this entire cabin. As I explained to Kim why that is and how things used to be before central heat, before propane, before electricity, I shut off all the inner rooms except the ones that have no doors, but I hung a quilt from the back bedroom so most of the heat stayed back here where our computer and bookcases are, by the woodstove. I closed off the vents and the cold air duct on the propane workings, and opened them back here so a little heat would go under the cabin in hopes of keeping the water pipes from freezing. They froze anyhow, but minimally. As did the drains.
I told Kim that we need to be in the ground with a south facing wall that opens outward. In the future, homes had best be built that way for better warmth, and for safety of food supplies for this depression has just begun and will deepen much before it eases in the future.
Homes today are built around the bathroom, a big kitchen, and water. Far better the home with waterless commode, and water lines better protected from wind and cold. If we could, we’d move the water tank and piping into this cabin so when power is off, nothing freezes and destroys everything we’ve tried to create.
Wood everywhere, yet few harvest it. The others wait for us to cut it to size, cure it, deliver it free or at little cost and stack it just so. Out here, a woodsplitter is a good investment, I got our splitter from Sears but our new neighbor lent us one of his so Kim and I both could split so I could teach her how to, in case she’d ever have it to do by herself. Yawl probably call em a splitting maul.
Yet, it is peaceful out here. Some have four-wheelers and ride about like the weather is game to play. Until they run out of fuel. It does help some get around tho our Jeep would take us anywhere we might want to go, there’s no where we want TO go. Even though the power has been off three days now, the water most likely is frozen, pump house and all. But we are snug enough in our little cabin along the rivers west.
This little Ashley isn’t enough to heat our entire cabin. We keep it cool in hopes our freezers won’t thaw again taking all of our fresh frozen stored food this go around. (But, they did).
Trees are nice having them near your home except during an ice storm, or wind storms. To be safe, make sure the nearest tree capable of attaining a height of thirty or more feet is at least fifty feet away in all directions of your cabin.
We may be able to take pictures with the old Nikon. Our digital camera is dead since the batteries ran down. So don’t give your film type cameras away just yet. Or get yourself a solar recharge like electric fences out here use.
When you must rely on your woodstove make sure you cover the cold air duct on your central unit and shut the vents except ones near water services. Be sure your smoke and carbon dioxide detectors work and you have an alternate plan for escape when communication lines are down.
Have your own fire extinguishers up and working as well as your wild fire tools. It is a good plan to keep a fire path sixteen feet all the way around your homestead to help you fight it away. A barrel with water, an old gunny sack, old mop with the handle cut off, a straw broom all are good outside fire fighting tools. And if the water is frozen, keep the tools wetted down with snow or pond water.
Keep all fuel tanks filled. You never know when one will be needed. And when the power is off, so are refueling tanks, and the mad rush to find fuel begins.
Buy lamp oil before it is needed. You can get the fancy colored and scented liquid paraffin for about 4 bucks a pint or buy one gallon of kerosene for five bucks or less. Kim and I try to keep 3 gallons of it on hand. For our lamps and also for an oil heater, for…in case of. I like our propane heater better than the oil one for the propane has not as much smell and heats quicker. It is also easier to light and the propane heater doesn’t clog your nose with black gunk like the oil heaters do. But we could not get to either one of them due to the ice, plus the tree through the roof of our little barn where they are stored.
Energizer makes a plug in flashlight of sorts. The high side for a wider area of coverage. It’s name is Weather Ready. I suggest you get two or four of this and keep them plugged in for times like now when night walking is dark and a candle or an oil lamp isn’t enough nor practical.
Day 4:
The flashlights are still working. We use them maximum of one hour per day. To walk out to the potty, or to select a log to lay into the woodstove. And to see by when we take the dogs out.
This little Ashley woodstove isn’t the hoss its Great Grandpa was. The hardware store we got it from said that ‘is’ the only size Ashley now builds. Our old one could burn coal or wood and heat the farm house nice and toasty. Of course that house was well insulated and made from white oak off the farm there. It was burned, stove and all. I’d not buy another Ashley like this one.

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By candle light, I write. I could have used my old manual Royal Typewriter once used for making my Dads church bulletins. I keep ribbons for this typewriter for in case of. Manuals are still used in many countries, and the Amish can use ones like it.
Today, I thawed off the Jeep. It stood buried beneath six or so inches of ice, topped by four inches of snow. The roof of the jeep, being metal like the one on this cabin, leaks. Fore and aft. Port to starboard.
Including the porch and this add on as well as thru the sun roof on the Jeep. The cabin had limbs from the big oak tree yonder (Jon points) on top of it for 3 days during the worst of the ice storm, plus almost a foot of ice on top of that. As ice or snow melts from the bottom up, the path of least resistance seemed to be straight down into this cabin. I cut off over a ton of limbs from the roof (I’ll post them if the power ever comes back on here-remind me that I’ll need to re-load that A40 powershot camera thingy again Tammy).
I fear for the well piping again. The heat light has been out since the power went off, so with no heat and no slow flow to keep it from freezing: we won’t know until the power comes back on. And sometimes, not then.
Fears arise as old folks, knowing there are no funds to replace certain things, nor energy enough to, again, wonder. Like fruit trees destroyed by the storm. Blackberry plants and grapes; cuttings too, along with one hundred feet of trellising or more depending on how it looks once all the tree limbs are removed and cleared away. It’s worse when it happens than later once all that’s damaged sinks in.
I’ll be growing peaches, apples and pears from seed this spring in hopes of the farmers market sale spring of 2010-2012, and brambles too though I’ll be growing them by layering like I showed Mary Luce how to do when she came to visit. You can also root plants using leaf snippings.
Just because I lost them all does not mean I’ll give up planting out more.
After a bit we will attempt to go to the spring for flushing water. I’m keeping the snow and ice in case of…trying to salvage freezer stuff. If not, we will get rid of the freezers and not trust them again. For times will get worse not better for a long long time to come.
Kim and I eat one major meal a day now since the power is out and our food supplies are based most on what is stored in the freezers. Next year it won’t be, but right now it is. We try to finish our meal and clean up prior to dark. And dark arrives these days a little after five.
Kim talks of getting a generator like so many of our neighbors have done while I talk softly to her in hopes she will understand that we do not need a gen set to survive, only a different way of storing our food supplies. Over half of my life has been spent with rustic forms of power: manpower, lamp power, wood power, horse/mule power, and an older farm tractor most would not use in this era.
In spite of all the storm damage around, we were blessed that nothing serious fell across the cabin like so many round these parts suffered.
One heavy limb fell across this back part and leaks appeared. And we did have a huge limb splinter off a tree down below and now sits on top of our barn roof. We also lost two hives of honey bees thanks to the weather. One lost due to limbs smashing one, the other because ice demolished one as a massive sheet of ice slid out of an oak tree down upon it splintering the whole thing while the cluster of bees froze before I could get them re-hived.
The ice brought down the TV. antenna, but somebody told us that after February the old antenna won’t work for local channels anyhow. We will again have to rely on radio. Or so it seems. We don’t subscribe to dish TV. all the time and the old antenna systems no longer will work.
Kim has a Sony Walkman, transistor we’ve depended on during this storm. Plus an older Noah weather radio that still works. And I have a c.b. radio but it isn’t hooked up just now for I have no starduster or set of beams to talk off of.
Wish you all could walk the homestead with me and see how few big trees are left. The sky line has changed but there are sticks aplenty for trellising once I get the gardens cleaned. My work is cut out for me if I intend to use the front garden ever again. The wood sure will come in handy tho for the trying years ahead.
Our meal today may be home canned tomatoes, spaghetti, cold apple sauce, and corn bread. With coffee and tea, of course, to push it down with.
Day 5:
Still no power here. No telephones. Today I split a cord of wood and stacked it into the wood shed. Neighbors to the front cut their way out to the main road-the one we live on-only to find more downed trees, no phones, no power, but they wanted honey so I traded em honey for use of their splitting maul. Off they went in search of a gen set. They have young children and they themselves are young. But their generator was a good idea for they brought us well water from their house after they got the generator installed and working.

I told Kim that we won’t be getting a generator due to its price and upkeep. But we do have work inside the cabin that must be fixed. Myself can be satisfied with a privy but some who never used one does not want to start. Kim won’t shower in the river, nor bath in it like I do. I’ll never get her to. She so misses the water since we don’t have it right now since the power is off and the water pipes most likely frozen.
During the afternoon, I put 3 sweet potatoes into water for them to start creating my sweet potato slips. Once the weather warms enough, I’ll put them outside neared the growing beds to root vine cuttings in as the mother plant produces them.
We read and/or write by candle light once night arrives. There is enough work during daylight hours to keep us both busy. Our lamps are okay for eating but for writing one candle suffices in order to save our lamp oil for more important tasks.
Supper tonight was thawed corn off the cob, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, tea for me and coffee for Kim. Earlier I fixed scrambled eggs with cheese while Kim fried us sausages. I made toast in the cast iron skillet and our daily spoonful of honey went over it. After supper, I dug out several splinters from me fingers and hands from the wood splitting process.
Kim giggled at remarks made on her radio. Folks called in to ask the simplest of questions. Questions any one of yawl could have told them the answer to. How to make toast in the oven. How to heat water on the stove. Even how to heat water on a wood stove.
The M.C. didn’t know but other folks called in on their cell phones to tell how to.
Our phones and power both went off with the first drop of hominy snow. And both are still off. But power is being restored to nearby towns. No two towns have the same power supplier in this neck of the woods but they all are focusing on the elderly assisted living facilities, the senior citizens centers which none have showers, and rest homes as well as businesses since they are so few of them to service the populace these days without a thirty mile drive to a bigger town.
Fortunately we still have pencils and paper to wile away the time just like we had in my youth. Unlike many who no longer have snail mail supplies, often I’ll write an OHG member. Even ones we don’t ship seed out to, and I still trade recipes with church missionaries just like my mom used to do, and a few missionaries that do not cook. We sent surplus books to missionaries at Christmas time.
The main roads are clear and cleaned of ice and snow. Even though we have not been out as yet, others stop by to tell us how life is back in the real world.
More trees came down overnight. Ancient oaks, maples, black gum, and willows. I lost most of my peach trees over night. They simply broke off at the base due to the weight of ice on them. My apples still stand, and so far the berry plants are holding the ice on the trellises out front but I suspect that as the ice begins to melt, the grapes, and brambles too will succumb to this weather.
Many seed catalogs arrived in today’s mail. The delivery person honked cause our drive is still clogged with downed branches which I must leave alone until the fence can be repaired to hold in the horse, the turkeys, and chickens.
This storm has changed our direction about fruits to order since over 75% of ours were destroyed by falling limbs. It will be mid summer before I get them all cleaned up for I’ll push them to the side in order to plant the gardens.
Then there’s the barn to rebuild or fix the roof, and plumbing to re-do, and a sill under the pantry to replace. We gave up in trying to fix leaks in the metal roof until the ice melts and it is safe to clear limbs off to discover the problems and fix them if we are able to.
Kim and I are giving thought to digging a basement outside then move down into it then tear this cabin down, or slide it over the dug out. Or simply be happy that we have what we do have.
Over the snow twas easier to lay down a thin topping of wood ashes over the front garden bedded down with wheat straw. And, while the fallen limbs destroyed our trellising and fruits, the limbs will keep us warm and fuel our bon fires as well as provide ample sawdust for meat curing and mulches for the new gardens.
Day 6:
Fema arrived. Or so rumors come down via the word of mouth grapevine. It is said FEMA has generators for un-insured home owners but that’s a bunch of bull. Nothing for renters it is assumed. Nor home owners with insurance. How long they’ve been in the area no one seems to know. Nor exactly where FEMA is, since nobody has contact outside our circle of community. No power moot with no heat, no water, little food for most, no phones, no cells service, no way out even if the way was open. Which it ain’t. Not even yet here off the main path people follow.

Area students of Murray state college were told to be back for classes Feb. 2nd. Without phones, nor cells, nor texting, many went expecting MRE’s from FEMA per local emergency radio info (a.m. 527). When the kids got back to Murray College they discovered that FEMA was NOT offering anything free but the students had to purchase from local retailers. Surprise surprise!
Most of us here at home don’t want anything from FEMA. Not that anything was offered. We’d just like for them to hightail it back home or back where they came from for they just get in the way without accomplishing anything.
Our Kentucky National Guard helped folks much more than a FEMA even thought about.
Some in our area have generators which cost them ten bucks a day to operate. We cannot afford that and wouldn’t even if FEMA really did have some for us to use. Who’d haul them to us way out here? Who’d set them up correctly? Who’d feed them since gasoline cannot be pumped with no power?
We lost both freezers of food this time for sure. While the temperature outside would have kept the foodstuff frozen, the one night we put the foods outside, wildlife animals fought over it and skunks sprayed frozen packets of food so that no one could stand to get near it the next day and those foods were given up for lost.
I gave a lot of the food not spoiled to the sherrif for sharing with folks who had none or needed it most.
We also lost all that was in our refrigerator for the same reason.
This spring we will build us an ice box on the front porch for use overwinter and on cold days in order to better utilize natural cooling and less power.
Our small circle here along the rivers ate well today. Soup in a lard can; corn bread in a turkey pan, coffee by the bucket, those who cut our way out, ate. For some of them had salt spreaders to drive. Others were hired as temps to clear roadways of debris using farm tractors and chain saws while others saw to the neighbors and other river people.
Kim and I use our oil lamps which also throw out some heat. Tonight she and I played scrabble and made up a passel of new words. We ate French fried taters, fried chicken warmed over, apple sauce, coffee and tea. We used the last of our milk and eggs on the corn bread. I put beans in to soak tonight in snow water. And collected more snow water for flushing duty.

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Just least month we got new lamp wicks. We trimmed the old ones and made ready their globes and workings for…in case of. Electric lights are not dependable enough out here; lamps are if they are kept trimmed and with oil enough at hand.
Most everyone out here now has a way to get supplies in via the workers who go off the Paducah to work, or to Hopkinsville, or cross river on the ferry boat and beyond. Kim and I make do on what’s left. No reason to head out to market. But I do need to reload some shotgun shells. I do need to put a roll of 35mm film in my old Nikon. The digital batteries died like all our other battery gadgets from lack of rechargings.
I got the Jeep out for a short jaunt to neighbors to make sure they were alright since everything in 6 counties is shut down. Both sides of the rivers. One thing is fact; our c.b. radios work. Some solar powered, word gets around. By commercial fishermen, woods workers, and other independents.
Our firewood is holding up good so far with plenty more out there (Jon points) free for the hauling. Sight seers have flown over all day in Lear Jets, piper cubs, hell of a copters, and C130’s.
Rumors tell us that the Governor was in the plain white one flying the power lines that weren‘t down dropping leaflets that no one took time to go fetch. I haven‘t checked the signs lately but the moon today told me it is time to pull poison ivy and whatever else needs eradicated.
Radio A.M. 1100 just said power for down here was weeks away. More like a month if not more so in many places off these main trails.
Kim feeds the woodstove during the day and I do at night and try to grab 3 or 4 hours of sleep a day or day dream. Today I’ve got to split more fire wood. Tis forecasted to snow if station WBVR F.M. is correct.
When I awaken tomorrow it will be one week since the ice storm arrived and we are no closer to being out of it than we were a week ago. Tomorrow it is said to be near fifty degrees. The honeybees will break cluster to clean the hives.
We have lost two hives due to storm damage. We need to have 3 huge oaks removed but won’t be able to. Folks now want over a thousand dollars to take down a tree and leave it lay. More to remove it. Thanks to the storm we had to drive 100 extra miles; just under 500 miles this month.
Day 8:
Neighbors work to help ones with no power, no water, no stored foods, no heat, nor way to cook. While we lost most of the contents of two freezers plus a side by side refrigerator freezer we still endure through our pantry and dried foods plus peanut butter (see OHG recipe garden for how to make your own peanut butter) we had to go into town five miles away today for saw gasoline. My days of cross cut sawing have fled. Tho I do split our firewood by hand, and split a full rick of red and white oak this afternoon getting ready for the snow tonight into tomorrow.
Lost the contents of our freezers. Since almost loosing it all before, this time when it all thawed, some of the meats were rancid, and others just too far gone to try to save. We put some of it outside at night into the cold sub zero weather, and during the night we heard animals fighting and found the animals to be skunks that tainted the meat that they didn’t consume so it had to be buried. But our pantry and dried foods plus our peanut butter (See OHG Recipe Garden for how to make your own peanut butter, organically).
We had to go into town today five miles away for saw gasoline. My days of cross-cut sawing have fled. Although I do split our firewood by hand, and split a full rick of red and white oak this afternoon getting ready for the snow due tonight into tomorrow.
Our meal today was oven baked river fish, canned green beans, canned tomatoes, coffee and tea, pumpernickel bread with honey. Farm Bureau in Smithland is being remolded and claims are being handled via their 800 number but most of us no longer have real telephone service and the cell phones can’t be charged with power off and all the cell phone towers out of service or so it says.
Kim has a trac-phone but cannot keep it charged either for no one down here offers car chargers so we are down for the count on that score even tho Kenneth is still allowing us to use his family (A t & t) cell phone on nights and weekends when the no charge rule applies. The towers that allow cell phones to get out are not working, either.
One of the vendors in the Farm Market last season is not participating this season and the county won’t be sponsoring one unless there are enough vendors to justify it. Kim and I will still offer what produce we don’t need ourselves. But we will take care of our neighbors needs first, and then take what’s left to market.
Not sure where we’ll be setting up if the county doesn’t sponsor us, we may use the Amish method of selling our produce from home base. Time will tell on that for our now neighbors want to form a co-op garden between our families within one mile diameter of right here.
We all still have our wells. Two of them have generators now and the other two have the land but no gardening know how. We shall watch cautiously how that progresses. Kim and I can grow most of our vegetative needs right here on our last penny farm. And the rivers provide meat enough if we care to go harvest it.
Once I get our computer back on power I intend to snail mail the white house with suggestions about alternative power and the power carriers vs. Mother Nature.
Day 9:
Today we tossed out the last of the foodstuff in the freezers and fridge. I’ll be stirring up a big ol pot of pioneer stew to last maybe until the weekend. Later, Kim will help me tug the freezer out and onto the front porch. We will can our stuff from now on, or pickle it, or smoke cure it, or dry it, or ferment it, and keep only foods we’ll use in a week or two in one of the freezers.
Prognostication for power restoration is eight to twelve weeks for most, but we will have ours for the line came through this county from the river TOWARD Smithland and it’ll be repaired in the order the lines were laid when it first entered this county. I’ll have our main gardens in by the time some folks get power restored.
The rivers are out of bank due to ice melting down. Icy clear waters we harvest for closet duties, bathing, washing, and flushing when needed. Standing on the bank, you can watch fish jump up to catch bugs to eat. Spring won’t be far behind this melt. We heard on the radio today that more Kentucky jobs were lost as more and more companies are laying off people.

2009 will be a lean and hungry year for many. A good time to buy a few acres of land in the country even if you aren’t going to put a house or trailer on it, you’ll have land to grow fruit and food on, and if needs be you can have a dug out, or build a lean too to live in if needs be to not be homeless. 2010 won’t be much better nor 2011 either. Unless you have your own garden somewhere, and grow most or part of your fruit and foods.
Kim and I talk about unhooking from the grid and trying our hand at windmilling power the old way and having a cistern backup with hand pump for our complete water supply. I can use a bucket in the deep well but I’ll have to pull the pump to do so.
We could put the computers on battery power under a solar charger. Getting local high speed internet over their dish networking and getting phones with a happy jack.
I’ve been reading library books about it for three years or more.
Plus my career had been in heavy machinery (parts).
With an old D-4 Cat mag for a regenerator up on a thirty foot windmill tower built to the order of a weather vane rotation sitting on a ring gear of bull gear and pinion out of an older I.H. 175B track loader it might just be enough to back up solar to keep a bank of 8-d’s charged. A converter from Transelectric can change if from DC to AC. Or we might just convert it all over to 12VDC power on experimental basis to start. Small camper trailers run on dc current including their refrigerators and other equipment and lights.
You “can” rig up vehicles to generate enough electricity to power themselves once the tires rotate one full circle. Power can also be generated with a water wheel. Times like these are thinking times. Time to focus on things positive; not being comeplacement.
You can convert from gasoline to propane by changing your carburetor to burn either with a flip of a switch. You can even grow your own alcohol and burn it instead. Propane burns cleaner, thus helping your engine live to be a ripe old age.
The flame at oil wells is natural gas being wasted. Gas that can power any naturally aspirated engine by refining the engines fuel injection system plus a few minor details. You younger folk ought to be inventing those things again for the first time.
Day 10:
Kim took me into Paducah today to get more lamp oil. I’m not out of it yet, just trying to find a pump in order or a hand operated tank so that we won’t run out of oil before the power comes back on. Gotta keep our lamps trimmed and ready and our oil in good supply. Pumps in this area won’t work without electricity. Perhaps a few will return to the older forms of supply fuels with above ground tanks and gravity flow tanks, or hand turned pumps.
I lent five gallons of lamp oil to a horse and buggy neighbor who has little children and an oil heater in his living room. They also have farmstead animals to milk in a dark barn as they’d used all of their lamp oil heating their home since they were also out of firewood. I also lent them one of our chainsaws. There is wood enough from the ice storm just lying about, free for the hauling.
I still had 2 ½ gallons of coal oil which would last us 3 weeks for night lighting, reading, or game playing but I do not like to cut it that close in case of a back to back power outage, or other problem.
Kim stopped by Phelps brothers and I picked up another bag of bird feed. He was the only store without power that did not hesitate of selling us what we wanted without complaining about not having power to run the cash register or not able to figure sales tax without a computer or the regular business machines.
Kim asked me “what if we could not have gotten any more lamp oil this year?”
I smiled then told her, “Why we’d just make it like we used to. From coal, or from pine trees.”
Not as easy as buying it. Maybe. But doable. I’ve got to go out today and harvest more wood. Being now without a truck, getting wood in is a huge chore when wood is your only heat. And for all other homestead chores as well.
I don’t like for Kim to know how drastic things are here, nor how much we truly have lost out in the gardens and around.
Day 11:
Lights flickered on then right off early this morning. I was still asleep for I take the night watch to keep the woodstove running on high while Kim sleeps, and she takes the early morning shift until I awake and go out to do the days chores.
A neighbor was out of food so we took them to Paducah to stock up but found Walmart about out of everything of worth to country people. These folks needed oats for children’s breakfast, and dry beans. I ‘could’ have handed that to them from our storehouse but they should have known better than to not stock up enough to last the winter. He said they’d used the oats to feed his Morgan and Belgian work horses and had run out. Phelps brothers had some though.
Things in Paducah were at near panic stage. Merchandise was flying off the shelves like tomorrow all; suppliers would be gone and they just might be. We were reminded all over again of the chaos of the New Orleans storm it was almost that frantic.
Stores today without electricity are like a little lost dog. What if there simply was not anymore power, ever. It’s coming! We picked up a case of double ought for another neighbor, and two steel traps. Snares always worked for me in my younger years, and I spect they will still, if needs be.
Not shaving in awhile, I resemble a bachelor Amish fellow down the road. Cept for the clothes and suspenders. I may let it stay to cover up my shingle scars. Last night, Kim and I enjoyed an hour or so of scrabble.
Day 12:
Fema arrived on the scene. Ahem...Or so we were told. We never once saw any body from FEMA. We did however see a couple of army trucks speed by. Later we found out our governor had summonsed them to help out doing the national disaster down here. We never saw any fresh water offered, nor food of any kind, nor warm rooms to go to…of course we didn’t have power for television nor real radio so information didn’t reach us for two weeks during the worst part of what is being called now Kentucky’s worst disaster in recorded history…sigh, kids!

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[bee_pipes]

Power came on some time in the afternoon while we were out helping our neighbors get out to the main road, or taking a Dutch oven of just made deer stew to a older couple down the road a piece with no pantry and no way out since senior centers fled doing all the bad weather.
After getting our water pipes unfrozen, and the pump house thawed, neighbors came from miles away just to take a warm shower, or to warm by our woodstove and enjoy a bowl on home made organic soup, green bean casserole, snow cream, and home baked corn bread. As folks kept on coming, we made mashed potatoes and gravy and baked the last of our sweet potatoes that didn’t freeze.
The federal emergency plan of food and water enough for three days won’t work. Not even a week supply won’t in some locales. Not with an ice storm such as we just went through and people who trusted their feed to local stores or to Walmart 20 miles away. Help isn’t quick in arriving. At least FEMA help isn’t, nor was state help. They may have helped in the more populous areas but never arrived here in the outback til things were almost back to normal. Insurance agents have yet to show up.
OHG’S emergency plan worked far better than any other one I’ve heard about. Ours works! We had snow a day or so ago to slow things way down plus heap more damages. On many. Not planning for ‘in case of’s’ is as crazy as grilling out at an oil refinery.
Lights were off again before dark.
Day 11:
Temperature soared into the 50’s after being four below for the past 3 days and nights. Winds raged driving the temperatures lower than below zero in unprotected areas. We brought up close to the cabin 3 mules that belonged to folks that had headed out with their children hunting for food and a warm place for the children. Today when the temperature rose, we took the mules back to their own pastures and made sure the fences were all up enough to hold them. We got a farmer to donate a round bale of hay for them, and I’ll pay them back come spring in tomatoes.
Many area farmers lost all or most of their fencing when tree tops came sailing down smashing away the fences, and weighting down everything under the trees. One farmer lost 21 head of cattle that fled toward the river the first night trees began to fall. We rounded up most of them though.
Day 12:
Honeybees came off cluster today and straight to my feeders. This time I had saved some of last years pollens and had pollen and real powdered sugar mixed waiting for them.
Day 13:
The power still flickers off then on then off again. We were ready for it in case of. I’d refilled our water barrel with 50 gallons from the pump house, plus the bath tub. During the thaw, I’d funneled melt water into our cistern and it is almost brimming full of ice melt in case it is needed. If not, I’ll have it for irrigation come summer.
Once our power comes on we were asked to leave the porch lights on during the night so passersby would know that power was going on in some places and that others would soon be getting their power back as well.
Seeing a porch light on after so long being in the dark gave people hope. Hope that they too soon would have power restored. School started today but the kids were brought back home before noon due to a water sewer back up problem.
Our power came back on for awhile just before dark.
Day 14:
School kids went all day today and unless tonight’s wind and rain storms give us much more damage, looks like public schools are back up and running as of now anyhow. I think there’ll be a lot of free wood out that once things get back to normal and people get back to work at the few jobs still left active in this area.
Today I started 3 more sweet potatoes in containers to root and give me sweet potato slips. Won’t be so long now before Irish potato planting time. I’ve already planted some out into the gardens, but the rest I’ll plant under straw thanks to another neighbor giving me a few bales.
No telephones have yet been restored in the area. Windstream said on the radio that they would not get the phones back on line until all power has been restored and the lines cleared of falling debris.
That, will take awhile. So we might try to restring our phone lines tomorrow. Some neighbors have already done it and they have phone service. Time will tell.
First Robin sighting today in the back yard plucking worms from the ground under one of the peach trees that was broken off at ground level due to weight of ice.
High winds have arrived. It’s midnight here along the rivers west, and I hear it howling out there. More hangers will come down under such winds and I expect we will be again without power for awhile. At least now we have both cell phones recharged. The Nokia holds a charge longer than Kim’s tracphone does, but now I have a recharger for Kim’s phone that works in the Jeep.
It’s hard to ship seed out to folks when the info is stored inside a computer that can’t work without electricity. We didn’t buy a generator set like so many of our neighbors did. Once they got it on line and running, they had no source for gasoline to refill it with without driving halfway to Nashville for all the pumps hereabouts must have electricity in order to pump.
Tomorrow we’ve got to go back into Paducah for supplies to start refilling one freezer not two this time around. We have moved the freezers and once we get a bit more help, we will drag them out onto the front porch and build a cage for them to sit in for weather protection.
I’m still having problems with the shingles. May have lost hearing out of my left ear due to shingles settling in it, and my eyes have dimmed some because of it. Haven’t been back to doctor yet for costs of fixing stuff around here took care of funds for a doctors visit. You all know what I mean for yawl have the same problem from time to time.
Most times I can ignore health problems and treat my self with herbs and bullheadedness. Kim has also been off her meds since before the storm hit. Maybe we can get some for her this month. I think she is doing better without them. It’s a hard decision to make some times.
Day 15:
Strong winds, and rain moved in over night. Not sure we will be going into town today or not. Bills to be paid before end of the week so we may not go today but wait til the rains stop in hopes of fairer weather.
I’m going to have to get one of the neighbor boys to go up on the barn roof to saw away the tree log lying on top of it. I simply no longer can climb that well, and am a bit wobbly on a ladder. Kim says it is because of this scabby thingy disease settling in my ear. She might be right at that.
The storm destroyed most all of my grape trellising, and brambles along with all of my fruit trees, shrubs, and all but 8 of my grape vines. Insurance won’t cover squat. But I never expect outside help anyhow. Not from insurance companies at least. Neighbors are where help comes from. And it is also given that same way.
I think today I’ll lay out the plant bed and decide what varieties I’ll start outside under clear plastic or cheese cloth. I’ll have lettuce and radish to eat before the end of this month if all goes well and no more ice storms or deep snow arrives.
I think Kim will try to mail off my Pinetree and Nichols Garden catalog orders today. She plans to call them to get a total total then double check with me to make sure I want what I’ve circled once she tells me how much it is.
I’ve several more seed catalogs to go through to see what else I may want to plant and grow this season. Perhaps special things for marketing…in case we have a place to. Main thing is to plant and grow enough to refill our empty canning jars and to figure how much more to grow for canning since we won’t trust the freezers for that any more.
Day 16:
Still no telephones fixed yet. I have dial up internet so we cannot get back on line until the utilities are repaired and seeing the downed trees it may be yet awhile longer.
As soon as I get the film all shot, I’ll take it off and have it developed and post pictures in OHG photo albums of the few pictures I finally got time to shoot of the remains and damage here at our place and a few more area places. The digital camera ran out of battery juice, and we no longer had 35mm film for my cameras until we went to Paducah the first time to get some for insurance proof…that was a waste of time! I’ve still not yet recharged the digital camera.
For some reason I cannot unload the Cannon Power shot A 4o camera in this computer. Still scratching my head over that problem.

Day 17:
Still no telephones. Storms and high winds predicted for overnight and tomorrow (day 18 tomorrow is) with expected power outages, and more downed trees to add to the already severe damages. Here at the Last Penny Farm we lost all of our mature fruit trees, all but two maybe 3 of our blackberries and raspberries. Our peaches all split or broke off at the bottom graft. Same with our apples, pears, plums, cherries, nectarines, apricots, persimmons, mulberries, plumcots, apriums, paw paw, elderberries, grapes, dewberries, gooseberries, blueberries, and more.
Kim took me into Paducah today to replace a few supplies we lost to the storm and losses from the freezers. Most to stock up for ‘in case of’ we have enough to sustain us for many days to come. We got lamp oil to replace our outages of it, and to keep oil on hand and our lamps ready and our wicks, trimmed.
We found a plant sale going on at Lowes and I picked up 2 rhubarb roots for the cost of one, plus a few rooted blueberry plants and grape vines I’m gonna use when I created Chip Wynns flower bed again this 2009 season.
Kim and I did it last year and it stayed eye catching all season. Still are a few things in the bed growing and green: dusty miller, mullein, lemon balm, and clove pinks. My scheme for 2009 season includes: red and pink castor beans, hyacinth beans, tartarian honeysuckle, blueberries, grape vines, marigold and zinnias of course, a few heirloom tomatoes and sweet bell peppers, with basil on the side. Just to name a few of what we will plant this season down there.
I’ve also promised to plant a native american garden at the Trail of Tears park in Princeton Ky. come spring and I had planted a few things here to set up down there but will now have to start all over again since the downed limbs crushed most of that.
We also had to pick up plumbing supplies since the water in the cabin froze during the ice storm power outages. Kim wanted a new commode for her valentine’s gift so that’s what she got, with stuff to install it with. Weather permitting we will install it tomorrow, and a mail box. We’ve not had our own mail box since I got this place 9 years ago. Fed X and UPS fuss at me all the time cause they cannot locate the last penny farm due to no markings out there (Jon points).
Every day as $$$’s permit we get a few seed shipments out. Sent one out this week to Michelle, and one to Oklahoma. Still many many more to get out as time permits. Weather also plays a part in outgoing shipments. As does money enough for postage out.
We have downed limbs all over the farms…I’ll post pictures once I get film developed. One good thing: Our wood shed is almost full of green white oak from downed trees. We’ve been burning green wood during the storm and outages cause it was all we had to burn. Hopefully we shall have seasoned wood for the next winter.
While in Paducah we also window shopped at Hanks Hardware, looking at propane heaters in case we try to get one to use if and when the next disaster happens round these parts. The wood stove is labor intensive and user un-friendly. A small Ashley it is, and has to be continually fed for the home fires to keep burning since the wood is wet, cold, green, and not seasoned.

CONTINUED...

[bee_pipes]

Day 18:
Still no telephones hence no internet. Power went off again. Not sure what time since I was outside cleaning up what of the limbs I could without bothering the damaged part since the insurance adjuster has as yet NOT found the time to come by to assay the damage done here. Farm Bureau of Kentucky is who most folks in this county have insurance with and they have been quite dilatory at sending by an agent to help out farmers, homesteaders, and policy holders. From talk around, there will be many who change carriers of this.
Day 19:
Still no telephones. Power came on this afternoon and has stayed on so far all day. Nice to have a shower in our own bathroom for a change. I have no problem bathing out of a pan but it is a new experience for Kim who grew up mostly in Cincinnati.
Day 20:
Happy valentines. Still no phone. Planted a few Irish potato sets this morning, and two rooted grape vine cuttings this afternoon. Snipped cuttings off ice ruined grape vines, and set them aside to try to root.
Sowwed oats (tame not wild oats) this afternoon (see OHG an a to z grain file). Kim and I spent most of today dragging limbs up to the fire to burn down to ash to spread back under the trees they fell from, and to unbury our smashed fruit trees and vines to find out total count of ones destroyed by the ice storms first, then the high winds that roared through later. Many around this area are truly hurting for their farm and milk animals, and chickens, plus other poultry are being not cared for correctly due to lack of lights, water, feed, folks not being used these days of doing without those things everyone in days gone by didn’t have.
Day 21 (2/15/09):
Still no telephone. I sat down today and made out a seed order for Pinetree and Nickols to mail off day after tomorrow: tomorrow being presidents day. The senior citizens had their valentines dance Saturday night but Kim and I didn’t go for there are break-ins happening round the area, and I want to be here to welcome anyone who tries to break in here. I’ve tried to call a few OHG members but either I had yawls number down wrong, or the cell phone I am using won’t get out that far or something. The cell phone I am now using, won’t operate under this metal roof so I must head outside when I make a call out to anywhere.
For the first 2 weeks of the storm cell phones would not work no mater what kind of phone you had. Not even Kims trac-phone would work, and most of them won’t work all the time, now. Tomorrow, I’ll be trying to kill out more poison ivy vines, and clearing out a few horse weeds and goldenrods to give me more planting area since we are no longer gardening a large area. We will grow a few things up at Old Mothers Gardens, and teach Doug up there how to plant things in a greenhouse he will begin construction on next weekend or so he hopes if it all comes in to assemble on time for this weekend.
Bobbett told me tonight on the phone that she already has 1,000 plants started in her greenhouse and I’m jealous since I have only 5 tomato plants up and growing. But we do have 30 potted lemon balms ready for market, or for setting out out here since all of ours were injured by falling trees, the severe cold, the ice storm, then the high winds that ripped through. Lemon balm should come back out from their roots without us needing to replant, so I don’t know Kims planned usage of the lemon balm tho I imagine she knows.
We talked to Chip Wynn at the Jeep dealership Friday, and lay first plans for planting his flower gardens at his place of business. We do it because he is a nice fellow plus I like making a statement with what’s planted at his place. This year I’ll probably be planting blueberries, castor beans, tomatoes, peppers, green beans and Armenian cucumbers up a trellis, and a couple of yellow watermelons.
Kim has a box of outgoing seed to send to Brenda, and hopefully we will get one out to Jeff now that I’ve found his mailing address in my files. Might get the one out to Canada as well, and perhaps more if I can come up with who I’ve shipped to and who I haven’t. And what is supposed to be sent out to whom.
Day 22: (2/16/2009)
Still no telephone! Planted some Victoria rhubarb today. Got 2 roots of it at Lowes to replace some destroyed by the ice storm. I hope the other returns but it is doubtful. Still have 4 blueberry plants we got from Lowes to replace some that the ice storm broke into smithereens.
Telephone Company is in the process of removing all trees under their poles and wires. A thing that has not be upkept since I’ve been here (9 years so far), nor since Windstream bought the rights down here. They cut down every tree underneath their lines from the river end forward cause that is how telephones first entered this county: cross the Cumberland river on toward the Ohio River then southerly on toward the Tennessee River before backtracking along the river road inland.
Twas sunny today. Wind out of the west by south west around 8 mph most of the day through. Kim helped me relocate some metal roofing material I had scavenged so the next storm should not harm. Then I started a fire outside in the fire ring while I finished tearing down a small outbuilding the ice and downed trees laid flat on the ground thanks to the ice storm. Still no insurance adjuster: reminds me of the commercial: what’s his name? Where’s he live? Truth is, it IS Farm Bureau and I do know her name and where she lives. Sigh. Nice lady too, she is. Time will tell if their insurance is worth their daily bread. Or not. I’ll have a lot of nice fertile wood ash to sift onto the gardens when the time comes. For that little building was created out of yellow poplar, and seasoned ancient chestnut wood. Nothing was left of it in a size of any value for rebuilding.
We’ve got 40% in the propane tank, and a woodshed about full of downed wood that I’ve been splitting by hand as time permitted. Plenty more wood out yonder (Jon points in all directions) that we’ll be harvesting as time permits. Right now, we’ve first got to get thru the one at hand. Tho I’ve never put my dependency in any insurance company.’
This evening, I’ve been putting more seed into baskets to send out once I remember who this list of seed was requested by. I’ve also still got to get Jeff’s seed together and shipped out to him. And probably a gazillion more folks that are still stored on internet somewhere.
I fixed a big pot of homemade homegrown (organically of course) vegetable turkey soup. I first added 3 pints of spring water to the 5 quart Dutch oven. To that I added ½ c apple cider vinegar, 5 medium Irish potatoes, diced peelings and all, I dumped in a quart of home canned tomatoes, a quart of home canned turkey broth made from thanksgiving turkey bones and skin, ½ of a large white super hot onion, 2 pints of canned black-eyed peas, 1 c of little carrots stored in the crawl space under this cabin, 1 pint of home canned yellow sweet corn, a pinch of: basil, dill, oregano, sage, lemon balm, dandelion, and celery, 1 home sundried pablano/ancho pepper crumbled, a pinch of coarse kosher salt, some ground black pepper, and enough spring water to bring the level inside the pot to almost overflow. It simmered along all day long. Kim came in around 3 and made a pan of blueberry muffins to make the soup go down softer. We put in another long tiring day and Kim went to bed early for she gets up earlier than I do most days. I’ll make cornbread to go with the soup tomorrow afternoon and that will be enough food to last us until toward the end of this week.
Day 23 (February 17, 2009)
Still no telephone. Light rain is falling today so there won’t be much outside work to get accomplished. We’ve got to go into town before this weekend to pay a few more bills, and window shop at the Farm store in Paducah.
I added a rod and reel and a few spinner baits to my war bag overnight for…in case of. Plus treble hooks, a few lead tire weights, an empty milk jug or two, and some swivels for hand line or jugging if needs be. No matter where we wind up in an emergency most normally there is a place not far away where fish will be. They may not be big fish, nor what we consider to be edible: but know this; all fish are edible. Even the gar and grindle. In these parts, alligator gar is killed so are (tube fish) grindle because they eat so many game fish, plus destroy a trout line where commercial fishers earn their keep. Few people down here will eat either the carp nor the buffalo: I eat them both, but enjoy them best pressure cooked, bones and all once they’ve been properly gutted of course and the best organs eaten, including their eggs if they are in season. If you enjoy salmon croquets, you’ll fall in love with carp and buffalo croquets once they pass through the pressure cooker and are minced through your food processor or our hand grinder.
We ran up to Eddyville today to get Kim’s diabetes medicines. Not all of them came in this month so we’ll do without them. Took our books back to the library while there, and they hand checked them in since their computers aren’t on line as yet either. Same with the books we took out with us. I only had 2 books I didn’t return to them out of the 20 I got before the storms came. Plus I read 9 of the ones shelved we obtained at the library sale so many years ago…what’s it been? 4 years? More? Time fugits.
All 13 of my blueberries were crushed under downed oak limbs. They may come back out from the roots. Not sure since I can’t get the limbs off just yet to get to where they were and investigate. I use electric chain saws not built for work like that. I also have a craftsman chain saw I’ve used only an hour but it is contrary not wanting to crank just yet, and I cannot hook a chain to it to get it cranked.
Today, I also added a small plastic bottle of apple cider vinegar to my war bag. There are so many remedies one can create from vinegar. Plus it will help keep you from getting food poisoning, or diseases from food that is spoiling, or meat borne fungi.
Day 24 (February 18, 2009):
We are headed out to get spring water. Since this winter, seems our well water has a skim on it when drawn. Kim is skeered of using it ceptin for baths, and she does know that whatever touches our skin is absorbed into our body so whether it goes in that way or our mouth matters little. I’ll have it tested once things settle down some, but if it checks out bad, we’ll still have to use it for I cannot afford to hook to city water and would not hook to it even if I could. I’d use cistern/rain water first, and may do it yet. Kim, being a city girl simply has to learn how to live, country.
The spring has some of the best water you ever tasted. Ask Tammy, or Karen, Or Mary Luce, or Cathy, or Suze, or our friend, Swinford, or… well, anywho it’s good water. Wish it leaked out of a hill out yonder (Jon points).
You folks are sure missed by me and Kim (yeah I could have said Kim and I but didn’t want to). The mail brought us a passel of surprises in today’s delivery. All I can say is “Thank yawl”.
We did mail out seed yesterday. We’ve got more going out today too.
So far, we’ve spent over 60 bucks in postage out so folks can enjoy a few of the things we grow here and are trying to keep starts of it growing around the world.
The shipment into Canada goes out here in a few minutes and most likely will get there long before Windstream decides to hook our phone lines back up. We’ve been without telephone/internet since the 27th and were without power 3 times so far, a total of 22 days total.
It has flickered today. Wind is high. Would you believe it is near 60 degrees? The maples have budded out…what few of them that still have upper works TO bud out. Most of the trees in western Kentucky along the rivers were are all topless.
Sure wish I had a couple of goats in milk. The tasteless 2% milk Kim gets at the gas station up top of the hill tastes worse than the white wash water from washing out a milk bucket. The neighbor that did have the milk goats got rid of them since he didn’t have electricity to milk them due to the storm. I’d of milked them by hand had I of knowed about it but word travels slow when folks are in duress.
Tomorrow or the next day (depending on what the weather does do) I’ll get the saw cranked, one way or the other, so I can at least get the big maple tree off the barn roof before the whole thing caves in. Plus, it’s planting time for certain things. I need to start my seedbed and cannot get down to where I’d aimed to start it since I won’t have the greenhouse to play with this season.
The signs will be right again, but I’d rather of gotten it started now since the signs are right. I did plant a Jersey blueberry, and 3 Blueray that we got a Lowes (I may have already mentioned it…hmm). Friend Davpress has a few he pruned from his plants he said he’d send me and I’m glad he is waiting until the storm mess clears up and things settle back down. I would say settles down to normal, but round these parts there ain’t no “normal”.
Kim has my order to Pinetree and Nichols Garden Nursery ready to mail out today. I think she mailed one yesterday to Indiana Berry to get my strawberries heading this way.

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[bee_pipes]

There’s at least a dump truck load of oak limbs burying what few strawberries I did have out front. This order will replace what I used to have, and will give me 120 berry starts once again. We lost all of our strawberries that were in the freezers, and all of our other fruits and frozen meats and vegetables, but the freeze didn’t faze our jars of canned foods. I know freezing is easier than canning, but canning or drying assures me of food for the winter as does cellaring if I ever get up off my lazy duff and dig one.
Don’t faint, I’ve got a cup of trade coffee sitting beside me as I type. Kim had half a cup of it left over from her morning cuppa, so I poured it for me and put in a dollop of honey and nothing else. Normally Kim uses enough cream to make butter and while I can drink a bite or two of it that way, I want mine black if I’m gonna drink much of it.
Tea is my weakness. Not away from here the few times we eat out. Tea at a food joint is tasteless and too thin and weak to suit me. I drink water then but oft times that water is worse than Montezuma’s revenge. Tis why I’ll pull a tiny bottle out of my shirt pocket and dribble in a drop or two of homemade apple cider vinegar for…just in case of. Which reminds me, I need to get another batch of vinegar started.
Uh Oh, the lights are flickering again. Sigh.
I’m back. Got spring water offloaded and in place, and the Jeep out from under trees in case this wind (20mph) let some of the hangers fall on down before the next batch of weather cross the river and hits us. Not sure what is supposed to hit us. Wpsd-tv6 didn’t come in out here since the TV. Antenna came down from the ice storm and while Kim does have a few dish TV’s, weather channel doesn’t even mention Livingston County Kentucky, and seldom mentions Kentucky at all.
I tried to run a few labels yesterday to get ready for honey flow, but I didn’t find it in word 2003. Gotta study the book to find how to do labels. It was on Kim’s computer that crashed in Microsoft works. And I got a label maker to fit my older computer 586 software thingy at the software store in Antioch Tennessee twelve years ago. Yawl know both of those computers fried and we got back on line only at the thanks to Scot Muth. The days off line now without exercise on the keyboard these 3 weeks and counting has allowed my hands and fingers to draw, and now that power is back on (no telephone tho), I’m pounding the keyboard all I can between chores.
This afternoon after we came back from the spring, I hand split a rick of red oak I’d cut sometime last week, and pushed home in a wheelbarrow. Got it in the woodshed to dry a bit in case the incoming storm keeps us captive for awhile and shut-in.
The soup’s gone. I think Kim was tiring of it, so tonight we are having homemade biscuits that I baked in a skillet all in one piece stead of individual rounds. Country cure sausage. Buttermilk gravy. Little green peas. I cut our last pumpkin and pureed it for supper, and canned the rest of it (See OHG Recipe garden for how to.)
Day 25 (February 19, 2009)
We have food enough still in spite of our losses of the frozen foods. Just now, I put two cups of white beans in to soak so yawl know what we’ll be having tomorrow. White beans, corn bread, fried dried apple pies, and canned tomatoes. Tonight we’ll have leftovers.
Still no telephones. We never did see F.E.M.A., but we are told they were close by. That’s reassuring…not. Still no insurance adjuster. We didn’t really expect one to show up til things are back to normal, warm weather arrives, and the backroads are cleared of all brush. They’ll wait til all the downed limbs are gone so the damages won’t look as intimidating as they do now.
The Jeep is giving trouble. We took it in for repairs on Thursday of last week. They had to order a part that won’t arrive until Monday next. So we are pretty well stuck here no matter what comes up. Once we get it paid for I told Kim that I was gonna trade DOWN and get a small 4 cyl. 5-speed o.d. stick shift truck like the Ford ranger I got in the late 80’s. Wish I still had that little truck. I put over 250,000 on it and it never missed a beat. It’d burn propane or gasoline for I had a carburetor kit installed on it that allowed me to. Drove it back and forth from Louisville on weekends when I had to move up there for work the last time. I lived in an apartment in J-town, worked over in Middletown for the circle b. At that apartment I had honeybees, and a small garden in their front flower bed, and under my deck on which the hives sat. I came back home to the lake homestead every time I could. When that job petered out, I took my trade to Nashville and lived in a trailer park in Murfreesboro Tn at the last. First I lived in an apartment in Antioch out near Pearcy Priest Lake off old Murfreesboro road. Worked in LaVernge that go round. And still came back whenever I could. Drove the old 76 ford LTD in those days and it lasted until I moved back to Kentucky in 97. When I got the 93 ford f150 with the v8-302 stick shift 5-speed, I gave the kids the LTD and it didn’t last out the month. Sigh. I traded that Ford truck in on this Jeep once we had to give up the chevy 4X4 that daughter deb had left with us when they were in Iraq the 2nd time.
Looks like this time when they get back they’ll be stationed in Maine.
I told Kim that we ought to get us 2 of those tiny papoose Indian motor cycles to ride on, and pull a trailer behind to haul stuff in to the farmers market. She didn’t think that was one bit funny. They cost too much, anyhow.
It’s sunny out today. A cold north wind blowing in at 20 mph, and air temperature is hovering at near 20 degrees F. Not cold by any means compared to where some of yawl live, but pretty cold on us along the rivers who are used to having temperatures in the upper 40’s this time of year, and in the teens at night. There’s fire in our woodstove and it’s nice and toasty inside; unlike how it was in the dark during the storm earlier when this woodstove could not keep it warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing, and us warm like we were accustomed.
I told Kim that mankind has gotten soft and spoiled; used to too many luxuries we never had a few years ago. Dad and Mom didn’t have electricity til they moved to Lynch from Georgia. We had a potty out back in those days and we all used it. I had one here when I first bought this place, but it fell down and I wasn’t allowed then to replace it.
I’ve spent most of this afternoon going through my seed stash, deciding what I’ll plant where. And where outside I’ll create the plant bed since limbs cover the spot I’d intended to make it. OH, I’ll clean the limbs up before long and keep all the wood for the woodstove or fire ring, but yesterday I think was THE day to create the plant bed according to the signs. Signs will come again for that same chore but I like hitting that first right time.
The Murray Kentucky religious radio station was the only one we could depend on during those dark days during the ice storm. They gave shelter locations, where a person could go to get a warm meal, or a corner to lie down in. So I listen to it now for I enjoy listening to talk radio, and while I like music, I do NOT enjoy country music ALL the time.
In the next week or three, I’ll be out planting over 400 peach pits to germinate, and starting nearly 300 apple seed and 200 pear seed just to see what comes up. By next spring, they’ll be ready to graft onto if I decide to graft them to offer at Farmers Market if there is one in this county by that time.
I may keep and plant most of them myself.

THE END (so far)

[Native87]

Great post! How do you get to that site? That fellow is one smart one. There aint ppk round here that would help for nothing. They have their modern goodies to rely on. Oh well. To each their own. Terry

[Kyhome]

Pat thanks so much for posting this, very good reading this morning. them folks sound like great neighbors to have and learn from. Rick

[sbemt456]

Thanks for sharing that Bee, was good reading. Here in Kentucky we can survive. In the eastern part of state the hardest hit counties never saw outside help till they had power already restored, just like in the western part of the state. Folks can survive, we just hate to give up modern conviences.

Have a great day!

stella

[bee_pipes]

Great post! How do you get to that site? *That fellow is one smart one. There aint ppk round here that would help for nothing. They have their modern goodies to rely on. Oh well. To each their own. Terry

Click on this link to get to the yahoo group:
Organic Homestead Gardening (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/organichomesteadinggardening/)

If you have never used a yahoo group, they are not as gratifying a format as BHM. The volume is high, meaning the emails roll off quite quickly. If you are on dial-up, the turnaround on links can be agonizingly slow. It doesn't matter much, there is so much ruckus with the volume. It does make for excellent reading though. You can have it set up to deliver a digest via email - seems to spit one out with every 20 posts or so. We receive and read the digests and have been doing so for about 4 years now. John is one smart fellow and I have stolen more than one of his ideas.

Regards,
Pat

[lsg]

bee pipes that journal reminds me of the movie, The Postman. *Nobody should depend on Uncle Sam to help them out. *We all need to be ready for emergencies.

[CarolAnn]

Pat - that was beautifully written! Thank you so much for posting it.

[bee_pipes]

Help yerself. Link, or cut and paste. Don't forget to add a link to the yahoo group - it is well worth monitoring.

Regards,
Pat