WINTER'S COMING ON!

I have trimmed my reading list today. A few people had to go. The guy from Maine had to go because he admitted he would hunt and eat human flesh to stay alive. Sick man. Penny Scout had to go because she hasn't posted in almost three months. There were a couple of others but I can't remember their names. Sometimes you just have to make a decision as to what crowd you are going to hang out with and I have made mine for the morning.



A lot of posting has me thinking about Winter moving in. Sly Wolf is already talking about the leaves changing and things of that order. I believe we will have a bitter Winter and I suggest folks get ready for it. I have some money left this month and maybe I ought to get some long johns. I could have the Handmaiden pick them up tomorrow when she does her shopping. We already have five quilts and a good blanket and that should do us for warmth. Two of the quilts are a little warn but the rest are brand new and should hold up for us quite well.



I have a big bag of Cranberry beans to shell-out this morning and the Handmaiden is gonna go pull up a couple more rows. She is good about keeping me in beans to prepare. Can't quite figure that out. She can pull the beans in an hour and it takes me HOURS to shell them out. But whatever method we use our preps are growing like gangbusters. We went upstairs this morning and pulled all the bags of stuff we had just tossed up against the wall and in amongst the clothes. My God. The amount of canned goods was just wonderful. I cannot get on the new ladder because it won't bear my weight but she can stand on it just fine and I hand the stuff up for her to place where she wants it. A good working routine. And we neither one had any idea as to how much we had just laying there in plastic bags. Let me tell you, it was a lot. I was quite happy.



With the cold Winter I am expecting, we might end up using these preps extensively. Good food. We must have 25 or 30 two pound cans of Beef Stew. Huge amounts of Chili. Lots of fruit and vegetables. Meats and high protein stuff is in abundance, along with plenty of fats. Lots of Salt and some Sugar and Flour. Gotta keep that body weight up with carbs. And carbs make heat!

So we get ready for Winter, which I expect to get here a little early this year. I tell people about this and I point them toward websites that have astronomical data to back it up but I do not know if it is being received well or not. You can only tell folks so many times and then it's on them and they have to live through it as best they can. Dragon has posted about the falling temperatures and put up nice pictures and all that stuff. We are to have snow in abundance. Heavy snowfall is a sure sign of trees falling across power lines and knocking out power. People! Can you do without power in a blizzard? Will your kids be warm? Will your water lines freeze? Will you be able to flush your toilet? You better check this stuff out! You better make sure and you better have back-up if you think you will need it. So many bloggers out there remind and remind about back-up plans. We also call them contingencies. You can't put all your eggs in one basket to 100% degree. Things can go terribly wrong. So get ready for a bummer! If it doesn't happen then you lucked out. But Murphy's Law is in effect at all times and can be put against you in a flash. Your computer and your phone might be knocked out. Your power could go out for days on end. Think, Dammit! Jar those memory cells in your brain loose and see what Katrina did to New Orleans. See what it did to oil and gas prices. Think what Gustav will do if it gets loose in those off-shore oil wells! Think what it will do if it gets to the refineries. You will be screwed! Get something going and prepare! How long does it take to rebuild a critical refinery? Could it be done in 6 months? If they started today that would mean a start up by next March. And it doesn't matter if other nations will sell us crude oil or not! It still has to be refined.

So we have a hard Winter forecast and a hurricane playing bumper pool in the Gulf. Talk about the makings of a disaster! And you know who is going to suffer, and it ain't the rich and powerful. It will be us poor peons as per usual.

The Handmaiden has a blog at http://handmaidenkitchen.blogspot.com/ and it is there that she will store her columns she writes for Staying Alive. It is not finished but it is up and accessible. More is coming.

Stay alive.

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net