Waiting and Hopefully Ready

If we lose power as a result of the hurricane (and when you have a well and a septic system, along with losing power comes losing water and sewer) so be it. This is our third one of these storms in 14 months, and this time we are our most ready ever. Drinking water? Check! (In the basement we've got buckets in which we're saving the water from the dehumidifier for flushing the toilets, bathing, etc.)

I talked to Peter this afternoon and he and his roommate are getting ready for the storm's arrival in D.C., which will be a few hours earlier than up here. So today they're out shopping for a few more provisions. Yesterday we got out our flashlights and filled them with fresh batteries. Lucky we didn't have to shop for batteries - as of yesterday morning the pickings for batteries were already extremely thin.

Should we lose power, we lose the use of our refrigerator and freezer soon thereafter. The good news is we've been eating out of our freezer this past week and we've pretty much cleared out things that can spoil. But we still have our big cooler upstairs and if we need to fill it with ice to chill those few remaining items, we're all set. We've been collecting bags of ice from the ice-maker, and I made these huge chunks of ice in old containers. (Thanks to the St. Maur Food Fair for teaching me this trick!)

This is what will go on ice if we lose power. Today I again raided the freezer and made food for the week. This is turkey vegetable lentil soup. If we lose power, we'll heat it on a pan on the gas grill. (Yesterday's errands included filling up the extra propane container.) If it's raining too hard to cook on the grill, we have packets of tuna salad and PBJ sandwiches to fall back on.

We also had some ground beef in the freezer. Now it's part of ready-made spaghetti, which will taste wonderful if we're hungry for some hot food.

Some frozen bananas and eggs made for a loaf of bread which will taste yummy if we're cold and in the dark. Other things we did in preparation for the storm: caught up on laundry, filled the cars with gas, bought a car charger for our Apple devices, took down all the deck and yard furniture, cleaned the gutters, and bought some extra groceries. With local schools already closed on Monday and Tuesday, it looks like we'll be hunkered down here for at least a couple of days. We may be cold and it may be dark, but we'll be about as ready as we can be.