Why do I make homemade? Well, I need it so infrequently that I don't want to keep the storebought stuff on my shelves for years when I can make it out of 3 ingredients I use all the time and one that I keep just for this (potassium salt, aka "salt substitute"). According to my sister, too, it turns out like salty kool-aid instead of the storebought stuff, which she refers to as "battery acid sugar water." That can't be good. I've never had it. But here's mine. The nurse on the help line said she hadn't heard that recipe before, but it sounded like a good one:
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon salt substitute
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 Tablespoons koolaid mix with sugar (not sugar free and not just the flavor packets--if I didn't have koolaid mix on hand, I would use sugar plain, or I've read ones that use a bit of flavored gelatin powder).
2 quarts of water
Mix all together. I mix the dry with 1 quart of water and stick it in the fridge. When I need more, I cut it in half with plain water from the tap.
Daisy makes a face but she drinks it.
Showing posts with label preparedness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label preparedness. Show all posts
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Monday, March 21, 2011
33. Disaster Preparedness?
So, with the recent news out of Japan, I've been doing a little risk assessment. A little reading. Ok, a lot of reading. And planning.
And so far I've come to the conclusion that for the most part, we need to be ready to shelter in-place. As a family, we need to be able to see our way through a week or two without power. More than that and we'll be leaving anyway or forming a primitive culture in the backyard complete with conch shells and sharpened sticks because we live in the central city and that would be obnoxiously long to go without power. But ice storms and summer storms and tornadoes happen. Floods too, which could take out our water supply, although I don't worry about actual water here. Seriously--the whole city would be underwater by the time we had water in the house.
What I'm having a harder time with is earthquake and evacuation (more on that another time). For the most part, unless the entire city slipped beneath the earth in a New Madrid or Wabash earthquake, we would stick it out here as best we could. We live in a masonry foundation house (gulp) but even if we lost the whole thing, I feel like we have the network of friends and family to make it through until we rebuilt. Plus, if St. Louis was devastated in a New Madrid earthquake, Memphis would disappear from the map. Not to mention most of the family I've married into. New Madrid has been quiet for over 100 years. Yeah, perhaps we're due. Or perhaps we're safe. Or perhaps I can talk this around and around in a circle and get nowhere because I have decided this is where I live.
For the most part, though, any disaster would keep us home. Literally in the case of an earthquake--we are surrounded by bridges and not just the ones across the rivers. Viaducts and train tracks and even though they are slowly being improved, it is slow.
So I'm getting some things ready. More ready. I cleaned out the public area of the basement this week, and the storage area is coming soon. I've got our tub of girl toys and blankets and sleeping bags because otherwise they sit down there with us during the sirens and cry, which is never good but especially when you're already tense and hail is falling and the lights are out and the wind picks up. I'm trying to make it a less scary place, not exactly inviting but at least you can get around and find a place to sit for a moment. It will never be completely pleasant down there, after all.
And food: we've been in the CSA so long, I find that most of our food is fresh. Yes, I have ingredients like flour and sugar and all that, but I don't have any canned fruit. Or vegetables: bleah. I have dry beans, but if you're working without electricity (our stove is a lovely 1965 electric stove), that's a lot of firewood, charcoal, or propane to cook beans all the way from soaked to done.
I have found a great resource in Just in Case: How to be Self-Sufficient when the Unexpected Happens by Kathy Harrison. Mike got it for Christmas but of course I was the one voted most likely to join a militia back in high school. Speaking of that, don't even bother looking up disaster preparedness online unless you want to learn about the fall of the government and training your 4 year old how to use a handgun. I am not that. I just don't want to wind up at a shelter if I can stay in my house (but of course if I have to leave, ahem, nuclear disaster/toxic spill/etc, I WILL LEAVE).
More later. Just starting this process and finding I'm not as far behind as I feared.
And so far I've come to the conclusion that for the most part, we need to be ready to shelter in-place. As a family, we need to be able to see our way through a week or two without power. More than that and we'll be leaving anyway or forming a primitive culture in the backyard complete with conch shells and sharpened sticks because we live in the central city and that would be obnoxiously long to go without power. But ice storms and summer storms and tornadoes happen. Floods too, which could take out our water supply, although I don't worry about actual water here. Seriously--the whole city would be underwater by the time we had water in the house.
What I'm having a harder time with is earthquake and evacuation (more on that another time). For the most part, unless the entire city slipped beneath the earth in a New Madrid or Wabash earthquake, we would stick it out here as best we could. We live in a masonry foundation house (gulp) but even if we lost the whole thing, I feel like we have the network of friends and family to make it through until we rebuilt. Plus, if St. Louis was devastated in a New Madrid earthquake, Memphis would disappear from the map. Not to mention most of the family I've married into. New Madrid has been quiet for over 100 years. Yeah, perhaps we're due. Or perhaps we're safe. Or perhaps I can talk this around and around in a circle and get nowhere because I have decided this is where I live.
For the most part, though, any disaster would keep us home. Literally in the case of an earthquake--we are surrounded by bridges and not just the ones across the rivers. Viaducts and train tracks and even though they are slowly being improved, it is slow.
So I'm getting some things ready. More ready. I cleaned out the public area of the basement this week, and the storage area is coming soon. I've got our tub of girl toys and blankets and sleeping bags because otherwise they sit down there with us during the sirens and cry, which is never good but especially when you're already tense and hail is falling and the lights are out and the wind picks up. I'm trying to make it a less scary place, not exactly inviting but at least you can get around and find a place to sit for a moment. It will never be completely pleasant down there, after all.
And food: we've been in the CSA so long, I find that most of our food is fresh. Yes, I have ingredients like flour and sugar and all that, but I don't have any canned fruit. Or vegetables: bleah. I have dry beans, but if you're working without electricity (our stove is a lovely 1965 electric stove), that's a lot of firewood, charcoal, or propane to cook beans all the way from soaked to done.
I have found a great resource in Just in Case: How to be Self-Sufficient when the Unexpected Happens by Kathy Harrison. Mike got it for Christmas but of course I was the one voted most likely to join a militia back in high school. Speaking of that, don't even bother looking up disaster preparedness online unless you want to learn about the fall of the government and training your 4 year old how to use a handgun. I am not that. I just don't want to wind up at a shelter if I can stay in my house (but of course if I have to leave, ahem, nuclear disaster/toxic spill/etc, I WILL LEAVE).
More later. Just starting this process and finding I'm not as far behind as I feared.
Friday, March 4, 2011
22. Pew
I have two church pews. Part of the 90% of the furniture in my house that has been scrounged--either given to me by friends or relatives, or picked up used and cheaply, or in the case of one my church pews, carried out of my parish church.
I did have permission.
One church pew is protestant--there is a shelf underneath the seat for a hymnal but no evidence of a kneeler. It sits in my front hall and is the catch-all for everything that walks in the door: groceries, mail, bookbags, dance and tae kwon do paraphernalia, mittens, coats, baby shoes, anything and everything. It is the girls' job, but usually this girl does it, to clean it off every evening. It fits perfectly in front of the landing of my stairs, right as you come in.
The other church pew is from my parish, like I said. It is longer, although it is one of the short pews from church, a side one that ends in a pillar, so there's a little curve out of the seat to account for the location. It wound up taken out a decade or more ago, when the parish opened up the back of church as a greeting area (and because we didn't have enough people to really need them). Many of these extra pews wound up in the basement lining the walls. I know one wound up on Joey's front porch where it weathered badly and I hated her for that--she also had a house of old furniture but it was all purchased from auctions and high end antique shops and so her church pew wasn't anything she cared about. I love mine. Eye of the beholder.
The parish one is in my dining room. I would love for it to fit in my front hall but it doesn't. There is no other logical place for it, unless I moved it to the attic to take up space there. I just don't have enough walls in this house, designed for air flow between high-ceiling rooms. This isn't a big deal right now--it sits in front of the old fireplace in the dining room, which has no hearth or mantel. Mighty beat up, you might call it. It is extra seating for parties and girl scout meetings. It does fine.
But in a few years, or sooner if we can swing it, Jake and I would like to put a wood burning stove in the dining room--for heat as well as just simply that I've always wanted one. St. Louis has improved its electric grid but I really want a back up plan in case of bad weather in the wintertime. I watched Astrid freeze out of her house 4 years ago and I don't want to wind up in that position. This will involve lining the chimney, which is pricey and can't be done ourselves. That's the hold up--after we do that, in goes the stove.
And out will go the pew. I look around the room and I can't see what to do, unless I get rid of the bulky unattractive vestment cabinet from SLU and put the pew along that wall (opposite the fireplace wall). The piano could stay on the north wall, the table in the middle, the cabinet I swear I will finish this spring in the same corner where it is. That could work.
And that vestment cabinet, while well-designed with wide, shallow drawers, is really not a good fit in my dining room. Maybe the time is coming, soon, to empty it and move it on to a new home. Because even though it is impractical in many ways, the church pew wins.
I did have permission.
One church pew is protestant--there is a shelf underneath the seat for a hymnal but no evidence of a kneeler. It sits in my front hall and is the catch-all for everything that walks in the door: groceries, mail, bookbags, dance and tae kwon do paraphernalia, mittens, coats, baby shoes, anything and everything. It is the girls' job, but usually this girl does it, to clean it off every evening. It fits perfectly in front of the landing of my stairs, right as you come in.
The other church pew is from my parish, like I said. It is longer, although it is one of the short pews from church, a side one that ends in a pillar, so there's a little curve out of the seat to account for the location. It wound up taken out a decade or more ago, when the parish opened up the back of church as a greeting area (and because we didn't have enough people to really need them). Many of these extra pews wound up in the basement lining the walls. I know one wound up on Joey's front porch where it weathered badly and I hated her for that--she also had a house of old furniture but it was all purchased from auctions and high end antique shops and so her church pew wasn't anything she cared about. I love mine. Eye of the beholder.
The parish one is in my dining room. I would love for it to fit in my front hall but it doesn't. There is no other logical place for it, unless I moved it to the attic to take up space there. I just don't have enough walls in this house, designed for air flow between high-ceiling rooms. This isn't a big deal right now--it sits in front of the old fireplace in the dining room, which has no hearth or mantel. Mighty beat up, you might call it. It is extra seating for parties and girl scout meetings. It does fine.
But in a few years, or sooner if we can swing it, Jake and I would like to put a wood burning stove in the dining room--for heat as well as just simply that I've always wanted one. St. Louis has improved its electric grid but I really want a back up plan in case of bad weather in the wintertime. I watched Astrid freeze out of her house 4 years ago and I don't want to wind up in that position. This will involve lining the chimney, which is pricey and can't be done ourselves. That's the hold up--after we do that, in goes the stove.
And out will go the pew. I look around the room and I can't see what to do, unless I get rid of the bulky unattractive vestment cabinet from SLU and put the pew along that wall (opposite the fireplace wall). The piano could stay on the north wall, the table in the middle, the cabinet I swear I will finish this spring in the same corner where it is. That could work.
And that vestment cabinet, while well-designed with wide, shallow drawers, is really not a good fit in my dining room. Maybe the time is coming, soon, to empty it and move it on to a new home. Because even though it is impractical in many ways, the church pew wins.
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