Today I got an early start in the morning and was sitting in peace and quiet in front of my laptop, working on a project for a client, when the power suddenly went out. Since I have a problem with my laptop battery that I didn’t make a priority to fix, the screen instantly went black, not allowing me to save my work.
A call to the electric company let me know that there was an unexpected accident and the power supply would return in 3-4 hours. Thoroughly bummed out, I went ahead to straighten up the kitchen in preparation for breakfast.
The power eventually returned and I completed my project and sent it off, but this was a throwback to the good ‘ol days when we lived in a place where this could happen any moment, and for much longer. I remember 72 hours without power, during which we did our best to eat everything that spoils and I was careful not to open my freezer so that it wouldn’t thaw.
I love living in a place with a steady electricity supply, but today’s incident reminded me how much we have to improve in preparing for emergencies.
In our old home, we took care to keep our mobile phone power banks charged and our freezer always stocked with ice bottles so that it would thaw more slowly. A laptop battery would most certainly be fixed earlier. There was a communal backup generator we could fuel and hook up to if need be.
And, from electricity my thoughts jumped to preparedness in general, which is something we really should gear up for again. A life of convenience lulls you into a sense of security which may, unfortunately, be false, as the covid-19 pandemic showed us all, turning our world upside down and giving it a thorough shake that totally messed it up.
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From Your Own Hands: Self-Reliant Projects for Independent Living
A radical homesteader from Connecticut who prefers to call himself Xero says, “Consumerism to a large degree only exists because it profits off of our own loss of skills. Over the last hundred or so years people have undergone what I see as a horrifying loss of survival skills.
Without these skills, without the ability to survive on one’s own, one must depend on already manufactured, and continuously manufactured goods and services to stay alive. These goods and services cost money. In order to get said money, one must submit to paid labor. Sometimes one can find labor that is fun and fulfilling, but that doesn’t represent the majority of folks, especially on a global scale.”
Domestic Felicity 
My mother, of blessed memory, was a child in the UK during WWll and experienced rationing if clothes, eggs, dairy products and meat. In our house, when I was growing up, there was a cupboard full of tinned food which was used in rotation and replaced. There was also a culture of home made jam, pickles wine, and even Cheese. I should add that we were, by this stage, a fairly affluent family: we didn’t need to do this for financial reasons. When I asked her what the stored food was for, she said “Just in case”.
I’ve inherited this approach. At he beginning of the UK Covid lockdown we already had a freezer full of food (some home grown), canned food (American-style, in Mason jars), tinned food, dried food, and yes, toilet paper.
Thanks Mum.
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Always good to be prepared – the fragility of our affluence has just been impressed on us.
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Hope you can get things set up so another such event won’t loose your work at least!! What a pain. Yea, when you live where the electric is not stable, tis wise to make some other arrangements for such times!! If we owned a home, I would always have some kind of small wood burning stove with some wood set aside. At least that…along with some water saved too. We used to live in N.Carolina and at times the ice storms would shut off power for days. We fortunately had gotten a nice generator prior to 2000 so it came in very handy…we helped the neighbor as well…taking turns using the generator. Sometimes hurricanes make power unavailable for days too. It has been fairly constant here where we live. And being in an apt there is no way really to use a generator. With a small fridge however, we have some canned goods on hand. That would have to do.
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We definitely need to work on being more prepared!
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