If disaster struck at 11:45 a.m. today…what would you do?

Being prepared is more than a well stocked pantry and a loaded gun.  A lot more.  It’s also mostly a mental preparation, because without that mental preparation, the best larder and armory in the world won’t help you.  So…just for a few minutes, use your imagination.

Imagine that the unthinkable struck at 11:45 a.m. today, with no warning.  Vary the disaster…it might be a solar flare inspired EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) event, a tsunami, an earthquake, whatever event…

The roads are impassible, your car is useless.  Where is your spouse?  Your children?  Where will you go?  Do you have a designated meeting place?  Will you be able to go to your home and shelter there, or should you plan on evacuating the area?  Should you wait for an official statement and designated point to report for emergency assistance and transportation?

What will you do?  What will be important to you?

If you don’t have plans, if you haven’t discussed a wide variety of scenarios, you ARE NOT prepared for a real emergency.  We aren’t talking “end of the world” scenarios here, but real life events that have struck in this country before and will strike again.  It isn’t about being a “fringe lunatic” or “survivalist” but it IS about being a realist.  Nobody wants to face a real emergency situation of this magnitude, but every year, thousands of people worldwide are placed in this situation.

Without a plan, there is fear, panic, and chaos.  With a plan, things may not go entirely “by the book” but it gives a skeleton to start working from.  These plans only work if all of the participants are aware of them, have practiced them at least in discussion form, and are going to remember them in the event of a real emergency.

Families need to sit down and talk about these kinds of events.  Everyone needs to have their input with the “what if” discussion too–from the youngest to the oldest member of the family has important roles and contributions.  Talking about emergencies with your children should not make them fearful, but rather enable them to feel empowered in a situation where they may be surrounded by panic stricken adults.  These discussions give every member of the family the tools with which to adapt to an emergency situation and survive it.

Take a look at your physical preparations for emergencies too.  Each family member should have an emergency backpack, there should be a household emergency kit, and each car should also contain one.  Focus on the essentials, such as spare clothing, food, water, shelter, light and fire making ability initially, then add comfort items such as a toy, book, playing cards, etc.  Make children’s packs light enough that they can actually carry them, and distribute additional materials into the adult family members’ packs.

Household packs should include things such as an emergency stove with fuel, emergency food & water, batteries, flashlights, first aid kit, duct tape, basic tools, etc.  This pack is designed for use when sheltering at home during an emergency, and as such, bulk and weight may not be as big of a consideration.  The location of the emergency supplies should be known to all members of the family, and raiding it should be strictly forbidden in non-emergency situations.  (Kids and their battery desire can be a problem otherwise.)

Your vehicle packs should be portable in nature, and able to withstand both high summer temperatures and the cold of winter.  This pack would come into use if one was caught away from home in an emergency, and should contain the basics.  This may provide you with the ability to rejoin your family at the designated meeting location or your home as well.

All emergency packs need regular maintenance and inspection.  Typically, planning to inspect and update your supplies each spring and fall is a good idea, and allows clothing to be exchanged for season appropriate attire, such as cold weather gear for winter, and cooler clothing for summer.

Think about it.

That’s what is important, because if you are blinded by panic and confused by the chaos surrounding you, you are at risk for NOT surviving the situation.  Thinking about it is one of the best, and least expensive, ways to prepare for the unthinkable.

Workshop to build a reflector oven

When I first started searching for a reflector oven, I wanted to purchase one.  Every company I found…it turned out they weren’t making them anymore, until I found a company that made non-folding beautiful ones that were way out of my price range.  Refusing to be defeated, I began searching for folding reflector oven plans.  That search didn’t go much better, and left me frustrated too.

Finally, I had a set of plans that appeared to be for an actual working folding reflector oven.  The next step was materials.  That was a bit disappointing.  It seems that metal sheeting isn’t exactly a hot item in home improvement supplies.  The best I can do locally is with a roll of wide aluminium flashing…with a hefty price tag to go with it.  Granted, it will make many ovens, but I don’t want many ovens.  I want one functioning reflector oven that I can cook a small turkey in.  That’s all.

In addition to this blog, we also maintain a website for Get Ready GO, at www.get-ready-go.com and we also have a physical Meet Up group (www.meetup.com) called Get Ready Go that is our “non-profit social organization” branch.   We have an amazing amount of interest in terms of “folding reflector oven” which indicates that I’m not the only one who wants one.  So, the logical thing to do is to have a workshop!

Get Ready GO will be hosting a workshop on Saturday, August 27th, at 10 a.m.  It’s a super inexpensive way to learn how to make your own reflector oven with some help (and tools!) to do the job.  It’s only $20 material fee per person, open to members and their guests only, and everyone must be an adult.  There will even be lunch!  MeetUp.com is free for membership, and anyone can join Get Ready Go too.

The meet up is being held in the Pascagoula, Mississippi area, convenient for anyone living anywhere between New Orleans, LA and Pensacola, FL or as far north as Hattiesburg, MS.  Reservations must be made (and paid for) before August 13th, and there will be no refunds for cancellations after August 13th, although a “make up” date will be offered to anyone who is unable to attend the day of the workshop.  A minimum of four attendees (besides the 3 hosts) is required, and if the minimum is not met, we’ll refund any fees paid.

Just to make it even more fun, if the fire ban in the area is lifted, we’ll bake lunch in a reflector oven just to show how well they work!  Besides, it would give me a great excuse to see if a turkey really will fit in one, wouldn’t it?

Previous entry about folding reflector oven is found here.

Priorities and cancellations

I’m a planning nut.  I like to know when I’m going to do things, what we’re going to do, and what we’ll need to accomplish our goals.  I also prefer to know who all is going along.

I also despise people who cancel at the last minute.

I’ll admit…it’s purely motivated by selfishness.  For years, I had so little recreational time that someone cancelling at the last minute really could ruin my only “off time” activities for the entire month.  We all know how much better activities are when they are shared with a companion, but most of my friends had ample recreational time, and did not understand how devastating it was to me.   I had plenty of “alone time” and I’d plan activities with others in hopes of a change of pace…only to have them cancel and irritate me to no end before I set off on my solitary excursion.

This time, it was me that cancelled at the last minute…with almost no notice.

Why would I do such a thing?  Why would I do the exact same thing that I got so aggravated with others for doing?

One short phrase…

Sick grand baby.

I’m a new grandma…and that baby is the rising sun in my eyes.  With a family activity, we were all spending time together just before I was to set off on a camping trip and daytime activities.  Then…the baby got sick.

Okay, I like dogs, and while I’ve never owned one named Spot…I don’t have anything against the name either.

Until you slap that name on my grand baby, that is.

She had spots.  Lots of them.  All over.  Spots on a six month old baby are quite alarming…it makes you start thinking about measles, rubella, scarlet fever, and 101 other terrible thoughts, especially when it involves unhappy grand baby.  She wasn’t sick enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room, as most of the time she had no fever at all and only sporadically had run a mild fever…but the spots were scary anyhow.  They didn’t last long either…less than 24 hours after their mysterious appearance, they vanished.

We stayed, however, for moral support in case she got sicker, or it was necessary to take her to the emergency room.  We stayed to spell exhausted parents who had had too many sleepless nights with a cranky baby already.  Granted, we left finally, as the spots faded and the fever dissipated, there seemed to be little concern…and a normal doctor visit on Monday seemed like the prudent course of action.

It meant we cancelled out on our camping trip and the related activities, with no warning, and a last minute decision too.  It was a case of changing priorities.  That baby is important to us, we wanted to be there for her, as well as to be there for her parents.  It was more important than our trip was, and for us, it was the right decision.  Even if we did catch some flack from our intended companions, we don’t regret our choice.

Sometimes, that’s what happens.

Something.

Important.

Comes.

Up.

It can be our jobs, our families, our friends, our church, our community…whatever.  We’re needed, and our plans, especially when they are “fun stuff” rather than something “important”, end up getting cancelled.  It might be a baby arriving unexpectedly, a friend suddenly having a crisis, a parent becoming ill, unexpected visitors, getting called in to work, getting our off time cancelled, or even a budget crunch that forbids our excursion.  With the price of gasoline, many of us are curbing our recreational driving already.

As hard as we try to only commit when we intend to follow through, there are always occasions when we just can’t do it.  The secret to not creating hard feelings with your friends, associates, companions, and family is to avoid frequently cancelling due to changes in circumstances.  Consistently cancelling or failing to follow through on plans is one way to aggravate and disappoint, but going ahead and following through when you should have cancelled…can result in your not being at your best, not enjoying yourself, and even putting your companions at risk with your inability to concentrate and truly participate.  (Depending on what kind of activity you were to engage in.)

I hate cancelling.  Not only do I miss the fun, it affects others’ too.  I like to think they enjoy my participation.  I’m often the organizer, and what kind of organizer fails to show up to the event?  I try very hard to NOT cancel, but I have had to cancel a couple of things over the past year.  Once, our van had blown the head gasket, and while it had a “band aid” repair awaiting the actual repair, to drive over a hundred miles (and spend the money it was going to take to do so) would have been foolish.  Even though I was scheduled to be the camp cook…it was necessary to cancel the trip for us.  I have to admit…I was green with envy at the photos and stories afterwards too!  This time, it took a spotted baby to get me to cancel.  Hopefully, I’ll not have many more cancellations…they are expensive and stressful as far as I am concerned!

Don’t be a ninny who cancels because there’s a great party happening this weekend, but don’t be a ninny and go ahead and go even though it means you may have your car repossessed because you couldn’t make the loan payment this month….or go when your grandmother is critically ill…or your best friend’s husband just left her and she needs you to babysit so she can get to work.  Cancel when its necessary, but don’t cancel just because you might have more fun at another activity that you just found out about…or you just don’t feel like showing up…or it might rain…or you might break a nail.  Stick to your word, but be flexible enough that when it really IS important, people know that they can count on you to make the choice to stay behind and do the “right thing”.

Build a boat?

I’ve always liked wood, and the idea of building something myself has always been appealing.  I’ve looked at a lot of do-it-yourself plans for building boats of several different kinds, along with a LOT of photographs of do-it-yourself built boats.  Some of them have amazed me, and there have been others that have really amazed me that anyone dared to try to get them to float!

But wooden boats have been around a lot longer than any of us have been, and are definitely a tried-and-true formula for building yourself a boat of any kind.  There are many fans of the wooden boat too, with entire clubs formed around the love of the wooden boat.  Granted, few of these are built in anyone’s backyard these days, but that doesn’t mean that the skilled wood worker couldn’t try their hand at making a boat.

Living on the Gulf Coast, the pirogue of traditional Cajuns has been a tried and true wooden boat to use in the creeks, bayous, swamps and marshes that form so much of the coastal area.  Granted, at one time, they were formed from cypress planks, but today, marine treated plywood and fiberglass often form their shells.  It’s a classic design, and always reminds me of a somewhat fat and flat bottomed canoe.  I’ve wanted one for ages, but it just hasn’t been on the budget to buy one.

Today, somewhere along the way, I came up with a link to buy plans to build one, and they promise FULL SIZED plans for a mere $40.  Okay, that’s not a cheap set of plans, but compare that price tag to having your boat not float, or wasting wood with miss-cuts.  I’m seriously thinking about it!

Building a boat could also be a great family project.  Imagine doing just that with your older children (like 12 and up) and then taking a pair of them to test them out and race!  Not only would it teach excellent skills, but it would provide a shared activity, along with the exercise of paddling or poling the pirogue for the races, and hours of fun later as the boats continued their useful life.  In addition, the pirogue is an excellent boat to navigate relatively shallow water, providing access for the devout fisherman to waters that might not otherwise be accessible.  I can see a project such as this one as providing much more than merely a home-made boat!

Curious yourself?  Their website even includes a photograph of a finished, unpainted boat.  Take a look right here!