Doomsday prep

Some of my food and supplies I can make a good estimate on how long it would last us. Like I have  3 months worth of the pets food on hand. But, I only have about 2 months of kitty litter. I think I have at least 2 months of chicken feed, as I just bought a 50 lb bag, but I'll have to pay attention and see how long it lasts. I did just order some pine shavings bedding for the chicken coop from Tractor Supply. Usually I get it at a different feed store, but I see TS has a larger bag for less money, so I'm going to give it a try and see if I like it as well. If I do, well, then there's some money saved. Ok, crazy on this order - I just ordered it Monday from TS and it already arrived yesterday. It appears to be the same exact type of bedding shavings, just a larger bag. Once dh dumps the new 50# bag of feed into the bin, I'm going to pick up another bag soon, to put up on the shelf. It's cheap and we have the room for it on the shelf in the garage.

Like I don't know how long the amount of sugar and flour I have would last me. In normal conditions the flour would probably last me 6 mos to a year. The sugar 3-6 months (longer if I don't feed the hummingbirds all summer, LOL). I currently have about 15 lbs of sugar and about 12 lbs of flour. But, if I was having to use it to cook and bake from scratch more, I don't know how long it would last.

Oh, and hey - I got 3 eggs yesterday! Wooo!

Once toilet paper became available again, because even though we had what we thought was quite a bit going into the unexpected selling out at stores when Covid hit, we got pretty low and nervous. I've continually kept buying it just about every shopping trip. Dh just keeps putting them out in the shop bathroom. I don't even know how many are out there now. I mean, I know he goes through TP fast, but there should be quite a bit out there. I have 2 cases inside the house. One in our main bathroom and one upstairs in the linen closet. I should go out to the shop and see how many cases we have.  

Just trying to look at what is in the pantry and freezer guessing how many meals there are if one was careful and ate leftovers, I think we're good for maybe 3-4 months worth of meals - not extravagant meals, but sustainable meals. Plus the box of emergency food for a month of meals. It might even be more, because I think when we ordered that we had both kids at home we were planning to feed, also.

Our old good neighbor (the one we had for over 20 years) is a prepper. He's the one that suggested the ordering of the emergency food several years ago and where he bought a lot of his from. Pretty sure he has a LOT, for just a single guy. And I'm pretty sure if we were still neighbors, as close as we were with him, he would have shared if SHTF. Not too long ago dh was talking with him on the phone, as he's also very smart about seeing what is really going on behind all the government lies, media lies and propaganda. He's a libertarian, so he and dh have had some interesting conversations over the past 30 years. This was his advice if we all find ourselves in a collapsed economy/country.  Get in the soup line every time they open it up. If your belly is full, get in the soup line. If your freezer is full, get in the soup line. If your clothes are clean, change into last weeks clothes and get in the soup line. Get in the soup line until there are no more soup lines. Of course, he is talking about an all out bad situation - not every day life as we know it now. He's talking about survival mode.

A little over a year ago we bought 2 SpotX satellite messenger phones. One for us and one for dd/sil. We both got them out of our safes over the weekend and made sure they are charged up and working. This will be our method of communication with each other, should the power grid go down. They cost us about $250 a year for the satellite service (for both phones) but very worth the peace of mind, since we are 450 miles apart. We will at least be able to communicate to each other that we are ok, etc. 

This morning I asked dh if he has all his gas cans filled up. He said no, only about half are filled. I'm not sure how many gas cans he has. Around 3 I think, maybe 4. Not a lot, but also probably more than the average person has. We always try to keep our car gas tank full. I told him well, let's get them filled up - if nothing else just because it's a given the cost is going to go up for gas.

We also have a generator. Not a whole house generator, but one that will let us run a few things in an emergency. Better than nothing. We also have a small cell phone solar charger. Of course if cell service crashes it does no good, but works to charge our tech gadgets. If nothing else can charge my ipad mini for reading books/games.

We have a 1000 gallon underground propane tank, which just got filled up a week or so ago, so there's 800 gallons there right now (because they will only fill up 80% due to expansion of the gas).

Water - wish we had more. We've got about 4 or 5 cases of bottled water, but dh goes through that like crazy (and then wonders why he has to pee every 5 minutes). Our well is run on an electric pump, so if the power goes, we won't have access to our water supply. I need to ask dh if the generator could run the water pump. I think I remember him mentioning that it probably would at least let us run it for short periods to get some water containers filled up every so often. (and that's only as long as the gas supply lasts, right?!). Worse case scenario - there's a big river flowing by below us - water and fish. Dh has a fishing pole.

Medications and first aid supplies - we have a fairly good first aid kit and a couple smaller type ones. I also have about an extra 30 day supply of my heart medication. My mom used to take the same med, but last year when we went in for her annual checkup the doctor changed her to a different med to start taking right away, so there was about a 30 day supply of her old med left, so I took it to keep on hand for me, in an emergency. I just need to remember to use it before it would go bad and cycle in my new refills, so the extra month never gets out of date. We also have quite a bit of meds like advil and tylenol. I'm wondering what else might be good to have on hand?

Guns and ammo - plenty. Don't plan on coming here to take our stuff ;)

DH has a small "but out bag" but honestly, neither of us see ourselves bugging out. We'd just stay put. I'm sure we'd be much safer here as anywhere. We could certainly live a lot longer here with all our food and supplies then somewhere else.

I'm sure there's lots more to think about and that we could be way better prepared for. I wish I knew how to can foods. Of course my grandma's used to do it, especially my grandma who lived on a ranch. I'm sure those that do it, find it easy. I find the thought of trying and learning it very daunting.

On a more positive note - go watch Ted Lasso - it'll make you smile :)