Wow another week already?
We started dewinterizing our tiny RV yesterday and finished today. For those who might not know about this (I had no idea until we bought it) in the fall one has to remove all the water in the tanks and pipes in the RV and put in special anti-freeze to keep the pipes, tanks, etc from freezing and possibly splitting open.
Comes the spring one has to get the antifreeze out of the pipes and tanks. This is done by draining the liquid in the pipes and tanks out. (The antifreeze is a special one used in RVs and boats; it is not what is put in the engine of vehicles.) One then replaces same with water and bleach and drives back and forth, stopping short to mix it throughout the pipes and tanks. It sits awhile. Then it is then drained out of the RV and the RV tanks and pipes are filled with plain water – several times – and drained again each time to the get the bleach and any remaining anti-freeze out of the RV. We have spent the last two days doing this several times to our RV. Now the water system is usable for this year's season.
Understand, this RV is a van converted (commercially) to an RV – NOT one of those large things you see on the road and in movies. It is very, ummm, “cozy”. The entire inside space is something like 20 feet by 6 feet. Think about a room that size and living in it – toilet, kitchen, living room and bedroom – all in that space.
So it is now prepared for any traveling we do in it this summer. Husband has plans.
Think about living with your significant other in a space this small. You have to be very close friends!
Showing posts with label water. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water. Show all posts
Thursday, May 25, 2023
TIME FLIES - DOESN'T IT? GETTING OUR RV READY TO USE THIS YEAR
Thursday, August 26, 2021
FOLLOWUP TO ORDERS ARE LATE - OR NOT AND NEW POST - NO MATTER WHAT ONE PREPARES FOR - SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENS
First an update – last weeks jeans post – So they were suppose to come on Wednesday, then late Wednesday we got an email that they were delayed and would be coming Friday – so, of course they came on Thursday! Now most people would think it great to get a day earlier than the amended date of arrival – But what if we had not been home? What it was raining all day? What we if we gone away as it was not coming until Friday? The package would have had a good chance of disappearing! This is one of the main reasons we don't order things – delivery is so iffy. (We had sort of resolved this problem, at least items were not sitting out in front of our house, by using a service from the Post Office called “Street Addressing” for our Post Office Box – which allows the Post Office to sign for the items and deliver them to our box (technically the item is being delivered to the Post Office itself, not us, which is how they get around the idea that other carriers cannot deliver to a box intended to receive Postal mail (which includes that box you put up next to your door at home for your mail delivery – which is why the other delivery companies do not put anything in that box). But since we are not going out, we have to have things delivered to our house – and then keep looking out the door all day to see if the item was received. It would have been nice if when they left the package, they did not leave it against the door which meant we had to go out the side door to the front door to get the package as we could not open the or walk out the front door.
Now this week's subject -
Our area was just missed by Hurricane/Tropical Storm Henri last weekend. First it was to hit the east of our Island, then it was going to hit the east end of the Island, then it was going to hit further west along the Island – it finally passed the Island on the east side by a good bit, so we had rain but no wind.
Wind is what concerns us the most. Our local electric utility has not done well dealing with major storms to the point that the utility company which was managing and running it was fired and a new company hired a short few years ago. That company failed in a major way last year with Hurricane Isaias – some people had no electricity for weeks afterward. Their system to let them know about outages and later get information about restoration time frames did not work. (A friend of a neighbor worked at the utility and neighbor let us know we would be out for 3 days minimum. Information was wrong – we were lucky and we were back on that night.)
When a storm is coming we prepare. Every cell phone and laptop computer, no matter how old (or if the cell phone has service) is plugged in to charge and left to do so until we until we know we are not having an outage. Why every one? Well, cell phones can dial 911 if one has no service, so the older phones can be used in an emergency if our current ones' batteries are used up. Our cable company has wifi running in the street outside our house and we can always use laptops – whether Windows 10 or XP (the assortment of laptops we have) with the wifi to access the Internet to contact someone in an emergency. Our flashlights are checked to make sure their batteries are good. We have a camping lantern which runs on batteries or a charge pack – we make sure the charge pack is fully charged is also charged and left charged until we know we are okay.
I also clear areas where we will be walking. I got this idea from how rooms were set up in the 1700s. The furniture was placed against the walls (other than items such as beds) when the furniture was not in used. When an item of furniture was needed it would be carried to the center of the room (and beds were too heavy to carry easily) and used – time to eat? Table and chairs carried to center of room and family eats. Done eating? Table and chairs put back against the wall. Main reason was that it allowed one room to be used for many purposes. A secondary reason (which applies here) is that one could walk through the room without walking into anything even in low light. I first tried this idea during Hurricane Sandy and it worked well. We could easily walk around the living room, front hall, and dining room without a flashlight until it was dark at night. I move items we keep on the upstairs landing of our house into the spare bedroom so we don't trip on them. (Two low, small tables with bear figurines on it.)
So we did all our preparations in anticipation of losing our electricity. We thought how lucky we were that the storm hit further east and our electricity was safe – the main rain from the storm was far west of us in New Jersey and further upstate New York – though we did get a LOT of heavy rain. It rained from just before we stepped out the door Saturday night to pickup Chinese food (was not raining at all when we ordered it and rain was not suppose to come until late – concert run by NYC got caught in the rain also had to be canceled mid-concert – though I think them foolish for having it once the storm was coming). The rain continued all day Sunday and well into Monday morning.
Monday we went out and checked around - everything thing seemed to be okay. There was a dove who seemingly was sitting on our side steps as when we opened the door she (our assumption for no particular reason) was flustered or pushed off the steps and was walking around confused. We then went out for fast food lunch. On our return the dove was still walking around dazed and confused and we were concerned it had been injured as it did not fly. (There are usually two of these doves around and we don't know what happened to the other and if this one was waiting for the other or confused as to where it was.) I tried calling wild animal agencies with no luck and husband went to move her to see what was going on – she then flew off – thank goodness she was okay – just dazed – and we did not have to worry about her not eating.
So all seemed fine and we relaxed. Monday night we walked into the basement to empty the dehumidifier before going to bed. Husband said “Why are my slippers wet?” Since we have never (to our knowledge) had a flood in the basement – we had not thought about same. From what we can determine rain came in the basement side window. We were vacuuming up water until almost 5 in the morning with a wet vacuum. I have been going down often to empty the dehumidifier for the past two days. The carpet (indoor/outdoor) is seemingly approaching dry – we moved the dehumidifier to a different stop which seemed damper and may have to do so in a couple of other spots. Also have a fan running downstairs during the day. We have had to toss a large sheet of card board and when it is dry down there will have to check for which other items need to be tossed – most items are in plastic boxes or bags so hopefully nothing important or expensive is lost.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
No matter how or what emergency one prepares for, something will happen that one did not expect. Do the best you can to deal with emergency possibilities ahead of time.
Thursday, August 6, 2020
PREPARING FOR HURRICANE ISAIAS AND THE AFTERMATH
Well, like those of you along the east coast of North America we had an add on to our Corona virus fun yesterday – a visit from Hurricane Isaias. I hope any of you affected by it are okay – personally, your home intact and have electricity, etc again.
We were each about to run out of one medication – husband's last pill of same would be Thursday. Sunday night I called our pharmacy (at a local regular Walmart) and reordered what we needed on their computer. We did not need refills of everything as husband is taking less of his medications due to our eating less to stretch our trips out for food and I stop taking one pill in summer as my blood pressure drops too low in summer otherwise, but there was a good number of pills.
We also had to call and change our RV park reservation – due to the Covid - 19 situation we do not feel comfortable going – and add on not knowing what would happen from Isaias, we decided best to postpone as it had to be done by yesterday – the day of Isaias here. I left a message Sunday night for them to call us Monday. We have changed the reservation to be our July 4th trip next July – we hope.
Saturday we went out and took in the loose items. We have two small solar lanterns which hang from iron posts – took down the lanterns and posts. Our “Betsy Ross” flag is also on an iron stand – took that down also. We have 3 iron stands that hold pots of flowers – normally we buy 3 pots of geraniums in spring and they through the fall (and for Christmas we put artificial poinsettias, which we potted and we reuse annually in them) – they came in also. Also our garbage pail – all went into the garage.
Monday night I put 2 ice cubes in each of 2 small plastic bags and put one bag of cubes in each freezer – if one loses their electricity and the ice is still frozen, then the food is okay to use. We charged our electric lantern and took out candles in holders. We plugged in our cell phones (even the old ones with no service – they can still call 911 in an emergency) and our laptops – normally our cable company's wifi which runs through the wires in the street will work when electric out and we can use the laptops with it. I also dropped a very small flashlight in my jeans pocket – during and after Hurricanes Irene and Sandy they were of great help. (The ones that Harbor Freight used to give out free with coupons before they switched to the blue plastic lights they give out now free with coupons.) We went to bed Monday night, hoping we would not need any of our preparations. I also cleared the walkways in the house - so that we could around without tripping on anything. In the 18th century rooms were used for multiple purposes. Furniture was kept against the walls and what was needed for the purpose at a time was moved to the center of the room and used – then put back against the walls. In semi-darkness to darkness one could walk through the room without needing a light. I work with this idea making sure that one can walk from room to room and around the room where one needs to be without a light when there is a possible blackout coming.
Isaias came in overnight – sounded terrible. News and weather reports had said it should be out of our area by around 3 pm and headed further north. So when we were getting ready to make lunch at 2 pm, we felt better as there was only an hour or so left before it was gone. Then the lights went out and the TV went off. I called our electric company and gave our information. (Our electricity poles, generating facilities, etc are owned by a non-profit which contracts with a regular utility company to run the system. The company that was doing so, and had been doing so for a long time before, when we were hit Hurricane Sandy did a terrible job of not getting everything going again, but also there was a major lack of communication and a new company was brought in to do run everything for the non-profit – following I will be talking about the new for profit company which runs it all for them.)
We expected to hear back from them at some or several points as the message had asked what phone number to call us back with updates – which I had figured would be recorded messages. For lunch we had peanut butter sandwiches – from an unopened jar as the opened jar was in the fridge, while I eat mine plain, husband likes jelly on his – he put some honey on it instead and I used disposable plates so I only had to wash the utensils (we leave the drinking glasses out on the table from lunch through our prebed snack). We found one of our battery operated radios and put in batteries. Not knowing how long the outage would be, we turned off our cell phones and did not turn on any of our laptops (old ones were also charged). We opened the front door (left the glass storm door locked) and husband sat on a chair to read on his tablet while I read BBC History magazine sitting on the staircase. After awhile I went upstairs to open the mail which had been sitting for 4 days (to kill any Covid-19 virus on it) – I opened the curtains and put up the shade to see what I was doing. I then went back to my reading on the stairs. It was bright and sunny, but still a bit windy outside at this point. The NYC (am)news radio stations would occasionally mention out here on Long Island, but not much info. The few Long Island radio stations (also am – radio does not have FM) just kept playing music. So no info. No calls from electric utility. Internet in street was not working. This was extremely annoying and frustrating.
One of our next door neighbors came walking on our driveway. We opened the front door and yelled back and forth as we socially distanced. She has a friend at the electric utility. A tree was down on a wire. It was affecting 2000 customers on the circuit (in my mind – good thing – more customers affected, the sooner they repair – fix a one house outage and the number of customers restored goes up 1, fix an outage affecting 2000 customers and that one repair makes the number of customers restored go up 2000. But she was told by her friend that we would be back on – Thursday PM! She was walking the street making sure that everyone had called in their outage so the utility would be aware how many were out on this circuit. I told we had – and she shared the info above about the outage. Her young daughter was with her – we both said hello to her also . Then they went on their way to talk to the other neighbors. (We have no children, when one has children one knows other people on the street with children, due to the nature of living on a main road, it is not a small street where everyone knows everyone else.) I thought husband was going to break down and cry or pass out when he heard Thursday pm – I managed to talk him out of either. Just because we are 18th century reenactors, does not mean that we like to live in the dark and without air conditioning on a hot day.
Dinner time was approaching and I knew we needed more than sandwiches. I went looking through our supplies - lots of cans of soup. I should mention that our stove is electric – no electricity, no stove. But we do have our other stove – in our RV. We have used it before during Hurricanes Irene and Sandy and some other electric outages. It is small, but it does have a 2 burner propane stove. I have actually only used it for situations like this – when we travel in it, we eat out. I had another thought – see if the Chinese take out place we use was open and take out dinner, but figured that husband would be upset at going out. I mentioned cooking the soup to him. He brought up the Chinese takeout, so we went with that. The place has only been taking orders online or in person – no telephone orders, but I called, explained and asked (and they know us) and they took the order and our credit card info by phone. As we were about to walk out to pick up the order, our telephone rang. Since the answering machine is not working and being concerned that there might be a problem with our order, I answered it. (We answered the telephone several times during the day – we now know who the hangup calls when they get our answering machine are from – all spam calls.) This call was not spam nor the take out place – it was my mother – who I have been trying to reach by telephone for a week! I explained that I had to talk very quickly and what we were about to do – she was surprised – she had known that we had a hurricane go through – and she lives where it is was the worst! Mom is in an assisted living so they always have electricity due to a generator (something we really need to get, a house generator which comes on automatically, but the price scares us) but I would have thought she would have heard the winds or seen something about it on TV?!
We picked up dinner and came home to eat it. I was using real dishes for dinner as did not want to deal with smaller paper tableware. I had tap water. Husband was drinking iced tea from mix and tap water (he hates drinking “warm water”). We had our soup and had started our main courses. I was figuring out in my head how I was going to see to wash the dishes – I had figured to bring over the battery lantern to the sink and leave husband with the candles. Mid first plate of food – the electricity came back on! How wonderful and lucky. We could use the air conditioning again – husband had been terribly warm – and lights – and TV! We did not open the fridge for cold drinks or the freezer for ice and left them closed until we had our nighttime snack, as we wanted them to get colder inside again.
The house has been put back together again. Seemed it was all behind us. Tonight shortly before I sat down to write this post however, the electricity went out again. I heard husband heading towards crying and wailing. As I calmed him down, I started calling the electric utility again – but in less than time than it took me to find, pick up, and memory dial them – it came back on again. I am figuring that they gerry rigged something yesterday to get our circuit back up and this was our transfer to the normal system we are on as it was so brief – as if it was turned off and then back on.
I should mention that we were lucky to reach the utility yesterday morning when we lost our electricity. Per the local newspaper people could not reach them by phone (apparently their phone carrier was having problems in addition to their own problems) or by their app. So now they are in the same problem as the former company.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Problems like this will happen. Plan ahead so when it does YOU know what you need to do. Know where your candles, electric lanterns, flashlights (last two being safer than the first) are. Charge your cell phones (and remember, as I mentioned, old cell phones with no service can still call 911 in an emergency so charge them also and leave them charging as long as you have electricity. Charge your laptops or tablets (even if you have no wifi available as we did not this time, they still can serve as a diversion) – but use your cell phones and laptops as little as possible in case you need them later. If there are children who are old enough – have a flashlight for each of them, it will help keep them from being frightened. Obviously have spare batteries for everything. A battery operated radio is a good idea for information.
I have an “accordion folder” (one of those large folders with sections) as my “grab and go”. When I reconcile a bank account the statement goes in it – and the last matching statement comes out and gets filed. I have copies of my computer data on DVD in it and update it monthly. Most recent paid bills for all our insurances. Copies of our small amount of stock info. Copies of house deed and car titles. Copy of marriage license. If we had to leave home in an emergency, I just grab this and go.
Water is rarely a problem here as our water comes from municipal water towers here. Having said that - we used to keep 3 gallon bottles of water in the basement and also some cans set aside for emergencies (apparently they were last changed before 2005 as we came across them in the early days of stay in place and that was the use by date on them, we are not using them, but husband made me keep them for now - “just in case”. When Hurricanes and Irene and Sandy were coming, we filled our RV water tanks (30 gallons of water) just in case. We did not do so this time.
Where my family lived we were relatively near the ocean and needing to live home in a large storm, in case of flooding in the area, became more and more common after I left home. If you live in an area where this might happen make sure you have a plan for what to take and who will drive what and know where to evacuate. (We live near the evacuation center so we are far enough inland on the Island not to need to do so. My mom did need to do so during many storms in more recent years (did not need to do so other than one time when I was still living there 40 years ago). I would tell her to come here, but she liked going to the evacuation center – “I see everyone I haven't seen since the last evacuation”. Make sure in advance that you have enough of your medications (as we picked up ours on Monday to be sure). If you have a pet, find out where you can go with them and have their things also.
Yeah, I know we have all heard this so many times – but DO you have a plan and know what to do? If not, start planning now – when you need to do so, it is too late.
Stay safe from storms and stay well from Covid- 19 all!
We were each about to run out of one medication – husband's last pill of same would be Thursday. Sunday night I called our pharmacy (at a local regular Walmart) and reordered what we needed on their computer. We did not need refills of everything as husband is taking less of his medications due to our eating less to stretch our trips out for food and I stop taking one pill in summer as my blood pressure drops too low in summer otherwise, but there was a good number of pills.
We also had to call and change our RV park reservation – due to the Covid - 19 situation we do not feel comfortable going – and add on not knowing what would happen from Isaias, we decided best to postpone as it had to be done by yesterday – the day of Isaias here. I left a message Sunday night for them to call us Monday. We have changed the reservation to be our July 4th trip next July – we hope.
Saturday we went out and took in the loose items. We have two small solar lanterns which hang from iron posts – took down the lanterns and posts. Our “Betsy Ross” flag is also on an iron stand – took that down also. We have 3 iron stands that hold pots of flowers – normally we buy 3 pots of geraniums in spring and they through the fall (and for Christmas we put artificial poinsettias, which we potted and we reuse annually in them) – they came in also. Also our garbage pail – all went into the garage.
Monday night I put 2 ice cubes in each of 2 small plastic bags and put one bag of cubes in each freezer – if one loses their electricity and the ice is still frozen, then the food is okay to use. We charged our electric lantern and took out candles in holders. We plugged in our cell phones (even the old ones with no service – they can still call 911 in an emergency) and our laptops – normally our cable company's wifi which runs through the wires in the street will work when electric out and we can use the laptops with it. I also dropped a very small flashlight in my jeans pocket – during and after Hurricanes Irene and Sandy they were of great help. (The ones that Harbor Freight used to give out free with coupons before they switched to the blue plastic lights they give out now free with coupons.) We went to bed Monday night, hoping we would not need any of our preparations. I also cleared the walkways in the house - so that we could around without tripping on anything. In the 18th century rooms were used for multiple purposes. Furniture was kept against the walls and what was needed for the purpose at a time was moved to the center of the room and used – then put back against the walls. In semi-darkness to darkness one could walk through the room without needing a light. I work with this idea making sure that one can walk from room to room and around the room where one needs to be without a light when there is a possible blackout coming.
Isaias came in overnight – sounded terrible. News and weather reports had said it should be out of our area by around 3 pm and headed further north. So when we were getting ready to make lunch at 2 pm, we felt better as there was only an hour or so left before it was gone. Then the lights went out and the TV went off. I called our electric company and gave our information. (Our electricity poles, generating facilities, etc are owned by a non-profit which contracts with a regular utility company to run the system. The company that was doing so, and had been doing so for a long time before, when we were hit Hurricane Sandy did a terrible job of not getting everything going again, but also there was a major lack of communication and a new company was brought in to do run everything for the non-profit – following I will be talking about the new for profit company which runs it all for them.)
We expected to hear back from them at some or several points as the message had asked what phone number to call us back with updates – which I had figured would be recorded messages. For lunch we had peanut butter sandwiches – from an unopened jar as the opened jar was in the fridge, while I eat mine plain, husband likes jelly on his – he put some honey on it instead and I used disposable plates so I only had to wash the utensils (we leave the drinking glasses out on the table from lunch through our prebed snack). We found one of our battery operated radios and put in batteries. Not knowing how long the outage would be, we turned off our cell phones and did not turn on any of our laptops (old ones were also charged). We opened the front door (left the glass storm door locked) and husband sat on a chair to read on his tablet while I read BBC History magazine sitting on the staircase. After awhile I went upstairs to open the mail which had been sitting for 4 days (to kill any Covid-19 virus on it) – I opened the curtains and put up the shade to see what I was doing. I then went back to my reading on the stairs. It was bright and sunny, but still a bit windy outside at this point. The NYC (am)news radio stations would occasionally mention out here on Long Island, but not much info. The few Long Island radio stations (also am – radio does not have FM) just kept playing music. So no info. No calls from electric utility. Internet in street was not working. This was extremely annoying and frustrating.
One of our next door neighbors came walking on our driveway. We opened the front door and yelled back and forth as we socially distanced. She has a friend at the electric utility. A tree was down on a wire. It was affecting 2000 customers on the circuit (in my mind – good thing – more customers affected, the sooner they repair – fix a one house outage and the number of customers restored goes up 1, fix an outage affecting 2000 customers and that one repair makes the number of customers restored go up 2000. But she was told by her friend that we would be back on – Thursday PM! She was walking the street making sure that everyone had called in their outage so the utility would be aware how many were out on this circuit. I told we had – and she shared the info above about the outage. Her young daughter was with her – we both said hello to her also . Then they went on their way to talk to the other neighbors. (We have no children, when one has children one knows other people on the street with children, due to the nature of living on a main road, it is not a small street where everyone knows everyone else.) I thought husband was going to break down and cry or pass out when he heard Thursday pm – I managed to talk him out of either. Just because we are 18th century reenactors, does not mean that we like to live in the dark and without air conditioning on a hot day.
Dinner time was approaching and I knew we needed more than sandwiches. I went looking through our supplies - lots of cans of soup. I should mention that our stove is electric – no electricity, no stove. But we do have our other stove – in our RV. We have used it before during Hurricanes Irene and Sandy and some other electric outages. It is small, but it does have a 2 burner propane stove. I have actually only used it for situations like this – when we travel in it, we eat out. I had another thought – see if the Chinese take out place we use was open and take out dinner, but figured that husband would be upset at going out. I mentioned cooking the soup to him. He brought up the Chinese takeout, so we went with that. The place has only been taking orders online or in person – no telephone orders, but I called, explained and asked (and they know us) and they took the order and our credit card info by phone. As we were about to walk out to pick up the order, our telephone rang. Since the answering machine is not working and being concerned that there might be a problem with our order, I answered it. (We answered the telephone several times during the day – we now know who the hangup calls when they get our answering machine are from – all spam calls.) This call was not spam nor the take out place – it was my mother – who I have been trying to reach by telephone for a week! I explained that I had to talk very quickly and what we were about to do – she was surprised – she had known that we had a hurricane go through – and she lives where it is was the worst! Mom is in an assisted living so they always have electricity due to a generator (something we really need to get, a house generator which comes on automatically, but the price scares us) but I would have thought she would have heard the winds or seen something about it on TV?!
We picked up dinner and came home to eat it. I was using real dishes for dinner as did not want to deal with smaller paper tableware. I had tap water. Husband was drinking iced tea from mix and tap water (he hates drinking “warm water”). We had our soup and had started our main courses. I was figuring out in my head how I was going to see to wash the dishes – I had figured to bring over the battery lantern to the sink and leave husband with the candles. Mid first plate of food – the electricity came back on! How wonderful and lucky. We could use the air conditioning again – husband had been terribly warm – and lights – and TV! We did not open the fridge for cold drinks or the freezer for ice and left them closed until we had our nighttime snack, as we wanted them to get colder inside again.
The house has been put back together again. Seemed it was all behind us. Tonight shortly before I sat down to write this post however, the electricity went out again. I heard husband heading towards crying and wailing. As I calmed him down, I started calling the electric utility again – but in less than time than it took me to find, pick up, and memory dial them – it came back on again. I am figuring that they gerry rigged something yesterday to get our circuit back up and this was our transfer to the normal system we are on as it was so brief – as if it was turned off and then back on.
I should mention that we were lucky to reach the utility yesterday morning when we lost our electricity. Per the local newspaper people could not reach them by phone (apparently their phone carrier was having problems in addition to their own problems) or by their app. So now they are in the same problem as the former company.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Problems like this will happen. Plan ahead so when it does YOU know what you need to do. Know where your candles, electric lanterns, flashlights (last two being safer than the first) are. Charge your cell phones (and remember, as I mentioned, old cell phones with no service can still call 911 in an emergency so charge them also and leave them charging as long as you have electricity. Charge your laptops or tablets (even if you have no wifi available as we did not this time, they still can serve as a diversion) – but use your cell phones and laptops as little as possible in case you need them later. If there are children who are old enough – have a flashlight for each of them, it will help keep them from being frightened. Obviously have spare batteries for everything. A battery operated radio is a good idea for information.
I have an “accordion folder” (one of those large folders with sections) as my “grab and go”. When I reconcile a bank account the statement goes in it – and the last matching statement comes out and gets filed. I have copies of my computer data on DVD in it and update it monthly. Most recent paid bills for all our insurances. Copies of our small amount of stock info. Copies of house deed and car titles. Copy of marriage license. If we had to leave home in an emergency, I just grab this and go.
Water is rarely a problem here as our water comes from municipal water towers here. Having said that - we used to keep 3 gallon bottles of water in the basement and also some cans set aside for emergencies (apparently they were last changed before 2005 as we came across them in the early days of stay in place and that was the use by date on them, we are not using them, but husband made me keep them for now - “just in case”. When Hurricanes and Irene and Sandy were coming, we filled our RV water tanks (30 gallons of water) just in case. We did not do so this time.
Where my family lived we were relatively near the ocean and needing to live home in a large storm, in case of flooding in the area, became more and more common after I left home. If you live in an area where this might happen make sure you have a plan for what to take and who will drive what and know where to evacuate. (We live near the evacuation center so we are far enough inland on the Island not to need to do so. My mom did need to do so during many storms in more recent years (did not need to do so other than one time when I was still living there 40 years ago). I would tell her to come here, but she liked going to the evacuation center – “I see everyone I haven't seen since the last evacuation”. Make sure in advance that you have enough of your medications (as we picked up ours on Monday to be sure). If you have a pet, find out where you can go with them and have their things also.
Yeah, I know we have all heard this so many times – but DO you have a plan and know what to do? If not, start planning now – when you need to do so, it is too late.
Stay safe from storms and stay well from Covid- 19 all!
Thursday, March 7, 2019
ALMOST A FIRE
I was taught to be very careful when cooking, My mom’s stove (an electric one) had 1 2 3 heat settings on the dial. I was taught never to walk out of the room if a burner was set at 2 or 3 and never to walk out of house when the stove was on (unless in either case someone else was in the room to watch the stove). After we married, in our apartment we had a (natural) gas stove/oven combination which scared the heck out of me as I was always afraid that it would blow up. I had to light the oven with a match to use it and was always sure that would be the last thing I did. (I actually once smelled gas outside the apartment as we were going out, called the gas company and when we got home later we had no stove. I telephoned to have it turned back on per the note left. When I asked, I was told that this all stemmed from a woman who had smelled the gas leak in the street and called them - hey, that was me.)
When we bought this house there was a gas stove/range combination also. I was not happy about that. I was even more upset when I was sure I smelled gas when we were in the house for later visits before we bought it. I was again right. Rather than get the unit repaired, we bought an electric stove/oven unit and had the kitchen wired for it.
Last night I made for dinner a pot pie we had bought on sale (we bought a few of them on sale - these are small production ones, not the major brands ones). I, of course, had forgotten to go down and put it in the oven to bake and therefore did so an hour late. Husband really likes these pies so he did not complain. I bake it in an oven which sits on the counter (uses 1/3 of the counter space we have). I carefully pulled the oven away from the wall and the stove and removed some plastic storage items sitting next to the oven to the other side of the kitchen. I lined the pan with foil to keep it clean.
In the interim while it was cooking I set the table, laid out our pills for dinner, etc. I would have thought nothing of walking out of the kitchen while the baking was going on, but in this case I stayed in the kitchen.
I made a can of soup for us to share as a first course. I split the can of soup before cooking it and use two small pots to cook it. It is worth cleaning the extra pot as it is much easier to split the soup as it comes out of the can and husband likes more water added to his soup than I do. As the pie went into its last ½ hour of cooking, we sat down and had the soup. After I poured the soup into our bowls, I put the pots on the stove. The burners for the soup had been shut off and I also made sure not to put the pots on the burners they had been on as the burners were still hot (electric burners take a short while to cool down after they shut off). As I said, I am very careful.
When the pie was done cooking, the countertop oven beeped and I took it out and put the pan on the stove - on the larger burner in the front on one side which was cold. We had the very nice pot pie for dinner.
After dinner I normally have a cup of tea for dinner. I normally cook it on the rear smaller burner, but I had moved the pots onto the baking pan and had put it on that rear burner, so I put the pot of water on the front, larger, burner to boil it and turned on the burner. I went back to the kitchen table - 5-6 feet away - and started reading the newspaper (TV was on for husband) while I waited to hear the water boiling.
It dawned on me that it was a bit long for the water to take to boil and something smelled wrong and notices small bits of black floating around the room. I had turned on the wrong burner!! I had turned on the burner with the pots and baking pan! I shut it off and using pot holders moved the burner with the pots still on it to another burner that was cold.
Luckily I caught it before we had an actual fire. The stove was covered in soot and the pots looked burned. The foil I had put in the baking pan was what seemed to be the black wisps flying around the room and the pan had a mark that went through it. I never did have tea. Husband suggested checking inside the oven to make sure all was okay there - I carefully put my hand on the front of it first to check that it was not hot before I opened it.
When they cooled a tiny bit, I put the pots and the pan into a dish pan of cold water to finish cooling them off. I was surprise that the pots and the pan (even the foil stuck to the pan) cleaned so easily. The pan though rocked when I put it on a flat surface, distorted by the heat. After I was done with pots and the pan, I started on the stove. It cleaned up much quicker and easier than I thought it would. I took apart the burner that all this happened on to clean it and found when I took out the drip pan that the foil liner in the drip pan had mostly melted. This had been the source of the black wisps floating about. I immediately pulled the liners in the other 3 pans - too dangerous (despite this not happening in the past 30 years) - and threw them out also.
Today husband was able to mostly get the baking pan to stop rocking by leaning on it. The kitchen no longer has a burning smell. Unrelated to all of this, we took in Chinese food for dinner tonight (easy way to deal with Ash Wednesday for husband).
Something we realized later in the evening when I boiled water - with the same pot I started to do so to make tea - later in the evening for some hot cereal before bed. The smoke detector had not gone off. (For a reminder of a past cooking incident that did set off the smoke detector see - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2018/07/not-in-pennsylvania.html )
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Well two of them actually. Be careful when cooking - even if you think that you are being careful - be more careful.
If you have foil drip pans in your stove - TAKE THEM OUT.
When we bought this house there was a gas stove/range combination also. I was not happy about that. I was even more upset when I was sure I smelled gas when we were in the house for later visits before we bought it. I was again right. Rather than get the unit repaired, we bought an electric stove/oven unit and had the kitchen wired for it.
Last night I made for dinner a pot pie we had bought on sale (we bought a few of them on sale - these are small production ones, not the major brands ones). I, of course, had forgotten to go down and put it in the oven to bake and therefore did so an hour late. Husband really likes these pies so he did not complain. I bake it in an oven which sits on the counter (uses 1/3 of the counter space we have). I carefully pulled the oven away from the wall and the stove and removed some plastic storage items sitting next to the oven to the other side of the kitchen. I lined the pan with foil to keep it clean.
In the interim while it was cooking I set the table, laid out our pills for dinner, etc. I would have thought nothing of walking out of the kitchen while the baking was going on, but in this case I stayed in the kitchen.
I made a can of soup for us to share as a first course. I split the can of soup before cooking it and use two small pots to cook it. It is worth cleaning the extra pot as it is much easier to split the soup as it comes out of the can and husband likes more water added to his soup than I do. As the pie went into its last ½ hour of cooking, we sat down and had the soup. After I poured the soup into our bowls, I put the pots on the stove. The burners for the soup had been shut off and I also made sure not to put the pots on the burners they had been on as the burners were still hot (electric burners take a short while to cool down after they shut off). As I said, I am very careful.
When the pie was done cooking, the countertop oven beeped and I took it out and put the pan on the stove - on the larger burner in the front on one side which was cold. We had the very nice pot pie for dinner.
After dinner I normally have a cup of tea for dinner. I normally cook it on the rear smaller burner, but I had moved the pots onto the baking pan and had put it on that rear burner, so I put the pot of water on the front, larger, burner to boil it and turned on the burner. I went back to the kitchen table - 5-6 feet away - and started reading the newspaper (TV was on for husband) while I waited to hear the water boiling.
It dawned on me that it was a bit long for the water to take to boil and something smelled wrong and notices small bits of black floating around the room. I had turned on the wrong burner!! I had turned on the burner with the pots and baking pan! I shut it off and using pot holders moved the burner with the pots still on it to another burner that was cold.
Luckily I caught it before we had an actual fire. The stove was covered in soot and the pots looked burned. The foil I had put in the baking pan was what seemed to be the black wisps flying around the room and the pan had a mark that went through it. I never did have tea. Husband suggested checking inside the oven to make sure all was okay there - I carefully put my hand on the front of it first to check that it was not hot before I opened it.
When they cooled a tiny bit, I put the pots and the pan into a dish pan of cold water to finish cooling them off. I was surprise that the pots and the pan (even the foil stuck to the pan) cleaned so easily. The pan though rocked when I put it on a flat surface, distorted by the heat. After I was done with pots and the pan, I started on the stove. It cleaned up much quicker and easier than I thought it would. I took apart the burner that all this happened on to clean it and found when I took out the drip pan that the foil liner in the drip pan had mostly melted. This had been the source of the black wisps floating about. I immediately pulled the liners in the other 3 pans - too dangerous (despite this not happening in the past 30 years) - and threw them out also.
Today husband was able to mostly get the baking pan to stop rocking by leaning on it. The kitchen no longer has a burning smell. Unrelated to all of this, we took in Chinese food for dinner tonight (easy way to deal with Ash Wednesday for husband).
Something we realized later in the evening when I boiled water - with the same pot I started to do so to make tea - later in the evening for some hot cereal before bed. The smoke detector had not gone off. (For a reminder of a past cooking incident that did set off the smoke detector see - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2018/07/not-in-pennsylvania.html )
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Well two of them actually. Be careful when cooking - even if you think that you are being careful - be more careful.
If you have foil drip pans in your stove - TAKE THEM OUT.
Thursday, November 15, 2018
MY HUSBAND SAID - IT WILL ONLY TAKE AN HOUR - PART 1
First - I hope any of you in California and those you know are safe from the fires.
I have mentioned before that we have a very small RV (it is a conversion of a Chevy Express van so I do mean small). Those of you who live in the colder areas understand that in cold weather unprotected water pipes can freeze and cause damage. To prevent this in an RV (or a travel trailer or boat which has plumbing) one has to winterize the water system in the fall before it gets too cold. Too cold according to my husband is 2 nights in a row under 28F, without it getting into the 40Fs during the days. At this point water will be freezing in the water system of the RV.
Winterizing is a fairly straight forward process - all the water in the pipes and tanks has to be drained out and then a non-toxic anti-freeze (mostly alcohol - no, not the drinkable kind) has to be run through the system. It really should only take about an hour - but hey, this is us.
At the end of October when it was still in the 50Fs I suggested to husband that we do the winterizing since we were not going to use the RV due to his shoulder and arm pain. We normally due this early in November. He replied that we had plenty of time - I suggested that doing it in relatively warmer weather was better. He said to wait until he felt better. This is one of the few maintenance tasks that we do ourselves on the RV that I cannot do on my own. (Husband has been surprised this past month and a half that I can do the tasks we do together on my own.)
Well, last weekend the weather report was for a night below freezing and that the weather would not improve much this week - going into rain on Tuesday. So, now in panic we had to winterize the RV on Monday. Luckily husband had listened to me when I suggested buying the antifreeze last month and we had bought 3 one gallon bottles plus we had one full bottle and one at least half full bottle left over last year.
First thing we had to do was the result of our not having traveled in September or October. We anticipated at least one more trip when we went away on our last (one night) August trip. The black and grey water tanks (outgoing water) have to be dumped. While we dumped them before we left for home on our last trip, we also added some clean water into them as they cannot be without water (or antifreeze) in it. Generally on our last trip of the season we would not have added this water into the tanks. So we had to dump the tanks.
Well, we thought this was the first thing. Since we had planned to travel again and had been away for at most a total of 5 nights, we had left the bed made. So first I had to unmake and disassemble the bed. Why? The bed is on top of two cabinets (when not a bed it is similar to a restaurant booth - a seats on top of a cabinet on each side of the RV in the rear section and then wooden boards go between, the side seats slide together onto these boards and then the bench backs are laid down along the walls to form the bed) This all has to be reversed to unmake the bed.
So I strip the sheets and pillow cases and bag them in a laundry bag - throw in front of the RV. I then fold the blankets and the mattress covers and with the pillows to the same side of the bed (his side or my side) I bag them in extra large laundry bags and then put those in extra large plastic bags and seal them closed for the winter. I use twin sheets, blankets and mattress covers as it is easier to make up each half of the bed separately. The bags with the pillows etc. each go on one of the front seats. I then lift up the back of the bench on “my side”of the bed and put it on the main mattress piece and push the bottom end (where I am) to the side which lets me pull out the first wooden board from the center and set it aside. I then squeeze in and pull out the second board. I can then reach a small section of the mattress which sits along the rear corner of the RV (head of the bed as we sleep with our heads to the back of the RV) and put that also on the main piece. I can now push the main piece into the bench position on the cabinet on that side. I remove a small additional center mattress insert from between the two sides and put it and the two large pieces of wood under the mattress piece.
I then take the back piece from his side of the bed and put it on mine. I take the matching small back corner piece and put it on mine. This leaves his main mattress piece - the bench seat. Problem is that my side of the bed and its bench is about 3 inches shorter than his in length. So I can not put it on my side, I have to put the rear van end (head of the bed) on mine and with it on a catty corner angle make room to be able to later get to the front end of the cabinet under his mattress as that is where the water system is accessed. This has taken about a half hour.
The water from the fresh water tanks had been let out after our return home - that water can be allowed to run down the driveway as it is clean water, the water from the grey and black tanks cannot be allowed to run. So when we do this at home we have the dump system pump the water into a bucket which is then carried into the house and flushed down the toilet. (If you have been in an RV our has different dump system - instead of it all running out by gravity, ours has a macerator and pump and the contents are pumped out and ground up. Normally he would carry the bucket, this time I had to.
We set it all up on the driveway and I was holding the hose into the bucket while he pushed the button on the side of the driver’s seat to run the pump. He pushes it - nothing happens. Repeat - nothing happens. Repeat - nothing happens. Husband goes into panic mode. Maybe we didn’t put water in it when we pumped it out? He adds a gallon of antifreeze. He pushes the button - nothing happens. More panic. Then he thinks - maybe there is not enough water in it as the RV is on the driveway on an uphill angle and the water is sitting at the other end of the tank. He has me take out our levelers - this are rounded bottom plastic pieces with a thin end graduated to a thick end. One is put in front of the rear tires (or the front ones - in this case the rear ones) and then he slowly drives onto them until the RV is level. Chucks are put under the thin end which is now raised in the air - lifting the tires up off the group. We do this. I hate doing this as I am the one who has to slip the chucks under it and then has to remove the chucks from it - we were going to put strings on the chucks so I would not have to put my hands and arms under the RV to remove them, but of course have not gotten around to it. So the RV was sort of level (we can only raise it so much). I hold the hose in the bucket, he pushes the button. Nothing happens. Repeat. Finally remove the chucks and drive off the levelers.
When we last dumped the tanks the pump sounded funny, it seemed to go to quickly, and there was no need to give short pumps at the end. Maybe the macerator is broken and/or pump is broken? That’s a big expense.
New idea. Maybe something is stuck in the macerator? There is a handle to rotate it and clear it - under the RV. I have lain down before and looked at what was underneath as husband would get ill if he did so and I did have to find the cap to remove to let the clean the water out when we are done with using the tanks. I knew where the handle was. As a matter of fact during this past summer husband and I had a conversation about the handle as someone had figured out how to make a clean out from the macerator directly and let the tank contents out by gravity. The handle is on the driver’s side of the RV - the macerator is under the passenger side. We have had this discussion at least 3 times in the past. He tells me to turn the handle and insists it is on the passenger side. It is fall. The driveway is covered in leaves. I don’t want to lie down in the leaves. He gets a broom and sweeps them away as I humor him by lying down and looking on the wrong side for the handle. Then the leaves have to be cleared off the driveway on the correct side. Problem here is the driveway is wet from our attempts to dump - and I AM NOT GOING TO LIE IN THAT WATER. So I am lying on my wrong side. Next problem. I am short and have short arms so I can barely reach the handle and. I manage to grab it and push it and I think it engaged. I turn it. I cannot keep it pushed and turn it at the same time, but attempt it several times. Guess what - yes, when we try to dump again it still does not work. Husband figures that maybe the water in the macerator (there is always some which is why we are suppose to get anti-freeze in it to replace the water which will be pushed out by the pump) froze.
We realize that we cannot do anything with pump and macerator and - luckily for me - we both have the same idea to move on to the rest of the process. We have used about 2.5 hours doing this. He drives the RV back into its normal position on the driveway to do the rest - most - of the process which remains.
To be continued -
I have mentioned before that we have a very small RV (it is a conversion of a Chevy Express van so I do mean small). Those of you who live in the colder areas understand that in cold weather unprotected water pipes can freeze and cause damage. To prevent this in an RV (or a travel trailer or boat which has plumbing) one has to winterize the water system in the fall before it gets too cold. Too cold according to my husband is 2 nights in a row under 28F, without it getting into the 40Fs during the days. At this point water will be freezing in the water system of the RV.
Winterizing is a fairly straight forward process - all the water in the pipes and tanks has to be drained out and then a non-toxic anti-freeze (mostly alcohol - no, not the drinkable kind) has to be run through the system. It really should only take about an hour - but hey, this is us.
At the end of October when it was still in the 50Fs I suggested to husband that we do the winterizing since we were not going to use the RV due to his shoulder and arm pain. We normally due this early in November. He replied that we had plenty of time - I suggested that doing it in relatively warmer weather was better. He said to wait until he felt better. This is one of the few maintenance tasks that we do ourselves on the RV that I cannot do on my own. (Husband has been surprised this past month and a half that I can do the tasks we do together on my own.)
Well, last weekend the weather report was for a night below freezing and that the weather would not improve much this week - going into rain on Tuesday. So, now in panic we had to winterize the RV on Monday. Luckily husband had listened to me when I suggested buying the antifreeze last month and we had bought 3 one gallon bottles plus we had one full bottle and one at least half full bottle left over last year.
First thing we had to do was the result of our not having traveled in September or October. We anticipated at least one more trip when we went away on our last (one night) August trip. The black and grey water tanks (outgoing water) have to be dumped. While we dumped them before we left for home on our last trip, we also added some clean water into them as they cannot be without water (or antifreeze) in it. Generally on our last trip of the season we would not have added this water into the tanks. So we had to dump the tanks.
Well, we thought this was the first thing. Since we had planned to travel again and had been away for at most a total of 5 nights, we had left the bed made. So first I had to unmake and disassemble the bed. Why? The bed is on top of two cabinets (when not a bed it is similar to a restaurant booth - a seats on top of a cabinet on each side of the RV in the rear section and then wooden boards go between, the side seats slide together onto these boards and then the bench backs are laid down along the walls to form the bed) This all has to be reversed to unmake the bed.
So I strip the sheets and pillow cases and bag them in a laundry bag - throw in front of the RV. I then fold the blankets and the mattress covers and with the pillows to the same side of the bed (his side or my side) I bag them in extra large laundry bags and then put those in extra large plastic bags and seal them closed for the winter. I use twin sheets, blankets and mattress covers as it is easier to make up each half of the bed separately. The bags with the pillows etc. each go on one of the front seats. I then lift up the back of the bench on “my side”of the bed and put it on the main mattress piece and push the bottom end (where I am) to the side which lets me pull out the first wooden board from the center and set it aside. I then squeeze in and pull out the second board. I can then reach a small section of the mattress which sits along the rear corner of the RV (head of the bed as we sleep with our heads to the back of the RV) and put that also on the main piece. I can now push the main piece into the bench position on the cabinet on that side. I remove a small additional center mattress insert from between the two sides and put it and the two large pieces of wood under the mattress piece.
I then take the back piece from his side of the bed and put it on mine. I take the matching small back corner piece and put it on mine. This leaves his main mattress piece - the bench seat. Problem is that my side of the bed and its bench is about 3 inches shorter than his in length. So I can not put it on my side, I have to put the rear van end (head of the bed) on mine and with it on a catty corner angle make room to be able to later get to the front end of the cabinet under his mattress as that is where the water system is accessed. This has taken about a half hour.
The water from the fresh water tanks had been let out after our return home - that water can be allowed to run down the driveway as it is clean water, the water from the grey and black tanks cannot be allowed to run. So when we do this at home we have the dump system pump the water into a bucket which is then carried into the house and flushed down the toilet. (If you have been in an RV our has different dump system - instead of it all running out by gravity, ours has a macerator and pump and the contents are pumped out and ground up. Normally he would carry the bucket, this time I had to.
We set it all up on the driveway and I was holding the hose into the bucket while he pushed the button on the side of the driver’s seat to run the pump. He pushes it - nothing happens. Repeat - nothing happens. Repeat - nothing happens. Husband goes into panic mode. Maybe we didn’t put water in it when we pumped it out? He adds a gallon of antifreeze. He pushes the button - nothing happens. More panic. Then he thinks - maybe there is not enough water in it as the RV is on the driveway on an uphill angle and the water is sitting at the other end of the tank. He has me take out our levelers - this are rounded bottom plastic pieces with a thin end graduated to a thick end. One is put in front of the rear tires (or the front ones - in this case the rear ones) and then he slowly drives onto them until the RV is level. Chucks are put under the thin end which is now raised in the air - lifting the tires up off the group. We do this. I hate doing this as I am the one who has to slip the chucks under it and then has to remove the chucks from it - we were going to put strings on the chucks so I would not have to put my hands and arms under the RV to remove them, but of course have not gotten around to it. So the RV was sort of level (we can only raise it so much). I hold the hose in the bucket, he pushes the button. Nothing happens. Repeat. Finally remove the chucks and drive off the levelers.
When we last dumped the tanks the pump sounded funny, it seemed to go to quickly, and there was no need to give short pumps at the end. Maybe the macerator is broken and/or pump is broken? That’s a big expense.
New idea. Maybe something is stuck in the macerator? There is a handle to rotate it and clear it - under the RV. I have lain down before and looked at what was underneath as husband would get ill if he did so and I did have to find the cap to remove to let the clean the water out when we are done with using the tanks. I knew where the handle was. As a matter of fact during this past summer husband and I had a conversation about the handle as someone had figured out how to make a clean out from the macerator directly and let the tank contents out by gravity. The handle is on the driver’s side of the RV - the macerator is under the passenger side. We have had this discussion at least 3 times in the past. He tells me to turn the handle and insists it is on the passenger side. It is fall. The driveway is covered in leaves. I don’t want to lie down in the leaves. He gets a broom and sweeps them away as I humor him by lying down and looking on the wrong side for the handle. Then the leaves have to be cleared off the driveway on the correct side. Problem here is the driveway is wet from our attempts to dump - and I AM NOT GOING TO LIE IN THAT WATER. So I am lying on my wrong side. Next problem. I am short and have short arms so I can barely reach the handle and. I manage to grab it and push it and I think it engaged. I turn it. I cannot keep it pushed and turn it at the same time, but attempt it several times. Guess what - yes, when we try to dump again it still does not work. Husband figures that maybe the water in the macerator (there is always some which is why we are suppose to get anti-freeze in it to replace the water which will be pushed out by the pump) froze.
We realize that we cannot do anything with pump and macerator and - luckily for me - we both have the same idea to move on to the rest of the process. We have used about 2.5 hours doing this. He drives the RV back into its normal position on the driveway to do the rest - most - of the process which remains.
To be continued -
Thursday, March 15, 2018
THE NOR'EASTERS CONTINUE - SO MORE ON ORGANIZING IN ADVANCE OF DISASTERS
Well, we have now had 3 nor’easters in 10 days. Another is now due in early next week. That’s a lot of nor’easters. Additional today we had extremely light snow in the late afternoon. Tomorrow I am going to Manhattan for work - it was suppose to be a completely clear day - no, now during the evening rush hour there is to be snow or rain - at just about freezing temperature and I will be driving home. There was a time when I would not even blink at the idea of driving home in snow - now even rain if it might freeze on the road worries me.
As of last Saturday afternoon (a week after the first storm and 3 days after the second storm) there were 300,000 electric outages in the tri state area - most still out from the first storm. And outage is not necessarily one family’s outage - a single outage can be for an apartment building (or businesses) and may actually be lots of families with no electricity. There are still outages.
We were lucky though. The exact spot we live in was treated very gently by all 3 storms. The first storm had almost no snow - here. The second two we had maybe 3 inches of snow each overnight and by the time we went out the next afternoon - it was 95% or more melted and gone. The first storm passed to the west of us - the second one to west and east of us (at the same time) and the third one passed to the east of us. According to the news broadcasts the second two storms dropped 6+ inches of snow in our county - how all missed us we do not know and feel lucky.
So, a bit more about suggestions to organize in advance of possible weather or other emergencies. I know it recommended to have a gallon of water per person for 3 days minimum. I don’t know about you, but when we tried to do this we had no place to keep the water. We finally settled for 2- 1 gallon bottles of water stored in the basement on the top shelf of a metal shelving unit. I would use the water for a reenactment event when time was getting close for the water to expire and then use the new water bought for the event to replace it so it would stay fresh. So - if you do buy water - make sure you keep the water fresh.
We also had a plastic box that we put a jar of applesauce in and some other food items - no canned meat as we know we would not eat it. Again, make sure to use your supplies and replace them so they are fresh if needed. We also bought a sterno stove with cans of sterno which were in the box. It has never been used - we presume it is all still good.
As I mentioned in last week’s post - if you have babies or small children, make sure to have the food they use which does not need refrigeration as well as diapers and related items if they are still being used. Also make sure you have spare medications for any ailments or conditions and any sanitary items you or other women in the household might need.
We had thought much of this was overkill as we had never needed it despite nor’easters and hurricanes over the decades we have both been alive. If one community in the area was without electricity, then others would still have electricity and one could eat out and buy supplies as needed elsewhere. We have always been told to fill bathtubs with water which can be used for flushing toilets if there is no water or the water is not good. We have municipal water - this has never happened so we did not bother. Then came Hurricane Sandy.
Just about the entire Island (4 counties) was without electricity - there were a few spots here and there. Some villages have their own electric plants - off the grid - and always have electricity - well, some of them were the places the flooding hit the worst and even they did not have electricity. One village near my mom’s house did have electricity - she would go there once during the day to a casual type restaurant that was open and she would call us on her mobile phone, recharge it, and eat.
Mobile phones might or might not work, by the way. The antennas had been damaged and the remaining available was overwhelmed. One trick was that text messages go through easier than phone calls - something my niece had figured out in an earlier problem when she was a young teenager. She and some friends were at a mall some distance from home and she wanted her mom to not worry as they were okay (mall security had actually gotten all the kids together to be able to keep them safe) and to know where to pick them up - her mobile calls would not go through and she thought to text her mom. So remember, texts go through sometimes even if calls do not.
One of the county water plants had a sewage plant near it go bad - we are on one side of a major road - we had water. If we lived on the other side of the road we would have been on the that water system - we would not have had water.
Now, we had a certain advantage during Sandy and mostly used since then. We were about to go away on a trip in our RV when Sandy was coming - two days after it actually. So, we did not know what to do. There is a lot of work setting up the RV for a trip. I suggested to husband that we fill the water tank of the RV - if we could go, it was a major thing done to prepare, if we did not go and there was a problem with the drinking water (remember this is before it actually happened to the next area) we would have 25 gallons of clean water in the RV tanks - and if we did not go and did not need the water, it is relatively easy to let it back out. We have continued to fill the water tanks when a storm is coming if it is coming when the tanks are not winterized. Winterizing keeps the pipes and valves from freezing so we would not want to take the chance on same and add water to the tanks - also the water, while safe, it would smell and taste awful.
In addition after the first day and night with no electricity I figured out that we could go in the RV and watch TV - there is an antenna that lifts up and the batteries are kept charged. Husband calculated and figured out that we could run the TV and lights - and recharge cell phones, laptops, etc. - for 2 hours on the batteries (they would last much longer but would need to be recharged) and then run the generator in the RV for an hour which would also recharge the batteries from the 2 hours of use. Most importantly in the aftermath of Sandy when gasoline was extremely hard to get - it would only take 1/3 of a gallon of gas. We also used the propane stove in the RV to cook. We could not use the refrigerator as we would have had to have the batteries on all time.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Okay, I have run on and bored you enough what does all this mean?
One has to plan in advance “just in case”. Even if there has never been a problem in large storms, one never knows what will happen. Think of who is in your household - or might seek shelter with you if you have parents, siblings or children or good friends who might need help in an emergency. Think of what you and the others might need and try to figure out innovative ways to deal with same, in addition to the standard ways. Have alternate ideas of what to do.
Plan alternatives. You never know what might happen out of the ordinary for emergencies in your area. After Sandy all the bridges and tunnels to our Island were shut down - no way in or out except for official vehicles. Tunnels remained flooded for some time - damage in them is still be repaired now - 6 years later.
Hopefully you will never need what you have planned and stored - but that is much, much better than needing it and not having it.
As of last Saturday afternoon (a week after the first storm and 3 days after the second storm) there were 300,000 electric outages in the tri state area - most still out from the first storm. And outage is not necessarily one family’s outage - a single outage can be for an apartment building (or businesses) and may actually be lots of families with no electricity. There are still outages.
We were lucky though. The exact spot we live in was treated very gently by all 3 storms. The first storm had almost no snow - here. The second two we had maybe 3 inches of snow each overnight and by the time we went out the next afternoon - it was 95% or more melted and gone. The first storm passed to the west of us - the second one to west and east of us (at the same time) and the third one passed to the east of us. According to the news broadcasts the second two storms dropped 6+ inches of snow in our county - how all missed us we do not know and feel lucky.
So, a bit more about suggestions to organize in advance of possible weather or other emergencies. I know it recommended to have a gallon of water per person for 3 days minimum. I don’t know about you, but when we tried to do this we had no place to keep the water. We finally settled for 2- 1 gallon bottles of water stored in the basement on the top shelf of a metal shelving unit. I would use the water for a reenactment event when time was getting close for the water to expire and then use the new water bought for the event to replace it so it would stay fresh. So - if you do buy water - make sure you keep the water fresh.
We also had a plastic box that we put a jar of applesauce in and some other food items - no canned meat as we know we would not eat it. Again, make sure to use your supplies and replace them so they are fresh if needed. We also bought a sterno stove with cans of sterno which were in the box. It has never been used - we presume it is all still good.
As I mentioned in last week’s post - if you have babies or small children, make sure to have the food they use which does not need refrigeration as well as diapers and related items if they are still being used. Also make sure you have spare medications for any ailments or conditions and any sanitary items you or other women in the household might need.
We had thought much of this was overkill as we had never needed it despite nor’easters and hurricanes over the decades we have both been alive. If one community in the area was without electricity, then others would still have electricity and one could eat out and buy supplies as needed elsewhere. We have always been told to fill bathtubs with water which can be used for flushing toilets if there is no water or the water is not good. We have municipal water - this has never happened so we did not bother. Then came Hurricane Sandy.
Just about the entire Island (4 counties) was without electricity - there were a few spots here and there. Some villages have their own electric plants - off the grid - and always have electricity - well, some of them were the places the flooding hit the worst and even they did not have electricity. One village near my mom’s house did have electricity - she would go there once during the day to a casual type restaurant that was open and she would call us on her mobile phone, recharge it, and eat.
Mobile phones might or might not work, by the way. The antennas had been damaged and the remaining available was overwhelmed. One trick was that text messages go through easier than phone calls - something my niece had figured out in an earlier problem when she was a young teenager. She and some friends were at a mall some distance from home and she wanted her mom to not worry as they were okay (mall security had actually gotten all the kids together to be able to keep them safe) and to know where to pick them up - her mobile calls would not go through and she thought to text her mom. So remember, texts go through sometimes even if calls do not.
One of the county water plants had a sewage plant near it go bad - we are on one side of a major road - we had water. If we lived on the other side of the road we would have been on the that water system - we would not have had water.
Now, we had a certain advantage during Sandy and mostly used since then. We were about to go away on a trip in our RV when Sandy was coming - two days after it actually. So, we did not know what to do. There is a lot of work setting up the RV for a trip. I suggested to husband that we fill the water tank of the RV - if we could go, it was a major thing done to prepare, if we did not go and there was a problem with the drinking water (remember this is before it actually happened to the next area) we would have 25 gallons of clean water in the RV tanks - and if we did not go and did not need the water, it is relatively easy to let it back out. We have continued to fill the water tanks when a storm is coming if it is coming when the tanks are not winterized. Winterizing keeps the pipes and valves from freezing so we would not want to take the chance on same and add water to the tanks - also the water, while safe, it would smell and taste awful.
In addition after the first day and night with no electricity I figured out that we could go in the RV and watch TV - there is an antenna that lifts up and the batteries are kept charged. Husband calculated and figured out that we could run the TV and lights - and recharge cell phones, laptops, etc. - for 2 hours on the batteries (they would last much longer but would need to be recharged) and then run the generator in the RV for an hour which would also recharge the batteries from the 2 hours of use. Most importantly in the aftermath of Sandy when gasoline was extremely hard to get - it would only take 1/3 of a gallon of gas. We also used the propane stove in the RV to cook. We could not use the refrigerator as we would have had to have the batteries on all time.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Okay, I have run on and bored you enough what does all this mean?
One has to plan in advance “just in case”. Even if there has never been a problem in large storms, one never knows what will happen. Think of who is in your household - or might seek shelter with you if you have parents, siblings or children or good friends who might need help in an emergency. Think of what you and the others might need and try to figure out innovative ways to deal with same, in addition to the standard ways. Have alternate ideas of what to do.
Plan alternatives. You never know what might happen out of the ordinary for emergencies in your area. After Sandy all the bridges and tunnels to our Island were shut down - no way in or out except for official vehicles. Tunnels remained flooded for some time - damage in them is still be repaired now - 6 years later.
Hopefully you will never need what you have planned and stored - but that is much, much better than needing it and not having it.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
GETTING EXTRA TASKS DONE - SOMEHOW
This week I wanted to talk about fitting in things that have to be done now and then. One can set up a routine for the week to help one get the house cleaning and other tasks done, but every now and then (more now than then it seems) other things have to be done. Some are planned, some just pop up. Some are fun, but some are just things to be done - some even are things one dreads doing.
I have on numerous times mentioned our RV. The weather is getting cold. Before the weather gets freezing we have to winterize it. If you live in an area which gets cold in winter you probably know that if water freezes in your pipes they will split and you will have a problem. This is more likely to happen if the house or the area of the house where the pipe is located is not heated. (With the huge snow storms here the past few years this has happened to people who lost their electric power and had no heat. Husband worried about in our basement as some of the pipes are attached to the inside of the exterior walls as it was much colder than normal here and ran an electric heater in the basement to keep the pipes warm.) Winterizing the RV is, basically, getting all of the water out of the pipes, valves, etc. and replacing it with non-toxic anti-freeze. Sounds simple. It is not as that simple and there is an entire process that needs to be followed to do it - we have it written down, but still manage to always forget something. Today we winterized the RV.
My husband has started weaving on a loom this year. So, every week or so I help him do what is called “warping the loom”. This is putting the threads on the loom to weave through. It is a relatively tedious process. He needs my help to bring the warp threads out to a dowel to measure them out and then when all the threads are on the dowel, I bring the dowel to the loom - v e r y s l o w l y - and I keep tension on the threads, as he winds them onto the loom. When he finishes weaving a piece I know that he will soon be looking to warp the loom again. So, when he finished a piece, I knew that he would be looking to warp the loom. After we finished winterizing the RV - which took most of the afternoon, I saw him walk into the living room (where the loom is) and look around and sort of sigh. I knew what was going on. He wanted to warp the loom, but did not want to ask me to do so after spending the afternoon with the RV. I made the offer and we spent most of the rest of the time before dinner warping the loom.
So this afternoon was mostly used up with these two chores. I managed to check my email and that was about it. (I am writing this at night after dinner.)
I have worked as an accountant most of my life. (I started helping my dad add up columns of numbers when I was 12, so I do mean most of my life.) I have reached a point now where I have a couple of regular clients for whom I do their books on a regular basis and a handful of income tax clients. Unfortunately there is no exemption by IRS for a practice this small and I have to take annual classes and exams as the same as if I worked full time and actually made money doing this. While I can take the classes and exams as home study, it still is something else which must be fit into my time and takes about 20 hours in total. I get nervous every year about fitting time to take the exams into my schedule. I managed to do some of the smaller classes last night, which helped me get a bit less nervous. I still have some more of the smaller classes to do. I also have a large class and a 3 hour exam I have to take which I have not taken before. This scares the heck out of me. Not only do I have to do well on the exam to keep working - I also have to find a 3 hour block of time to take the exam. Somehow, I know I will do so - special things always manage to somehow be fit into one’s schedule.
Then I know that later this month the other big special things to do will start - Christmas decorating. Somehow no matter how busy we all are, we somehow manage to fit in decorating the house and the tree and buying and wrapping gifts. And then somehow, when it is all over, we find the time to take it all down and store it away. Okay - our decorations tend to stay up longer than they should - but the year they stayed up until April, it really was only because it was a freezing winter and our garage door froze to the ground and we could not get out the storage boxes to store the ornaments. So rather than take off the ornaments and leave them about, the tree stayed up. But for now, let us just think of the fun of decorating and how nice everything will look - if we can just find the time to decorate.
So, in between the normal daily, weekly, monthly tasks we all somehow manage to fit in these other tasks. How we do it varies from person to person and time to time. I just “found some time” I hope to keep available to get things done. On Monday nights I read comics online. Mostly I was reading the entire week of each comic’s strips. Some (most) weeks this reading ran over to Tuesday. Two weeks ago I decided it takes too much time. I looked through the strips as I read them. I dropped one strip. Five others I decided I will only read the Sunday strips. I like the characters, but can do with just a quick visit to them. (Sunday strips generally have nothing to do with weekday strips so I won’t be missing any “plot”.) Over time I may drop some of these strips, but I will see what I decide. The remaining strips are ones which I like the most and want to keep reading. This has cut out over an hour of time that I spent reading my comics and I now seem to be able to able to finish them on Monday night, leaving Tuesday night free for whatever else I need to do. (Hence, why I was able to take part of the classes I need to take last night.)
How do you fit in things which need to be done to your busy schedule? Do you need to fit in making Thanksgiving dinner next week?
I have on numerous times mentioned our RV. The weather is getting cold. Before the weather gets freezing we have to winterize it. If you live in an area which gets cold in winter you probably know that if water freezes in your pipes they will split and you will have a problem. This is more likely to happen if the house or the area of the house where the pipe is located is not heated. (With the huge snow storms here the past few years this has happened to people who lost their electric power and had no heat. Husband worried about in our basement as some of the pipes are attached to the inside of the exterior walls as it was much colder than normal here and ran an electric heater in the basement to keep the pipes warm.) Winterizing the RV is, basically, getting all of the water out of the pipes, valves, etc. and replacing it with non-toxic anti-freeze. Sounds simple. It is not as that simple and there is an entire process that needs to be followed to do it - we have it written down, but still manage to always forget something. Today we winterized the RV.
My husband has started weaving on a loom this year. So, every week or so I help him do what is called “warping the loom”. This is putting the threads on the loom to weave through. It is a relatively tedious process. He needs my help to bring the warp threads out to a dowel to measure them out and then when all the threads are on the dowel, I bring the dowel to the loom - v e r y s l o w l y - and I keep tension on the threads, as he winds them onto the loom. When he finishes weaving a piece I know that he will soon be looking to warp the loom again. So, when he finished a piece, I knew that he would be looking to warp the loom. After we finished winterizing the RV - which took most of the afternoon, I saw him walk into the living room (where the loom is) and look around and sort of sigh. I knew what was going on. He wanted to warp the loom, but did not want to ask me to do so after spending the afternoon with the RV. I made the offer and we spent most of the rest of the time before dinner warping the loom.
So this afternoon was mostly used up with these two chores. I managed to check my email and that was about it. (I am writing this at night after dinner.)
I have worked as an accountant most of my life. (I started helping my dad add up columns of numbers when I was 12, so I do mean most of my life.) I have reached a point now where I have a couple of regular clients for whom I do their books on a regular basis and a handful of income tax clients. Unfortunately there is no exemption by IRS for a practice this small and I have to take annual classes and exams as the same as if I worked full time and actually made money doing this. While I can take the classes and exams as home study, it still is something else which must be fit into my time and takes about 20 hours in total. I get nervous every year about fitting time to take the exams into my schedule. I managed to do some of the smaller classes last night, which helped me get a bit less nervous. I still have some more of the smaller classes to do. I also have a large class and a 3 hour exam I have to take which I have not taken before. This scares the heck out of me. Not only do I have to do well on the exam to keep working - I also have to find a 3 hour block of time to take the exam. Somehow, I know I will do so - special things always manage to somehow be fit into one’s schedule.
Then I know that later this month the other big special things to do will start - Christmas decorating. Somehow no matter how busy we all are, we somehow manage to fit in decorating the house and the tree and buying and wrapping gifts. And then somehow, when it is all over, we find the time to take it all down and store it away. Okay - our decorations tend to stay up longer than they should - but the year they stayed up until April, it really was only because it was a freezing winter and our garage door froze to the ground and we could not get out the storage boxes to store the ornaments. So rather than take off the ornaments and leave them about, the tree stayed up. But for now, let us just think of the fun of decorating and how nice everything will look - if we can just find the time to decorate.
So, in between the normal daily, weekly, monthly tasks we all somehow manage to fit in these other tasks. How we do it varies from person to person and time to time. I just “found some time” I hope to keep available to get things done. On Monday nights I read comics online. Mostly I was reading the entire week of each comic’s strips. Some (most) weeks this reading ran over to Tuesday. Two weeks ago I decided it takes too much time. I looked through the strips as I read them. I dropped one strip. Five others I decided I will only read the Sunday strips. I like the characters, but can do with just a quick visit to them. (Sunday strips generally have nothing to do with weekday strips so I won’t be missing any “plot”.) Over time I may drop some of these strips, but I will see what I decide. The remaining strips are ones which I like the most and want to keep reading. This has cut out over an hour of time that I spent reading my comics and I now seem to be able to able to finish them on Monday night, leaving Tuesday night free for whatever else I need to do. (Hence, why I was able to take part of the classes I need to take last night.)
How do you fit in things which need to be done to your busy schedule? Do you need to fit in making Thanksgiving dinner next week?
Thursday, November 3, 2016
RV WATER AND FRIDGE PROBLEMS
This will be a shorter post than normal. I am writing it on my old Palm Centro phone, which I carry as a PDA on trips. We are driving home from a trip. We planned on staying 2 more days so I planned to write today’s post on my laptop tonight & then post it, both in our RV, which technically I am doing, but I am writing while riding at 65 mph on the Pennsylvania Turnpike! (Obviously husband is driving,) From this we learn in terms of organizing, not to put things off to the last minute.
Everything on our trips takes organizing, even more than at home. Going home 2 days early (on a 4 night trip) changes lots of plans. We carry at the start of a trip 25 gallons of water with us in 2 tanks, We know from experience that we can easily get by on same if we conserve water for 4 nights. We learned on a recent trip that if we are very careful, we can make it through 5 nights. Now on the other hand, we need to fill the outgoing tanks at least 75% or they will not dump properly. See the organization needed to manage the water. Uh oh!!!
Back again, drive needed my attention. Road construction & the cones were in our lane making it rather narrow. About 10% of them were knocked down by vehicles ahead of us. Glad we are not in an 18 wheeler. Needed to help husband avoid them.
So since we used so little water as we expected to need it to be used over 4 nights, we had to add enough water - gallons and gallons - to the outgoing tanks so each had enough to dump them before we did so.
This was our last trip of the year with running water. We will be winterizing the RV soon so that there will be as close to no water in its systems as possible so there will be no damage from water freezing in pipes, valves, tanks, etc. If we travel again this year we will get a space near the bath house. But that is a story for another time.
We had a problem this trip with our refrigerator. It is a small one about the size of a dorm fridge. It is different than same, however, as it can run on regular household current or 12 volt car battery current - it switches on its own. It is harder to keep it at the correct temperature than the refrigerator in the house. It is affected more by the temperature outside, as well as also by the temperature in the RV. I can usually get it to the range I want - about 38 or 39 degrees Fahrenheit and then I work at keeping it at same. Sometimes it behaves and stays in range, other times it can take days of playing with it until it is correct - and even then it can need an adjustment. I have been known to jump into the back to play with it when stop for gas if it is going too far off.
This time it was going too low. I raised the temperature and it was too high and would not get lower no matter how low I turned the thermostat in the fridge. We have an electronic thermometer which reads the temperature in the fridge and sends it to a device outside the fridge so we don’t have to open it to read it. I also have a mechanical thermometer in it. When I looked at same it was about the correct temperature. The problem was the electronic thermometer, not the fridge - good thing as it is much cheaper and easier to buy a new thermometer. We took out the batteries and played with it and eventually it was working, seemingly, correct again. We will have to keep an eye on it. Thank goodness I had kept the original mechanical thermometer in the fridge just in case.
Please remember if you are in the US where there is daylight savings time to "fall back" an hour this Sunday (Nov. 6) and VOTE TUES - whether you vote for the same candidate as me or not - Vote!
Everything on our trips takes organizing, even more than at home. Going home 2 days early (on a 4 night trip) changes lots of plans. We carry at the start of a trip 25 gallons of water with us in 2 tanks, We know from experience that we can easily get by on same if we conserve water for 4 nights. We learned on a recent trip that if we are very careful, we can make it through 5 nights. Now on the other hand, we need to fill the outgoing tanks at least 75% or they will not dump properly. See the organization needed to manage the water. Uh oh!!!
Back again, drive needed my attention. Road construction & the cones were in our lane making it rather narrow. About 10% of them were knocked down by vehicles ahead of us. Glad we are not in an 18 wheeler. Needed to help husband avoid them.
So since we used so little water as we expected to need it to be used over 4 nights, we had to add enough water - gallons and gallons - to the outgoing tanks so each had enough to dump them before we did so.
This was our last trip of the year with running water. We will be winterizing the RV soon so that there will be as close to no water in its systems as possible so there will be no damage from water freezing in pipes, valves, tanks, etc. If we travel again this year we will get a space near the bath house. But that is a story for another time.
We had a problem this trip with our refrigerator. It is a small one about the size of a dorm fridge. It is different than same, however, as it can run on regular household current or 12 volt car battery current - it switches on its own. It is harder to keep it at the correct temperature than the refrigerator in the house. It is affected more by the temperature outside, as well as also by the temperature in the RV. I can usually get it to the range I want - about 38 or 39 degrees Fahrenheit and then I work at keeping it at same. Sometimes it behaves and stays in range, other times it can take days of playing with it until it is correct - and even then it can need an adjustment. I have been known to jump into the back to play with it when stop for gas if it is going too far off.
This time it was going too low. I raised the temperature and it was too high and would not get lower no matter how low I turned the thermostat in the fridge. We have an electronic thermometer which reads the temperature in the fridge and sends it to a device outside the fridge so we don’t have to open it to read it. I also have a mechanical thermometer in it. When I looked at same it was about the correct temperature. The problem was the electronic thermometer, not the fridge - good thing as it is much cheaper and easier to buy a new thermometer. We took out the batteries and played with it and eventually it was working, seemingly, correct again. We will have to keep an eye on it. Thank goodness I had kept the original mechanical thermometer in the fridge just in case.
Please remember if you are in the US where there is daylight savings time to "fall back" an hour this Sunday (Nov. 6) and VOTE TUES - whether you vote for the same candidate as me or not - Vote!
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