I have to start out with an apology. I know this newsletter is supposed to show up in your inbox on Mondays like a rooster that never takes a day off. Yesterday my stomach had what Darlene called the bubble grumps. That is her gentle way of saying that I could not get far from the bathroom or a box of Saltines. It was one of those 24 hour things that makes you question all your life choices. I am fine now and back at it on this Tuesday with my coffee cup and my notebook.

Raccoons Outthink Me Every Time

Last Thursday night I heard a racket out by the shed and figured it was the wind. Around midnight it got so loud that Darlene made me go check. Sure enough there were three raccoons working in a team like a pack of burglars trying to open my old Coleman cooler. That cooler was closed with two bungee cords and a rock on top. They had already popped both cords and were just about to tip the lid. They had that look on their faces that said we have been here before sir.

I do not know if you have ever stood in your slippers in the middle of the night with a flashlight in one hand and a garden hoe in the other while three raccoons stare at you but it is humbling. They are not scared of me at all. I clapped my hands and yelled and they just looked at me like I was interrupting dinner. I finally had to toss a little gravel in their direction to get them to move. They wandered off into the tree line at their own pace like they had all night and frankly they did.

Peanut Butter Is A Perfect Prep Item

The next morning I went out to inspect what was left of the cooler. They had managed to drag out two jars of peanut butter I had been keeping for backup and gnawed the lids off like a pair of teenagers with nothing better to do. That made me think about peanut butter in a way I had not before. We buy it because Luke and Charlotte eat it by the bucket when they come to visit but it is also one of those perfect preparedness items that does not go bad quickly and packs a lot of calories.

So now I keep six jars on a top shelf in the basement pantry. I put the date on top of each jar with a Sharpie so I know which one to open first. I buy the kind with a little bit of sugar in it because if you are ever really tired and cold and worn out there is nothing like a spoonful of peanut butter that has a bit of sweetness in it. Darlene rolls her eyes every time I come back from the store with another jar but she will thank me someday.

What I Am Stashing Lately

Along with the peanut butter I have been adding to my stash of ordinary things that most folks do not think of until they need them. Right now there is a case of matches in waterproof containers down there because I do not like the idea of being the guy trying to light a campfire with a Bic lighter that ran out of fuel two years ago. I also have about a dozen extra pairs of reading glasses because my eyes are not what they used to be and I know for a fact I would break a pair on the first day of trouble.

I put away a big pack of work gloves from the farm supply store because I know how much damage a pair of bare hands can take when you are splitting wood or moving brush. They are the cheap cotton kind with the little rubber grips and I keep them in a tote with duct tape and a few good rolls of baling wire. Darlene says the basement is starting to look like a country store but I remind her that a country store never did anybody harm.

A Note On Where I Keep It All

Folks sometimes ask where I keep this stuff because they think I have a bunker or some kind of hidden room. I do not. I have a basement with some heavy shelves that I built myself. Everything is labeled with a piece of masking tape and a black marker. It is not fancy but it works. I keep a notebook down there with an inventory that I update once a month. Last week I noticed that a mouse had chewed on the corner of the notebook so I added a couple of traps too. That is the kind of detail that makes the difference when you are trying to be ready for whatever is coming.

And for the record those raccoons came back on Saturday night. This time they went for the bird feeder. I told Darlene that I am going to have to outthink them but to be honest I think they are winning.

This one is a Darlene special and it came out of one of those evenings when the pantry was looking a little thin and I wanted something warm that did not take a trip to the store. She calls it Peanut Butter Campfire Stew which does not sound fancy but if you have ever been cold and hungry it will taste like five star cooking.

I start with one pound of ground beef because that is what we always have in the freezer. Brown it up in a big cast iron skillet and do not rush it. Once the meat is browned I add one chopped onion and let that cook down till the onion is soft and smells like you are on the right track.

Then I add one can of diced tomatoes, one can of kidney beans that I rinse first, a cup of beef broth, and here is the surprise, two heaping tablespoons of peanut butter. Stir it slow and steady while that peanut butter melts into everything. It gives the stew a thickness and a little nutty flavor that makes people guess for an hour about what is in there.

Darlene throws in a pinch of red pepper flakes and a teaspoon of smoked paprika because she likes a little kick. I just taste it and add a bit of salt till it tastes right. Let that simmer for about thirty minutes with a lid on and stir every so often so nothing sticks.

We serve it with cornbread when I am in the mood to bake but most of the time we just eat it with crackers straight out of the sleeve. I know it sounds strange to put peanut butter in a stew but I promise you if you try it once you will find yourself stocking peanut butter in your pantry the same way I do.

In 2018 when the Camp Fire tore through Paradise California I watched the news like everybody else but I dug into it later because there were things about that disaster that hit me in the gut. I was nowhere near it but the more I read about it the more I saw how fast a normal day can turn into the kind of day that splits a town right in half.

The thing that has stuck with me the most is how quick it all happened. People woke up thinking they had a little time to get ready for Thanksgiving. By mid morning the entire town was in flames. The fire was moving faster than traffic could. Folks who had lived there for years thought they could wait and see but the wind made sure they ran out of see before they ever got a chance to run.

I talked to a fellow at a preparedness meet up in Kansas City a year later who had family there. He said his brother lost the family home in less than an hour. They packed two bags in a rush, grabbed their dog, and drove away with the back window so hot that it cracked. He told me they got stuck in gridlock on Skyway Road with smoke so thick you could not see ten feet. The fire was hopping from one side of the highway to the other and people were getting out of their cars to run. I cannot imagine that.

What that showed me plain as day is that when you live out where the brush grows thick you cannot count on a polite little evacuation notice. You need to have a go bag ready with the kind of things you would take if you had five minutes or less. You need to know two or three ways out of your neighborhood and you need to practice leaving. I know it sounds silly to do a dry run but I promise you if you ever smell smoke and hear sirens you will be glad you did it once before.

After Paradise I put together two duffel bags in the hall closet. One has clothes, a flashlight, some copies of documents, and a couple of bottles of water. The other has a few things for Darlene and me to eat that do not need cooking. Nothing fancy. Crackers, trail mix, peanut butter again of course. They sit right by the door. We also went over with Wendy and Steve the idea of a meet up point if they ever visit us and something like that happens here.

Something else I learned is that a vehicle with a full tank is not just a good idea. It is survival. In Paradise a lot of people ran out of gas stuck in traffic because they thought they could always fill up later. Now I fill up at half a tank. If that sounds fussy so be it. I do not care.

One of the smaller details I came across in an interview with a Paradise teacher really stuck with me. She said that when they finally made it to safety her hair smelled like smoke for a week. It just hung on. She said she has not been able to smell a campfire since without her hands shaking. You do not think about something like that when you are sitting in your kitchen reading about it.

Ever since that fire I have kept a little plastic tub in the trunk of my truck with N95 masks and goggles. It weighs almost nothing and I never think about it until I need it but if the day ever comes that I do need it I will be glad I did not put it off. Paradise showed me that it does not take much for the place you know to become a place you do not recognize anymore.

I like a project that costs less than twenty bucks and leaves you with something that can make life a whole lot better when the power and water are out. This one came out of a lesson I learned the hard way after a storm when we were without water for a few days and I realized how fast a house gets grimy when nobody is washing their hands.

I took a plain five gallon bucket from the hardware store. Nothing fancy. I already had a lid because I keep a stack of them in the shed. I drilled a hole near the bottom of the bucket just big enough to fit a half inch spigot that I bought in the plumbing aisle. It looks like the kind of spigot you see on a drink cooler. You can find them in a little plastic bag hanging up with the replacement parts for water jugs.

I wrapped the threads with plumber tape and snugged it down tight with a little rubber washer on the inside. Then I filled the bucket with water, snapped the lid on top, and put it on a low table out back where it will not tip over. I set a cake pan under the spigot to catch the drips and poured a little bit of gravel in the bottom of the pan so it does not splash all over when someone rinses.

Next to the bucket I keep a pump bottle of liquid soap that I refill from a big jug. Darlene added a little towel on a hook that hangs from the side of the table. Now when the grandkids are here and they come in from playing with Jasper I do not have to tell them five times to wash up. They like using the spigot themselves.

When it is not storm season I keep that bucket clean and ready but empty. If we lose water for more than a few hours I just fill it from the jugs I keep in the basement. It has turned out to be one of those simple things that makes a miserable day a whole lot better.

If you want to take it a step further you can cut a square out of a piece of scrap plywood that is just big enough for the bottom of the bucket to sit in so it does not slide around. That is what I did last fall after Luke leaned on it and the whole thing tipped over. Now it stays put.

You could spend a lot of money on fancy camp sinks but this little bucket setup has earned its keep more times than I can count. When you are cold and tired and you can wash your hands with clean water before eating it feels like luxury.

Dad asked me to write something for this week so I am sitting at the kitchen table in our house east of Bend with a mug of peppermint tea and Jasper asleep under my feet. The kids are in bed which means I have a window of about thirty minutes before somebody wakes up needing a glass of water or remembers that their favorite stuffed animal is stranded in the dryer.

The wind has been blowing out here for three days straight. It rattles the windows and makes the pines out back sway like they are dancing. Steve spent most of Saturday stacking wood and fixing a piece of tin roofing that came loose on the chicken coop. It is a good thing he did because the forecast says we have another cold snap coming this week.

We have been working on a few little preparedness things ourselves. Last month Dad sent us a care package with three big jars of peanut butter, a crank radio, and a stack of bandanas. Luke has already claimed one of the bandanas for his fort kit and Charlotte decided she wanted the radio in her room because she likes turning the crank. The peanut butter is in the pantry because if we opened it now it would be gone in a week.

Something funny happened the other day when the power flickered. It was just a blink but Luke came running into the kitchen and said Mom do we need to get the candles. He was so serious about it that I almost said yes just to see what he would do. I guess he has been listening to Dad talk because he has a little plan of his own. He has a shoebox under his bed with a flashlight, a whistle, and some raisins. He calls it his survival kit.

Charlotte has been practicing building little fires in the backyard with Steve when the weather is nice. They use the fire pit of course but she gets so proud when the flame finally catches on her little bundle of twigs. She always says the same thing. Fire is alive Mom.

Living out here on this side of the Cascades we get snow and wind and sometimes the power goes out for a day or two. It is not scary most of the time but it does make me appreciate being ready. Dad teases me that I am finally turning into him but I think there is something nice about knowing you can handle it.

Jasper just sighed in his sleep and now I am going to make myself another cup of tea before bed. If Dad lets me keep writing in this little corner I will tell you about the time Luke and Charlotte tried to make a solar oven out of a pizza box and almost melted a Tonka truck. That one still makes me laugh.

This week I want you to do something so simple that most folks will put it off and then thank themselves later. I want you to make a paper list of everything you already have in your pantry that could be eaten without needing a stove or a microwave.

Do not do this from memory. Go in there and actually look. Open the doors, pull out the cans, and write it down. Peanut butter, crackers, canned tuna, fruit cups, beans, whatever it is. I am talking about things you could open up and eat straight out of the package if you had to. You will be surprised by how much or how little is really there when you put it on paper.

Once you have that list take a red pen and mark anything that is running low. I like to set a goal of having at least three days worth of ready to eat food for every person in the house. You do not have to buy it all at once. Just start filling in the gaps a little at a time when you are at the store.

If you want to take this challenge a little further spend one afternoon eating only out of that list. No cooking, no cheating with the oven, just see how you feel after a day of living like the power is out. It will teach you real fast where the weak spots are.

When I did this last winter I found out that I had eight cans of green beans and not a single can of soup. I also found out that Darlene does not share her Vienna sausages no matter how much I beg. So there you go. This challenge is free, it takes less than an hour to start, and it might save you a headache when the lights go out for real.