I get asked all the time what the first thing a person should stock up on is. Folks expect me to say beans or bullets, maybe even water filters. Those are important of course, but let me tell you something from real experience here in Missouri. When the ice storm hit us back in 2007 and knocked the power out for over a week, it was not the lack of food that got to us first. It was the lack of matches. Matches. I had a woodstove sitting there ready to go, a pile of oak stacked just outside the door, and I ended up borrowing a lighter from my neighbor because my box of kitchen matches had gone damp in the basement. I have never made that mistake twice.

Why I Keep Toothpaste in Bulk

People laugh when I tell them I have a Rubbermaid bin full of toothpaste in the garage. I am not laughing when I think about what happens if I run out. You can brush your teeth with baking soda, sure, but try convincing my wife Darlene of that at 6 in the morning. I pick up extras every time they go on sale at the Walmart in town. I even rotate them so the oldest tubes get used first. That way Wendy and Steve do not come visit from Oregon and find out their dad is trying to hand out crusty old toothpaste from 1998. It is not glamorous, but neither is bad breath during a long emergency.

The Paper Goods Problem

When my daughter was a teenager, she used to complain about how much toilet paper we had stacked in the hall closet. Now she calls me from Oregon to say she wishes she had listened. Out there east of the Cascades, they get stretches where the store shelves look mighty thin. She has Luke and Charlotte to think about, and kids do not exactly ration well. I keep my rule simple. Every time I buy a pack of toilet paper, I buy two. One goes in the closet, one gets used. When the pandemic hit and people were fighting in aisles over Charmin, I was sitting on a six month cushion. Literally. Darlene joked that we could build a fort out of it.

Batteries and the Curse of the Wrong Size

One thing I learned late was that you can never have too many AA and AAA batteries. The flashlights take them, the radios take them, even Luke’s remote control cars take them when they visit. The mistake I made was stocking up on 9 volts. Turns out, once I got rid of my smoke detectors that needed them, I had almost nothing that used those square little things. I still have a shoebox of 9 volts sitting in the pantry like some kind of shrine to poor planning. These days I keep a spreadsheet on my garage wall with every piece of equipment I own that needs batteries and what kind. You can call it overkill, but when the power’s out and you are fumbling in the dark, you will thank me.

Coffee as a Morale Supply

This one is not life or death, but I will fight you on its importance. Coffee. Darlene likes her tea, but I am a coffee man through and through. I keep vacuum sealed bricks of it in five gallon buckets with oxygen absorbers. I rotate it out every couple years, just like I do with the flour and sugar. You can live without coffee, sure, but you will be a miserable human being. I can handle cold showers, eating beans three nights in a row, and reading by lantern light, but do not ask me to greet the sunrise without a cup of black coffee in hand.

Luke, Charlotte, and the Lesson of Jasper

The grandkids remind me of something else that most people overlook. Pet supplies. When Wendy and Steve came to visit with Luke, Charlotte, and their black lab Jasper, we had plenty of food for the humans but none for the dog. I ended up cooking Jasper a mix of rice and scrambled eggs for three days straight. He was happy enough with it, but that taught me a valuable lesson. Now I keep an extra bag of kibble sealed up in the shed along with flea medicine and a few spare leashes. If you have pets, they are part of the family, and they need to be prepped for just like anyone else.

Cleaning Supplies Are Gold

People do not think about how fast things get filthy when your routine goes off the rails. Darlene has taught me to keep bleach, vinegar, and baking soda stocked. The vinegar is good for cleaning windows, the baking soda scrubs sinks, and bleach, well, bleach is a lifesaver when it comes to disinfecting. I also keep a stash of those old fashioned wooden clothespins because when the dryer is not running, clothes need to go somewhere. Hanging laundry in the Missouri humidity is not fun, but it is better than wearing dirty socks.

My Favorite Tool in the Shed

If I had to pick one thing in my shed that has saved me more than once, it is the humble five gallon bucket. You can haul water in it, store grain in it, flip it over and sit on it, even use it as an emergency toilet if need be. Darlene does not love that last idea, but she admits it is better than nothing. I buy the food grade buckets from the farm supply store in town, and I have a stack of them taller than Charlotte when she came to visit last summer. That little girl thought they were drums and put on a concert with Jasper howling along. It was chaos, but it reminded me that prepping is not just about surviving, it is about making life livable.

When I was a kid, Sunday dinners were always something a little special. My mom would make a roast chicken and the smell would fill the whole house. These days, I make my own version for Darlene, and sometimes Wendy and her crew when they visit from Oregon. The trick is keeping it simple and letting the oven do the hard work.

Ingredients
1 whole chicken, about 4 to 5 pounds
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme
4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1 lemon, halved
4 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
3 parsnips, peeled and cut into chunks
1 large onion, quartered
3 medium potatoes, scrubbed and cut into big pieces
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary if you have them

Directions
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
Pat the chicken dry with paper towels. This helps the skin crisp up. Rub the olive oil all over the bird, then season it generously with salt, pepper, paprika, and thyme.
Stuff the cavity with the smashed garlic cloves and lemon halves. If I have fresh rosemary, I toss a sprig in there too.
Scatter the carrots, parsnips, onion, and potatoes in the bottom of a roasting pan. Toss them with a little olive oil and salt. Place the chicken right on top of the vegetables.
Roast for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. I usually start checking at an hour. You want the juices to run clear when you pierce the thigh, or for the thermometer to read 165 degrees in the thickest part of the bird.
Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before carving so the juices stay in the meat.

This is the kind of meal that fills bellies and keeps spirits high. Darlene likes the parsnips best, says they remind her of her grandmother’s garden. Luke and Charlotte go straight for the drumsticks and argue over who gets the bigger one. I save the carcass to make broth the next day, because nothing goes to waste around here. And I will tell you, there is nothing better than the smell of a roast chicken in the oven while the wind rattles the windows on a Missouri evening.

I was not in Texas when their power grid collapsed in February of 2021, but I paid close attention. You would have thought a state as big and proud as Texas would have had its ducks in a row. What actually happened was millions of people sitting in dark, freezing homes, burning furniture in fireplaces, and waiting in endless lines for bottled water. Some folks even died from hypothermia right in their own living rooms.

The lesson that jumps out at me is how fast modern comfort can disappear when infrastructure fails. The grid went down because it was not hardened for extreme cold. Gas wells froze, wind turbines iced up, and coal piles solidified. A lot of Texans figured the power would be back in a few hours, so they did not have backups ready. Hours turned into days, and by then every store was stripped bare of propane heaters, blankets, and even canned chili.

I read story after story of folks melting snow in their bathtubs to flush toilets. That sounds clever, but it only works if you have snow to gather and a way to melt it safely. Some folks tried running cars in garages for heat and poisoned themselves with carbon monoxide. That is what panic and lack of planning does.

What I take from all this is that every household should have at least two alternate sources of heat that do not depend on the grid. In Missouri, I keep a woodstove and a kerosene heater. They are not fancy, but they work. Even a couple of extra wool blankets and sleeping bags can make a world of difference when the thermometer dips into the single digits.

Another overlooked lesson from Texas was the water situation. Treatment plants rely on power. Once the grid went down, pipes burst, pressure dropped, and suddenly people were told to boil water. Of course, you cannot boil water if you cannot power your stove. That is why I keep backup propane tanks and a camp stove tucked away. It is also why I keep water stored, not just food. Food you can go without for a few days, but water is a daily must.

The Texas blackout shows how fast society unravels when a comfort we take for granted vanishes overnight. People who thought of prepping as something for mountain men suddenly learned that preparedness was the difference between shivering in the dark and keeping your family safe. That disaster happened hundreds of miles away, but the lessons are just as relevant here in Missouri.

A rocket stove is one of those simple contraptions that looks like a high school science project but will save your hide when you need to cook with very little fuel. I like it because it can be built out of scrap you probably already have sitting in the garage or shed. The design funnels air in just right so even a handful of sticks will give you a steady flame hot enough to boil water or fry up bacon.

What You Need
4 standard cinder blocks
1 small grill grate or a piece of expanded metal
A level patch of ground (your patio or even bare dirt works fine)
A handful of kindling and dry sticks

How to Build It
Set two cinder blocks side by side with the holes facing outward. These will form your burn chamber.
Place a third cinder block on top of those, lining it up so its holes continue the channel. This is your chimney.
Set the fourth cinder block upright at the end to help funnel the draft and stabilize the whole thing.
Lay your grate across the top so you have a surface for pots and pans.
That is it. You have just built a rocket stove in about ten minutes without spending a dime.

How to Use It
Start with a bit of crumpled newspaper and twigs in the bottom hole. Feed small sticks into the side opening while the chimney draws the heat upward. Once you have a steady flame, set your pan or kettle on top. You will be amazed how little fuel it takes. I once cooked an entire skillet of fried potatoes for Darlene using nothing but a few handfuls of sticks I picked up from the yard after a storm.

This project is handy because it gives you redundancy. If the propane runs out and the power is down, I can still cook a hot meal. Luke and Charlotte think it is magic, especially when we make s’mores on it. Jasper, of course, sits nearby hoping someone drops a marshmallow.

Out here in Oregon, east of the Cascades, we get our fair share of wild weather. Last winter the snow came down so heavy the kids had three days of canceled school, and Steve was stuck trying to plow the driveway with our old pickup that barely makes it into town. Instead of moping around, I decided to turn it into a chance to practice some preparedness skills with Luke and Charlotte.

We pitched the tent right in the backyard, even though the house was warm and comfortable. Charlotte helped me spread out sleeping bags, and Luke insisted on bringing Jasper into the tent, which turned out to be a mistake because he immediately claimed the warmest corner and refused to budge. The kids learned that even just sleeping outside a few hours from bedtime gives you a whole new perspective. They noticed every sound, every rustle, and how the cold creeps in if you do not zip things tight.

For dinner, we cooked over the small propane stove we keep for emergencies. I had the kids gather kindling from the yard first, even though we did not end up using it, just so they understand what to look for. Charlotte chopped vegetables with a small paring knife under my close supervision, and Luke stirred the pot like a pro. We made a simple stew of carrots, potatoes, and a little leftover roast chicken, and I swear it tasted better than half the meals we cook inside.

After we ate, we sat in the tent and read by headlamp. Luke asked what would happen if the lights in the house all went out for good, and that gave us the chance to talk about why we practice these things. I told them the more you make it fun, the less scary it feels when the real thing happens.

Steve came out later and joked that we were “glamping” because I had brought out a thermos of hot cocoa, but the kids were already fast asleep in their bags, noses peeking out, Jasper snoring louder than both of them combined. It was simple, it was free, and it built confidence. I would encourage anyone, especially families, to try camping at home. You learn what gear you actually need, what makes you comfortable, and what you forgot to pack. And you do it in a safe space where mistakes are no big deal.

Here is your challenge for the week. Pick a day, any day, and shut off your main breaker for 24 hours. No cheating with extension cords or sneaking the Wi-Fi back on. The idea is to live exactly as you would if the grid went down in the middle of a storm.

Start by writing down what you think will be the hardest part. Is it cooking dinner, keeping warm, or just keeping the kids entertained without screens? Then actually do it. Cook with whatever backup you have. Maybe that is a camp stove, maybe it is the grill out back. Keep the fridge closed as much as you can and see what food you naturally reach for. Make sure you have light sources ready. Candles are romantic until you run out of matches, and lanterns are handy until the batteries die.

If you have kids, get them involved. Let them help set up sleeping bags in the living room or make a game of rationing the flashlight batteries. When Wendy was young, she thought it was fun to “play pioneer” and eat dinner by lantern. Charlotte and Luke do the same now in Oregon. You would be surprised how much smoother it goes when the kids feel like they are part of the mission.

Take notes during the 24 hours. Did you run out of hot water faster than you expected? Did your spouse remind you that you forgot to stock coffee creamer? Did the dog knock over the lantern because you did not think to set it on a sturdy table? Every little hiccup you discover now is one less surprise later.

When you turn the power back on, resist the urge to just move on with life. Write down what worked and what failed. Darlene and I did this once during a spring storm drill and learned that our kerosene heater gave us headaches because we had not vented it properly. Better to figure that out on a mild weekend in March than during an ice storm in January.

Give it a try. Twenty four hours without power will teach you more about your own level of preparedness than any article, video, or checklist ever could.