Three hours of sleep is not what I intended on getting when I settled into bed at 11:30 last night. I was looking forward to regenerating after a marathon sushi-making session. Outside, as I drifted, a December wet heavy mix was falling from the sky, and of course, adding the not-so-welcome weight on tree limbs that made it through a very wet summer.

My house is a great puzzle of sequences and circumstantial actions that must adhere to this sequence in order so that someone is not injured, or worse, by which I mean Kiwi, my son’s love bird who resides in my small office room. As a bird, Kiwi is very gullible.  She cannot comprehend what the predators of the house (the two yearling gray tiger cats, Roo and Zara) could do to her.  Doors must be opened and closed in a particular order with particular animals on one side or another.

 We also heat with wood meaning that our heat does not come through vents in the floor, it flows through open doors if they could be open, if the cats did not naturally just want to eat the bird.  Heating this room has some very precise coordination that takes place every day. There is also a bulb suspended just above her cage that does not produce light, but just enough heat to keep her during the door-closed hours. It works.  Well, until the power goes out.

I have this little device that is plugged into the wall in the laundry room just outside our bedroom.  It has a small nightlight and if the power goes out the night light continues, and more importantly, it screams bloody murder. So, as you can imagine, it is a favorite way to wake up at 3:02 AM.

That is my queue that there has been a shift in the choreography of animals, doors, where I sleep (if possible), and heat.  I checked the GMP app, evidently, the power has been out for an hour and they are still assessing. Upstairs to the living room I go, to light the fire.  I grab a glow stick necklace packet on the stairs as I climb, one or two of these make for excellent night or guide lights on stairways and dark places.  They are safe, cheap, and convenient.

During the sushi chaos last night, I failed to bring in kindling before going to bed. I started a fire but it took so much more effort and coaxing to get it to do its due diligence.  I opened the door to the office so the bird could have heat since her warming light does not work at the moment…. and the power came on.

If I had not turned on the screamer, I would have slept all night and probably would not have known till later that the power had gone out, that is on me.  But I have to wonder, is this a courtesy call?

I pride myself on being Mr. Contingency, but it appears I need to lose power to fire-test my preparedness. I recall Jack Spirko talking about doing blackout drills with his family in which one evening every 3 months or so they would shut off the main breaker and the blackout would commence.  He would assign one of his kids as the Blackout Leader, and that person would delegate tasks to each member of the family, securing light, heat, water, and radio, and planning for the next meal if needed.  

Last December we lost power for 3 days.  I was years out of practice for a blackout of this length and although my bad preparedness is better than most good ones, it really opened my eyes. I got serious and beefed up my LED lights, battery packs, 12-volt shower, mp3 player, and inverter.  These simple few things will make it so a generator is not needed.  I could actually keep my house functioning with these items for weeks without a generator. The excellent benefit to getting these items was that they were utilized in the camper this summer as we usually never camp in campgrounds with hookups.

This morning’s mini blackout did show me how only a year down the road, I have been slipping.  We have plenty of toilet flushing water, that was stored from our dehumidifier this year.  But, I usually have at least 10 gallons of fresh ready-to-drink water on hand, not the case today.  The kindling also was a big oversight. The icy mix was falling out of the sky last night, which should have reinforced the need to make sure that was restocked before bedtime.

So this is my focus this week, be prepared.  On the calendar, winter has not started, and here we are anyway.  There is all of it ahead of us and it is time to get serious.