It’s great to have backups: energy, water, food, etc. When things fall apart it’s nice not to freeze and starve to death in the dark.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that those backups take up lot of time and energy.
Take something simple like losing your water supply. I’m fortunate to have a well on my property where I can fill water jugs from an overflow pipe. It’s about 75 feet down a steep hill from the house. You soon realize that water weighs 8.33 pounds per gallon. It take about a gallon and a half to flush the toilet. People should have a gallon per person per day for drinking and basic hygiene. Filling a bathtub is a major chore. That’s for someone who has a water source close by. Now imagine the closest water source is miles away.
My house has an oil furnace. Due to the high cost of heating oil I’m mostly using the woodstove. The woodstove needs regular attention. Since I wasn’t able to spend the time and energy ahead of time to gather firewood I bought pallets of biobricks. They are basically compressed sawdust bricks. The bricks are easy to handle and burn hot and clean.
I supplement that with wood from dead trees on my property -when I have the time and energy. It’s not too bad using a chainsaw. My backup for that is a 3.5 foot German crosscut saw. After that I’m down to an ax. Each drop in technology consumes more time and effort.
Anybody who’s had to use a generator for power knows that it’s a lot more work than flipping a switch. Just keeping up the fuel and oil levels takes time. If you run out of fuel getting more can range from inconvenient to impossible. Frankly, that’s one of the things I like about having significant solar backup -it just works with little maintenance.
Then there are the people who think hunting and fishing can replace having food storage. The vast majority of people who think that way will go hungry. Unless you live in a cabin in the middle of prime hunting and fishing land it’s probably not going to work. Even then, there are days when you will come home empty handed. Even under the best circumstances gathering wild foods will take a lot of time and effort.
Now imagine you are trying to do all those things at once. There are only so many hours in the day. It’s almost impossible for an individual to do everything. A larger community can split up the jobs, but they also have greater needs.
Just because there are backups for life’s necessities and comforts doesn’t mean you have the time and energy to do them. I’d rather heat up some beans on the woodstove, drinking coffee make with water from my solar electric powered well pump. A little planning goes a long way.
-Sixbears
Yet even though a community has larger needs the facts that you and I are here implies that somehow (Maybe hard work and planning) the community managed to feed, shelter, safe water and keep enough heat to survive and have our Grandparents?
ReplyDeleteFactors like you mention is why I have a loose community with my worthwhile neighbors where we help each other in various, maybe simple ways like today and tomorrow's snow removal.
A little electricity well used would be a priceless treasure to an 1800's family. Water pumping as you mentioned, lights that don't cost wax or expensive coal oil AND don't burn the house-barn down. Maybe a small refrigerator to help preserves some of those hard won calories?
My e-bike has a walk beside feature and I use it to haul my garden cart around my property as a e-mule. Nice when I'm hauling the electric chainsaw and fire wood around.
I was surprised how well the solar electric keeps the essentials going, even with all the short cloudy days we've had.
DeleteKathy gave me a Milwaukee six inch battery chainsaw for Xmas. Haven't tried it yet , but the claims, are that it will cut 120 , three inch branches per charge ??
ReplyDeleteProbably will. Those look like fun. I must admit I like my 60volt Toro full sized chainsaw. It can handle any tree that grows around here.
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