A Preparedness Landmark Achieved

 

Ya I am a gamer geek, mostly due to raising my son as a single parent so him and I spent a lot of time gaming together over our network while he was growing up. So today I got an achievement award in two preparedness catgories.

1. Pulling some item out of extreme long term storage to deal with a survival situation.

2. Proving that Two is One and One is none. 

Damn near 30 years ago now my first wife and I decided to give country living a shot out here and one of my first purchases was a wood stove exactly like the one pictured above. I could and did heat the entire place with that stove. I had it down to an art form. I finally moved away from it as I did not want my toddler falling into it and my son was kinda clumsy when he was a really little guy, and we had his room to heat than as well, so I switched to the outside wood furnace and attached it into the duct work to heat the whole house more efficiently. Also the small stove was very hard to keep going over night.

I have never regretted that choice even after I moved back out here (along with the decision that I never transferred the title of this property after I bailed my mother out from this place so luckily it was NOT legally mine when I got divorced). I thank the Lord for that little fact every day too. As much as my mother and I did not get along we were never the type of family that would screw each other over either so the transfer was made after I knew I was 100% settled.

So thirty years ago there were a few things I never considered however. Namely that I would reach an age when supplying a wood furnace with fuel all Winter would become much harder on me physically and two that I would eventually make it to a place where I only have to provide heat for one or two rooms again.

As I was out scouting for properly cured standing dead wood to cut this weekend it occurred to me that I did not in fact have to heat the entire house anymore as the Wife and I have already shut off all but three rooms anyway. OK four if you count the down stairs bathroom. I probably have enough seasoned wood stored for my old wood stove AND guess what I kept?

You got it. The old wood stove was the first long term prep item I stored decades ago. I oiled it all up and wrapped it up after a new coat of paint, put it on a pallet and stored the sucker in my hay loft under three tarps years ago.  I always knew that if we ever hit a true survival situation I would need a much smaller and easier fed heat source than my outside furnace. I also believe in this current Femocrat/O'BiteMe emergency this inflation, supply disruption, nuclear war threat and big corporation utopia we have entered an emergency survival situation.

I got a friend to help me get the old stove down, checked it out and spent today getting all the pipe and connectors I need. I am pretty certain I will have the old girl up and running capable by this weekend. The old flu system is still in good shape as far as I can see, the armored and fire protected corner it lived in needed cleaning out but looks good so I see no reason I cannot switch to a smaller stove for Winter. I can always start using the furnace again if needed. 

In all the years I have been prepping and planing this was always my solution to meet a situation when energy became scarce and for the first time ever I am actually pulling out a long term item (other than food) for current use. 

Of course I will not know for certain that it will work for a month or more yet when the actual cold hits but it all appears to be in order. 

With just the wife and I to worry about I can keep us warm using a fraction of the wood that my furnace takes. At least that is the plan now anyway.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!