Well... It’s Finally A COLD DAY IN HELL. !!!

[random]

Our first winter here, before we got the tractor, we got snowed in and could not get to the highway for 2 weeks. The road was not passable to the vehicles we had. (We could have walked if really necessary.) There is nobody else on our road, too, so we were on our own.

Halfway through, our well pump burned out.

We had little problem - we KNEW to expect problems. Didn't have enough water for a week, but we got by melting snow. Food was fine.

JIT is supposed to be an inventory management philosophy, not a way of life.

 

[Bmyers]

All of this is sounding like a fine spring day here in North Idaho!

One factor that is hurting Texas and the like on the power grid is that a lot of homes use electric heat.
To many people calling for Heat (power) at the same time quickly overloads the system.

I just watched a Video of a couple with a small child in Texas Crying about the fact that they had run out of groceries, this is after just a couple days without power.
For me that's plum scary to think about someone not having enough to last a week or more!
I would estimate was have enough reserve food to last several months without having to resort to anything weird or drastic.

I have enough fat to last for several weeks, not including the food we have in the house.

 

[sheepfarmer]

All of this is sounding like a fine spring day here in North Idaho!

One factor that is hurting Texas and the like on the power grid is that a lot of homes use electric heat.
To many people calling for Heat (power) at the same time quickly overloads the system.

I just watched a Video of a couple with a small child in Texas Crying about the fact that they had run out of groceries, this is after just a couple days without power.
For me that's plum scary to think about someone not having enough to last a week or more!
I would estimate was have enough reserve food to last several months without having to resort to anything weird or drastic.

There are way too many working people who run out of food a few days before they get their next paycheck. I never thought most of us were wealthy, but we are. I thought rich was owning a mansion and a yacht, but it is really a functional house and easy to stockpile groceries on a salary achievable with hard work. I have lots of food, mostly stockpiled when I saw something on sale. Can’t pass up a good sale on peanut butter!

 

[RCW]

One factor that is hurting Texas and the like on the power grid is that a lot of homes use electric heat.........

I would estimate was have enough reserve food to last several months without having to resort to anything weird or drastic.

We have a couple small villages (1,500 people) with municipal electric. Primary heat is electric.

Even there people have generators and/or secondary heat sources.

We have enough to feed ourselves for quite a while too....

I think GeoHorn mentioned it was the city dwellers having issues in Texas.

While it was a long time ago, maybe being a poor farm-boy teaches lessens for a lifetime...

 

[Old_Paint]

Those zones on that map in no way reflect actual physical boundaries of energy transmission. Those are just political/financial boundaries waiting for one gozillionaire to pay another for what they don't have enough of, whether temporarily or permanently. I know for a fact it's pretty simple matter of exporting power from Alabama all the way to west Texas. Southern Company makes a lot of money doing exactly that. Been there, done that.

Depleted Natural Gas supply in Texas is a head scratcher for me. I mean, Oklahoma and Texas sit on top of one of the richest crude oil and gas deposits on the planet, and there's a shortage? We harvest enough methane from one landfill in Alabama to provide 15 - 20% of the annealing furnace fuel for a steel mill, and you're telling me Texas can't harvest enough cow farts to make up for folks to keep their homes warm? I wrote the PLC software close to 20 years ago to control the furnace fuel management at a steel mill in Decatur, AL. I've seen plenty noise about 'renewable' and 'sustainable' energy sources, but nothing seems to be about land-fill gasses produced by household garbage landfills. The city nearby also recycles it's solidified sanitary sewage solids into the landfills and for fertilizer. We all gonna throw away waste, and we all gonna poop, so why not put that to good use? If buffalo and cow farts are bad, wouldn't it be a good idea to capture the methane from landfills and water treatment plants as a supplement for 'clean' energy facilities that use natural gas in turbine engines? Capturing swamp gas won't be enough, but it's at least a little less methane released to atmosphere, and we can still have a hamburger at the Friday night football games to stop the cows from farting while watching the game under the LED floodlights that put out more light with less energy. The biggest problem I see with land-fill gasses are the multitude of other gasses besides Methane that produce some pretty nasty pollutants if not well diluted with 'clean' natural gas.

I guess I have a different definition from "renewable" and "sustainable" from what MSM does. I'd prefer "RELIABLE" and "ALTERNATE" to be used to describe energy derived from non-conventional sources, with the emphasis on Reliable. I think this week proved neither solar nor wind is the correct selection in snowy/icy/windy conditions. I'm sure a lot of Texans are agreeing with me at the moment. I don't think we're quite ready to shut down all the fossil fuel plants yet. I'm more than happy to accept the use of solar and wind technology for peaking and supplementation, but neither is reliable enough to put human life on the line yet.

 

[Old_Paint]

While it was a long time ago, maybe being a poor farm-boy teaches lessens for a lifetime...

I think someone wrote a song about that ....

youtube hank williams jr country boy survive - Search Videos

www.bing.com

 

[RCW]

I think someone wrote a song about that ....

youtube hank williams jr country boy survive - Search Videos

www.bing.com

Don't doubt it....betting there's a bunch.

It's funny; what I said does sounds like a song title, just add in my dog died and the ol' lady ran off. Just poking fun of course.....

Used to listen to Hank Sr.'s records as a kid, but never been a fan of country music since...

 

[Nicfin36]

I just watched a Video of a couple with a small child in Texas Crying about the fact that they had run out of groceries, this is after just a couple days without power.
For me that's plum scary to think about someone not having enough to last a week or more!
I would estimate was have enough reserve food to last several months without having to resort to anything weird or drastic.

That's probably the norm and not the exception now. I don't have several months of food on hand. But, I could certainly get by for a while if I had to, and I don't consider myself to be well stocked. Push comes to shove, I would start eating squirrels, rabbits and etc. Most people don't even think about anything longer than a day or week in advance.

We live in a very precarious civilization. It is almost like walking on a tight rope. Everything has to go just right, or else disaster. As our populations increase, along with our decadence, many of us would not be able to make it under adverse conditions. They simply don't know how. It is not a matter of if, but when things go bad.

 

[torch]

Tip for you Texans: You will feel much warmer if you trade in your stetsons for touques when you go outside to BBQ during the power interruptions. Like so:

 

[Old_Paint]

It's funny, that does sounds like a song title, just add in my dog died and the ol' lady ran off. Just poking fun of course.....

Used to listen to Hank Sr.'s records as a kid, but never been a fan of country music since...

And don't forget mama, the pickup truck, and the train. (RE: David Allen Coe's "Perfect Country Song"

Different music genres are exactly the culmination of our differences. I just wish the rest of the world worked the same way.

 

[dlsmith]

Tip for you Texans: You will feel much warmer if you trade in your stetsons for touques when you go outside to BBQ during the power interruptions. Like so:

They must be so poor that they can't afford long pants and coats, but have enough money for beer.

 

[Fastball]

This made my day start off on the right foot Geo, thanks!!!
The daily high here today is climbing all the way up to about 5°f, I haven’t felt that warm in weeks! Weather Channel just had a story on that it takes the body about 10 days to get used to the cold. (I believe that).
This was driving to work the other the day. Ya it’s chilly, but ain’t ‘that’ bad Just put another log (white birch or pine cause that’s all we got!) on the fire!
I sure hope your water didn’t freeze, that’s a royal pain. Any issue with water getting into or out of the house has got to be the biggest most annoying first world problem of our time! View attachment 54886 I forgot to put my winter front on the car (VW tdi). Temp won’t stay up without higher rpm or the heater on a higher fan speed. Some think there’s an issue with my thermostat. Ha, nope.

Back when we lived in NW Ontario, I’d have to routinely drive my TDI for about 15 minutes before I would get a trickle of warm air from the vents. Thank god for electric seat warmers! Whereabouts in Northern Ontario Are you?

 

[torch]

They must be so poor that they can't afford long pants and coats, but have enough money for beer.

You don't play hockey in long pants and coats!

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Tip for you Texans: You will feel much warmer if you trade in your stetsons for touques when you go outside to BBQ during the power interruptions. Like so:

Now that's the way to BBQ
No bugs to deal with!

 

[Crash277]

Back when we lived in NW Ontario, I’d have to routinely drive my TDI for about 15 minutes before I would get a trickle of warm air from the vents. Thank god for electric seat warmers! Whereabouts in Northern Ontario Are you?

my wife has one of those fancy cars that can be remote started with her phone.. me, I toss on pants and a sweatshit run out start my car. Then get ready for work.

 

[NHSleddog]

Tip for you Texans: You will feel much warmer if you trade in your stetsons for touques when you go outside to BBQ during the power interruptions. Like so:

Because it's all about the "W" boys!

 

[GeoHorn]

Living out in a rural area ...and it being a pain to run out of butter or some small item ... it’s inconvenient not to have a pantry full of “necessities” like sugar, flour, corn-meal, dried-beans, canned-goods, potatoes, rice, oats, canned milk, spices, etc., .....and another refrigerator out in the garage or shop with extras such as butter, milk, bacon, eggs, cheese, and frozen meat etc etc. Folks who live “in town” get too acclimated to the corner convenience-store.... but it’s expensive to drive 30 miles round-trip for me to get a small item. Therefore like the Wolf... we keep supplies at a good reserve level. (Did I mention beer and whiskey?... and ice cream and sour cream?)
And the wife knows how to bake bread and I know how to cook on an open fire and use a Dutch Oven.

Also, some folks just aren’t as “comfortable” financially as others and getting from pay-check to pay-check and still covering all the bills and child-rearing expenses can make a large ”dent” in the ability to stock-up on some items when they don’t appear imminently necessary. (And it’s unfortunately become the “norm” for some parents these days to feed their families and kids with processed-foods or from McDonalds/Burger-King ... many young parents simply don’t know how to “make from scratch”.

Perhaps this year of Pandemic, Blizzards, Social Unrest, Infrastructure-Break-Down, Insurrection and Gov’t Mismanagement might give cause to Pause...and think about “banking” necessities as well as money.

 

[retired farmer]

15 inches. A first for this little south Arkansas town. Some places around had 19. But it will be a balmy 30 degrees today.

 

[Bmyers]

15 inches. A first for this little south Arkansas town. Some places around had 19. But it will be a balmy 30 degrees today.

I guess that means your tractor is going to get a good workout.

 

[retired farmer]

I guess that means your tractor is going to get a good workout.

Its out at the farm, I'm city slicker for tie being......