11:04 – We managed to get the 100 pounds of sugar, 50 pounds or so of rice, and 30 pounds of cornmeal repackaged yesterday, but we ran out of clean PET bottles and so didn’t get the 100 pounds of flour or the 25 pounds of oatmeal finished. We’ll continue work on that today and tomorrow.
We’ve also been drawing down our supply of science kits. This time of year, we’re shipping kits in relatively small numbers, but we need to get more built. We’re down to four or five biology kits in stock and maybe half a dozen forensic kits, so those’ll be top priority this week and next. That, and getting shelving set up in my office and the unfinished area of the basement, which Barbara calls the “natural area”.
I’m back at work on the prepping book, AKA The Book That Will Not Die. In my copious free time, I’m also starting to outline a fiction PA book and write character bios. One of those characters is Lori, the woman who delivers our mail. In addition to her USPS job, she has a 40-acre farm, where she raises Black Angus cattle. I asked her yesterday if she’d like to have dinner with us one evening, to which she readily agreed. I think I’ll name her character Harry the Mailman. Oh, wait. That’s already been taken.
I’m sure that Barbara will be happy to know that, other than stuff I need to do/buy for research on the prepping book, I’m pretty content with our current level of preparations. If things do go pear-shaped, we’re pretty well set to ride it out. Sure, there’ll always be more I want to do, but we’re in reasonably good shape in terms of water, food, shelter/heat, medications, communications, and defense.
I’m not really expecting any kind of catastrophic long-term emergency, but it wouldn’t surprise me if one did occur. I think the most likely such emergency is widespread civil unrest. If that happens, we’re well-placed to ride it out here in small-town North Carolina in the mountains. I don’t expect hordes of rioters and looters to show up here. If anything, the converse is likely to happen. History shows that if things get really bad, rather than big city dwellers heading for rural areas, rural dwellers are more likely to head for the big cities. That’s where jobs and government services are available. If the lights do go out, I’d expect power to be restored first in the big cities. Small-town and rural America would be way down the priority list for emergency aid, restoring services, and so on. And that’s fine with me.