10:19 – Barbara is heading down to Winston this morning to run errands and meet friends for lunch and then dinner. She won’t be back until mid-evening, so it’s wild women and parties for Colin and me today.
We got another batch of biology kits built yesterday, so we’re in pretty good shape for the next couple or three weeks unless we get a large bulk order for something. Starting today I’ll be making up more chemical solutions to fill still more bottles.
One preparedness category that’s often overlooked is having the means to prepare food during a long power outage. You may find yourself having to cook over a fire. You could use your current pots and pans, of course, but unless your everyday pots and pans are cast iron using them over a fire will probably damage or destroy them. I found that out by experience back before I met Barbara, when I tried to cook over a campfire using standard thin metal aluminum and stainless steel cookware. It just doesn’t stand up very well to flames.
With the latest delivery from Walmart.com, we now have what I consider the essential minimum cast-iron cookware: a Lodge 3-Quart Combo Cooker–which is a standard skillet and a deep skillet, either of which can be used as a lid for the other–and a Lodge 8 Quart Cast Iron Deep Camp Dutch Oven, whose legs and flat top optimize it for use over a charcoal or wood fire. The Combo Cooker can be used on a standard gas or electric cooktop, but the Camp Dutch Oven is really not suitable for use on a standard cooktop, gas or electric. We unboxed the Dutch oven to check it, but then reboxed it and stored it downstairs. The Combo Cooker lives upstairs in the kitchen, and we’re starting to use it routinely. At some point, I’ll probably add a larger skillet or two and perhaps a standard Dutch Oven for use in the kitchen.
I’m really at the point where I’m ready to blow away the Fire OS on my Fire HD7 and replace it with vanilla Android. Amazon has really butchered Fire OS, all in the interest of locking people into their walled garden and preventing them from using ad blocking software. I’ve had it. I’ll wait a couple months, until the next major release of Android, because the current version has a serious vulnerability that won’t be addressed until then. If I end up bricking my Fire, so be it.