Just in Case (62 page)

½ cup dark corn syrup

1
cup peanut butter

5
cups cornflakes

• Combine the sugar and corn syrup in a pan. Cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Add the peanut butter and blend thoroughly. Pour over cornflakes and mix well with your hands. Spread on a buttered or greased cookie sheet with raised sides. Cool and cut into squares. You can add raisins, coconut, or nut pieces for variety.

YIELD: Approximately eighteen cookies

Epilogue: Could We Really do it?

I
N LATE MAY
, in the aftermath of a nearly monthlong period with no power, the Miller family decided that they needed to pursue a family preparedness plan. They purchased several books on the subject and settled on the OAR program of organizing, acquiring, and rotating as the system that offered them the best chance of success.

It took several weeks to organize their large home. They held a tag sale, which freed them of an enormous quantity of useless stuff and provided them with the space they needed and the seed money to begin acquiring what they now knew they needed to remain comfortable during a crisis.

Their first purchase was an airtight box stove. They placed it in the existing fireplace. It was so efficient that it heated both the living room and kitchen nicely and kept the bathroom warm enough to prevent pipes from freezing. The stovetop provided an excellent spot for cooking, especially when they bought a portable oven that fit on top. With the addition of some Castiron cook-ware, there was little food they would not be able to prepare, even without electricity. The children found plans for a solar oven online and spent an entire afternoon in the basement, working happily together to make one as a surprise to their parents. This one positive act went a long way toward helping them heal from the trauma of their weeks of deprivation and fear.

The next big purchase was a set of metal storage shelves. The whole family worked as a team to install the shelves along a wall in the garage. This transformed the space into a storage pantry. They joined a food cooperative and began buying food in bulk. Every week, Mrs. Miller bought duplicates of toiletries and staples. They put in a small garden and found they were eating less fast food. The savings was put into equipping each family member with an evacuation kit. In October, well before the start of the winter driving season, Mr. Miller updated all the maintenance for both family vehicles and stocked each with an emergency car kit.

Piece after piece fell into place, especially when the Millers joined a local preparedness group. The group supported each other’s efforts, shared skills and resources, and saved money by purchasing some things at a group discount. In October, they got together and went apple picking. They spent the next day canning applesauce in a church kitchen, followed by a potluck dinner. When one of the members found a deal on hand cranked flashlights, he bought twenty of them and gave them out at the next meeting. Another member, a physician, gave a workshop on preparing a first-aid kit. The group contacted the Red Cross and scheduled a CPR and first-aid training.

On occasion, a relative or acquaintance made a negative comment about the Miller family’s decision to make crisis preparedness a family priority, especially when they gave up a vacation trip to put their time and resources into joining a CSA garden, but the Millers remained firm in their commitment to preparedness. The following February, when a three-day blizzard followed by an ice storm knocked out power to their neighborhood for nearly two weeks, the Millers were glad of that resolve. Not only were they able to remain at home and comfortable, they were also able to offer help to those who were not prepared.

This book has primarily been devoted to advice on meeting the needs of an average family such as the Millers during short-term emergencies, specifically those lasting less than a month or two. Many people, however, are looking longer. There are those who look at some of the challenges facing our global community and are assessing their ability to be self-reliant and self-sustaining should they find themselves without the comforts and luxuries that we have come to believe are necessities. Several recent events have brought many of us to the unpleasant realization that we have allowed complacency to override our common sense.

Certainly, September 11 was one of those events. It became clear in an instant that we were no more immune to the actions of terrorists than anyone else on the planet. While this incident only disrupted transportation and finances for the short term, it opened our eyes to the reality that the next attack might be far more devastating. Any hope that things would work out anyway, thanks to the prompt and professional response of FEMA and Homeland Security, quickly evaporated when we watched the aftermath of Katrina. We waited in vain for the cavalry to arrive on white horses and rescue those left hungry, sick, and homeless. We are still waiting. In fact, as of this writing, Habitat for Humanity, a private, nonprofit organization composed primarily of volunteers, not the federal government, is the largest home builder in New Orleans. It is clear that, in a large crisis, there are just too many of us to expect a central government to have the capacity to put the safety nets in place to rescue all of us.

Next we heard about avian influenza, or bird flu. Experts are talking about not if, but rather when, we will be faced with a pandemic that will overwhelm our healthcare industry. Absenteeism could quickly shutdown our systems of education, energy, and food distribution, as those not ill may be unwilling to leave their families to go into the larger community.

The final blow was the realization that global warming is real and already influencing our climate. The winter of 2006-2007 saw record warmth in the Northeast followed by record cold. Upstate New York had to close schools and businesses as snowfall reached depths of ten feet in a matter of weeks. Colorado was virtually shut down as storm after storm closed highways and airports. The Northwest saw ice storms that left families without power for weeks at a time. Tornadoes leveled schools and homes in the South, while wildfires forced evacuations in California. We watched the spinach crops rot in the field because of E. coli outbreaks and citrus crops freeze on the West Coast. All of this happened against a backdrop of nuclear testing in North Korea, China, and Iran.

The world has always been a scary place, but this is the first generation that has allowed itself to become totally dependent on a fragile web of interdependent systems. If one piece goes down — whether food, transportation, communications, finance, power, workforce, fuel, or weather — the whole system will collapse in a domino effect that could bring our usual lives to a screeching halt. The shelves will be empty, the money will dry up, the lights will go out, the cars won’t run, and people will stay home.

In generations past, most people could put their hand to any number of tasks. Granted, most roles were very gender defined. Women could milk cows and turn the milk into butter, cheese, and ice cream. They could sew, tend the sick, and preserve the bounty of the gardens that lay behind every house. Women knew how to use herbs, bake bread, and make jelly. Men knew animal husbandry, carpentry, and hunting and fishing. Even if they didn’t use these skills all the time, they could if it was necessary and they saw that teaching their children these things was a fundamental responsibility.

By the early fifties, these skills were no longer respected. People became specialized, willing to trade their labor for money to pay someone else to provide them with food, clothing, and shelter. Now we have a perfect storm brewing. We are both dependent on a network of services and goods to meet nearly every physical need and isolated from nurturing, sustainable communities as the storm clouds threaten.

But I see some really hopeful signs on the horizon. Many communities have committed groups working on the issues of sustainabil-ity. They are coming up with ways for towns to meet their own needs, as independently as possible of the global marketplace. It is the essence of family preparedness taken to the community level. What do we need? What do we have? How can we manage if we have to provide it for ourselves?

Acknowledgments

For years, my bookshelves have been filled with publications from Storey. It is only natural that writing for them would feel like a homecoming. My special thanks to Margaret Sutherland, Nancy Ringer, and Amy Greeman. You took an idea and helped me create a book. Thanks to Ricki Carroll for editing the chapter on cheese-making and to Stephen Philbrick and Frank Philbrick for the wood heat education. My dear husband, Bruce, not only provided much of the technical information for this book but also puts up with the considerable inconvenience of a spouse who writes. This book only exists because of our shared life.

I must also thank Alice and Amy and the Old Creamery for providing the foundation for the Hilltown Sustainability Group. We learn much and laugh often. What more could I ask?

Index

Page numbers in
italics
indicate illustrations; numbers in
bold
indicate tables.

A

acquiring and rotating supplies,
28
-47

adult evacuation kit,
95

alert organizations,
102
-3

altitude adjustments, canning and,
183

auto.
See
car management

B

Backyard Lumberjack, The
(Philbrick),
70
,
168

baking

basic supplies for,
33
-34

equivalent food items and,
208

grain mill for,
33

substitutions and,
207

See also
bread, making of

Ball Blue Book, The
,
180

bathroom supplies,
41
-42,
44

bathing,
73
-74,
81

bedding,
46
-47,
71

biological threats,
137
-38,
149
-50

bombs,
147
-48,
151
-52

bookkeeping,
52
-53

bread, making of,
200
-203

Basic Pizza Dough,
202

Basic Sweet Bread,
202
-3

Basic Yeast Bread,
201
-2

doughnuts and sweet rolls,
203

bread and grains recipes,
218
-26

Beer Biscuits,
224

Biscuit and Pancake Mix,
218
-19

Buttermilk Pancake Mix,
219

Canned Bread,
220
-21

Chippewa Fry Bread,
223

Coffee Cake,
221
-22

Cornmeal Baking Mix,
219
-20

Corn Tortillas,
223

Dumplings,
225

Flour Tortillas,
224

Noodles,
224

Pita Bread,
223

Pretzels,
222

Quick Bread,
221

Quick Sourdough Bread,
225
-26

Raisin Bread,
222

Rich Egg Noodles,
224

shortening and,
220

storage mixes,
219

Yeast Corn Bread,
225