Roughing it

Tornadoes ripped the hell out of the South East last Wednesday. We got off extremely easy. Our place was basically untouched by any of it. Many, many folks were not nearly so lucky. Some people lost their homes, or even worse, their families. For us,it was simply a matter of surviving a few days sans electricity.

The whole situation really wasn't so bad. I dug a small fire pit outside and ringed it with cinder blocks, scrounged up an old grill rack, gathered up a lot of fallen branches from around the property (that I should have cleaned up a long time ago), and just kept it burning for most of the time. We cooked as much as we could of the things we had in our fridge and freezer, plus some stuff my mom-in-law brought us from their damaged home as they headed for the safety of a hotel room in a nearby town. My wife even figured out how to make coffee for us! (Among other things.)

I never thought I could be sick of grilled meat, but there it is.

We even managed to cobble together a little canopy for shade out of stuff we had lying around. We took a little video of that which I hope to get edited and posted very shortly.

I kinda feel bad saying that we had a good time "camping" while so many other people were suffering but I can't help it. It felt good to test ourselves in that sort of situation and learn to make the best of things. We learned much about what we could live without, which was surprisingly a lot, also what we could and couldn't do with stuff we have lying around the place. It was a good trial run for becoming the self-sufficient people that we dream of becoming. The situation also gave birth to some intriguing ideas regarding sustainable green energy that I plan to explore in earnest very soon.

Even in the hardest of times, one can learn to make the best of what is at hand. If only free pallets and mimosa poles could bring back lost lives...