Day 18

Schooling

I still have a few schooling needs for the monsters. But I have school books and paper and pencils. We even have a chalk board. I’m sure that if push came to shove and I had to teach the monsters I could do it. At least the basics. ( Which considering that the younger two are both special ed students they could benefit from the basics ) The oldest monster really could be done with school at this point. She is in 11th grade. She can read, ‘rite & do ‘rithmetic. She could even help me with the younger ones.

There aren’t many little ones in the neighborhood. But I’m sure that we could come up with some type of school environment. Or we just deal with our own monsters and go from there.

Things to Get or Do

1. Pick up a couple more English books
2. Pick up a couple more math books
3. Get more chalk
4. Get a good pencil sharpener

Yart

Day 17

Entertainment

I have talked in previous days that we have entertainment pretty well figured out. We have board games, cards & outside toys. There are crafts and new skills to learn. Not to mention that the great out of doors has seriously been neglected in this age of computers. The monsters can put on performances and play music on the instruments.

With having everyone at home we will have plenty of hands to pitch in to get all of the chores done in the morning. That will leave the rest of the day for school, play and skill building.

For me I can entertain myself with reading, knitting, sewing or writing. Grim, can entertain himself tinkering around.

Things to Get or Buy

1. More card games
2. More craft supplies
3. More yarn
4. More fabric

Yart

Day 16

Building a Library

This one I have so covered. I have old school books to the classics to romances. Plus all the self-sufficient books and hundreds of magazines. Not to mention all of the stuff that I have printed off line that I would finally have time to read and sort out.

We have quite a few kids books. Even though Mouthy is going to be 8 in a couple weeks, she still needs to have the cute stories! The other two are very much like me when it comes to reading.  They have a ton of books on all types of vampires and Japanese animation.

Need to Get or Do

1. Buy more books ( DUH )
2. Print off more material on line
3. Get Mouthy a few more age appropriate books

Yart

Day 15

Tools

There will be a need for tools that don’t require electricity. Luckily, Grim has us covered. We have an axe and wedge. We have hammers, saws, screwdrivers. I even have an antique hand drill. Plus, most of the men in the neighborhood have tools. So if we didn’t have something then I’m sure we would be able to borrow it.

In the kitchen I have been switching over to manual tools versus the electrical ones. I have a hand beater and of course my wisks. I have a toaster that I can use on the cooktop. I have several pieces of cast iron. Most of my cookware is glass. So that may not be a great idea for using on the wood burner… LOL! But I have been weeding out my endless supply of plastic containers. They have been replaced with canning jars.

Things to Do or Get

1. Dutch Oven cast iron
2. muffin tins cast iron
3. Look into a hand crank Mixer "Little Dutch Maid"

Yart

Day 14

Cleanliness

Since I have very few options available to me. I think that we will stick to washing up with the pitcher and bowl. Then doing the weekly bath. Now this is funny because this is where the saying don’t toss the baby out with the bath water comes from…. Dad, male children, Mom, female children and then the baby would be washed in the same bathwater as everyone else…. ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Can you imagine only being able to bathe once a week or even less. Man the thought of that really does make my skin crawl. But in hard times things need to be done that you would never think of doing in the civilized world.

Hauling the water, heating it up, hauling the hot water to the bathing area. That is a ton of work.

In the summer I can see us setting up a solar shower in the yard. The water could be caught and reused ( I know gross )… or it could be used to water the garden. We could even get an old metal tub and light a fire under it to heat the water for outside bathing.

Then what about clothing. I know I cover some of this in the laundry section, day 9, but I watch Frontier House for the first time and something struck me odd. Women use to wear aprons everyday, a new one. The reason was to keep the clothes clean, so that they didn’t need to washed but once a week or less. But the aprons were washed everyday because they dried so much faster then the outer clothes would in the weather.

A point that Wendy Brown points out is without power or limited power, How are you going to keep your carpets clean? Yep, that’s right no vacuums. The only rooms I have carpet is the 3 bedrooms. The rest of the house has linoleum or hard wood with through rugs. The rugs can be taken out and beat with a broom to get the dirt out of them. The floors just swept and washed.

Things to Do or Get

1. Buy another wood handled natural broom
2. See if they still sell wisk brooms
3. Look into setting up an outside bathing arrangement
4. Make more aprons

Yart

Day 13

Health Care

This is an are that we could have a few issues with. Grim is a heart patient and has apnea. He is on several different medications and he has a CPAP machine ( need more electricity then I first thought ). I need to find herbals that would accommodate him as best as possible. Doctors will be far and few between and medicines will be in short supply. Doctors and the Drug companies need machines to do the job. When we are no longer running on oil as a nation, how are these machines suppose to run?

I can sew enough to do stitches, I think I could set a bone… at least after I passed out a time or two. I know how to dress a wound. And I am taking an herbal class. So I will have the knowledge to deal with most things even if I don’t have the herbals to do it. So maybe I can substitute. Pulling teeth, I think Grim is up for that job. See how I skirted that one.

Need to Do or Get

1. Finish herbal classes
2. Look for alternatives for Grim
3. Look for solar to run his CPAP machine
4. Plant commonly used medicinal herbs

Yart

Day 12

Waste Disposal

Come to think of it this is a fairly shitty topic… LOL! Sorry! I couldn’t resist.

When you think of it though what are you going to do with the trash and your waste? Since I won’t be out purchasing stuff, my trash will be none existent. What is left that would have been tossed will just have to be saved to burn or be creative with

Now for the human waste. Wendy Brown talks about having two buckets one for liquid and one for solids. The liquid would need to be diluted with water and then you can water trees and shrubs. The solids she recommends a book about Humanure. I would recommend this as I know I don’t have room for an outhouse, and I can’t access septic system. We are on the city lines. So this seems like it is the best for us. I need to check into it more though.

Need to Do or Get

1. Look into Humanure
2. Get a 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat on it.
3. Get a metal garbage can ( for controlled burn )
4. Make sure post hole digger is in good shape ( in case we did have to dig an outhouse )
5. Look into blocking off drains in basement… backup could be a problem

Yart