TRANSCRIPT 🔗
WEBVTT
1
00:00:18.070 --> 00:00:20.809
Hey everybody, Scott Terry here, and you are listening to
2
00:00:20.949 --> 00:00:23.949
Our Life Up Here, the Scott Terry Show. And this
3
00:00:23.989 --> 00:00:32.719
is a podcast about homesteading, horticulture, agrarianism, entrepreneurship, and stuff
4
00:00:32.759 --> 00:00:38.100
like that. So in this episode, I want to talk
5
00:00:38.179 --> 00:00:47.259
about developing backup plans that actually work. So... I'm talking
6
00:00:47.270 --> 00:00:54.679
about backup plans for emergency situations. And I've found over
7
00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:59.479
the years that a lot of people, when it comes
8
00:00:59.619 --> 00:01:05.969
to actually implementing these plans in an emergency situation, they
9
00:01:06.150 --> 00:01:09.689
seldom work out the way that they had planned. Might
10
00:01:09.750 --> 00:01:13.310
have great intentions. On paper, it might be a really
11
00:01:13.370 --> 00:01:17.829
cool backup plan. But... When the rubber meets the road,
12
00:01:18.930 --> 00:01:25.609
it doesn't work out that way. So, there's some things
13
00:01:25.670 --> 00:01:28.290
that you have to consider when coming up with an
14
00:01:28.349 --> 00:01:33.819
emergency backup plan of any kind. So, this can, these
15
00:01:33.879 --> 00:01:38.480
general principles and rules can be applied to a lot
16
00:01:38.519 --> 00:01:42.579
of different stuff. But, you know, let's take, for example,
17
00:01:43.859 --> 00:01:49.819
you have a major power outage. and you need to
18
00:01:49.900 --> 00:01:55.379
be able to run the refrigerators, run your chest freezers,
19
00:01:55.579 --> 00:01:59.659
run your well pump, so you can water the livestock,
20
00:02:01.340 --> 00:02:08.150
all the things that you need electricity for. The general
21
00:02:08.270 --> 00:02:11.629
idea that most people will say, okay, I'll go out
22
00:02:11.689 --> 00:02:14.849
and get a generator, and that'll fix my problem. And
23
00:02:14.889 --> 00:02:17.849
the number of people that say, I'm going to buy
24
00:02:17.870 --> 00:02:20.969
a generator and then don't even take it out of
25
00:02:20.990 --> 00:02:23.310
the box. Stick it in the corner of the barn
26
00:02:23.370 --> 00:02:26.590
or the garage or a shed. And, well, there. If
27
00:02:26.629 --> 00:02:29.430
we ever have a power outage, I've got a generator.
28
00:02:31.270 --> 00:02:34.569
So when you finally do have the power outage and
29
00:02:35.629 --> 00:02:39.289
it's in the dark and fumble around trying to find
30
00:02:39.349 --> 00:02:41.889
a flashlight so that you can get out there and
31
00:02:42.969 --> 00:02:45.250
try to remember where you left the stupid thing, take
32
00:02:45.289 --> 00:02:47.580
it out of the box for the first time Read
33
00:02:47.599 --> 00:02:50.060
the owner's manual of the flashlight for the first time.
34
00:02:52.460 --> 00:02:56.439
Get it started. Figure out how you hook it. You
35
00:02:56.479 --> 00:03:01.560
can't do that. You have to actually, when you get
36
00:03:01.599 --> 00:03:05.210
the thing home, you have to sit down and see
37
00:03:05.310 --> 00:03:11.229
how it works. Get yourself so that you're comfortable running
38
00:03:11.550 --> 00:03:15.409
the machine. Learn how to check the oil. Do you
39
00:03:15.449 --> 00:03:18.509
have fuel on hand? Do you have enough fuel on
40
00:03:18.590 --> 00:03:27.300
hand for a long-term power outage? Have you tested it
41
00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:30.879
out to see how many things you can run at
42
00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:33.919
one time? Those are all things you don't want to
43
00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:39.240
learn the first time you're using it. So what I
44
00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:41.580
always tell people is, you know, because you've got to
45
00:03:41.620 --> 00:03:46.530
have a way to hook this thing up. So that
46
00:03:46.569 --> 00:03:48.889
you're not going to blow that up when the power
47
00:03:48.930 --> 00:03:53.949
comes on. Or electrocute pole workers while they're working on things.
48
00:03:54.729 --> 00:04:00.120
You've got to get that figured out first. Get your
49
00:04:02.060 --> 00:04:08.500
lockout system and switchover system set up. You've got to
50
00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:13.560
run it. And then see how many things you can
51
00:04:13.639 --> 00:04:17.819
run at once before you... before you max out the
52
00:04:17.870 --> 00:04:22.750
generator and trip it. You might find that you can
53
00:04:24.170 --> 00:04:26.889
run the well pump and a couple other things. You
54
00:04:26.930 --> 00:04:29.269
might find out that when you're running the well pump,
55
00:04:29.310 --> 00:04:34.290
you've got to shut other things off. But that's good
56
00:04:34.329 --> 00:04:37.209
to know ahead of time so that you're not learning
57
00:04:37.269 --> 00:04:39.839
all this stuff during the emergency. Then it makes the
58
00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:45.839
emergency go a lot smoother. Fuel. What are you going
59
00:04:45.860 --> 00:04:49.829
to do for fuel? So there's different methods of having
60
00:04:50.089 --> 00:04:53.709
fresh fuel. You've got to rotate gasoline if you have
61
00:04:53.730 --> 00:04:58.519
a gasoline power generator. You've got to have a plan
62
00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:01.779
for that. You need to have fuel on hand. You
63
00:05:01.800 --> 00:05:08.930
should have fuel in the machine. As far as fuel goes,
64
00:05:09.819 --> 00:05:12.470
for me, I've kind of got it easy because we've
65
00:05:12.509 --> 00:05:15.600
got so many gas engines around here that have to
66
00:05:15.639 --> 00:05:18.240
run off of ethanol free gasoline that I just have
67
00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:23.589
bulk deliveries and I have a 300 gallon tank full
68
00:05:23.649 --> 00:05:30.009
of 91 octane ethanol free gas for small engines and
69
00:05:32.129 --> 00:05:38.720
that has a hand crank pump on it because just
70
00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:42.600
in case the last nincompoop that ran the Generator ran
71
00:05:42.639 -->
Load full transcript
00:05:45.120
it out of fuel and then didn't fill it back
72
00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:49.000
up and then Then if you had an electric pump
73
00:05:49.139 --> 00:05:52.040
on your gas tank, how would you get the gas out?
74
00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:57.060
so another hand pump a Hand crank pump on that
75
00:05:57.120 --> 00:06:00.800
tank for that particular reason I can always get generator
76
00:06:00.860 --> 00:06:03.920
gas whether I've got power or not as long as
77
00:06:03.980 --> 00:06:07.399
my arm can Go round and round I can get
78
00:06:07.439 --> 00:06:13.269
gasoline Now the other thing was with the generator example,
79
00:06:13.290 --> 00:06:15.370
is you've got to get those things out and run
80
00:06:15.389 --> 00:06:22.189
them and do practice runs. This works for any emergency
81
00:06:22.290 --> 00:06:28.509
backup plan. You have to actually practice it. If you
82
00:06:28.550 --> 00:06:34.589
don't practice it, then just trust me. It's not going
83
00:06:34.629 --> 00:06:36.910
to go very smoothly the first time you do it.
84
00:06:37.449 --> 00:06:40.490
You're going to find all sorts of things that you
85
00:06:40.529 --> 00:06:45.660
need to You need to change up. As far as
86
00:06:45.720 --> 00:06:50.540
the generator situation, the best idea that I can give
87
00:06:50.579 --> 00:06:53.000
you is pick an afternoon when you're not terribly busy.
88
00:06:53.279 --> 00:06:57.699
You've got some time to test it out. Shut the
89
00:06:57.740 --> 00:07:02.069
grid power off. Get your generator out. Fire it up.
90
00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:07.240
And run your homestead off the generator for an afternoon.
91
00:07:08.300 --> 00:07:11.540
Generators like to be used every once in a while. Um,
92
00:07:12.180 --> 00:07:17.350
so don't just let it sit there. Maybe once every
93
00:07:17.379 --> 00:07:20.829
couple of months, fire it up and run the farm
94
00:07:21.529 --> 00:07:26.029
off of the generator. And, you know, again, and you're
95
00:07:26.050 --> 00:07:27.750
going to find out what you can run and what
96
00:07:27.790 --> 00:07:33.310
you can't run. And depending on how much, you know,
97
00:07:33.379 --> 00:07:35.579
if it's stuff that you can get away with, it's
98
00:07:35.620 --> 00:07:37.680
just going to be an inconvenience, not the end of
99
00:07:37.720 --> 00:07:43.060
the world. maybe having one generator is enough. Um, we
100
00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:48.250
have two generators because the general rule when you're developing
101
00:07:48.350 --> 00:07:51.850
a backup plan is two is one, one is none,
102
00:07:51.970 --> 00:07:56.769
because if one of them dies, then you just, you can't,
103
00:07:57.569 --> 00:08:03.540
you can't operate. So we have two gas generators so
104
00:08:03.579 --> 00:08:06.459
that in the worst case scenario, I should be able
105
00:08:06.480 --> 00:08:10.290
to have one of them running. Um, The other reason
106
00:08:10.329 --> 00:08:16.670
why I have two is we have our generator switched
107
00:08:16.769 --> 00:08:22.290
so that it's actually divided. The house and then all
108
00:08:22.310 --> 00:08:25.709
the greenhouses and outbuildings and stuff are on two separate circuits.
109
00:08:25.790 --> 00:08:29.339
Now I can run them completely off of one generator
110
00:08:29.839 --> 00:08:35.620
just by plugging in two cords. But if it happened
111
00:08:35.659 --> 00:08:38.909
to be the heat of the summer and I had
112
00:08:39.230 --> 00:08:42.669
all of the greenhouses and I was running exhaust fans
113
00:08:42.789 --> 00:08:48.480
on every house, then it wouldn't run the house as well.
114
00:08:49.559 --> 00:08:56.139
So we ran it this summer with one generator just
115
00:08:56.159 --> 00:08:59.919
to kind of test it out and see because I
116
00:08:59.960 --> 00:09:02.799
got a well pump for the house and then we
117
00:09:02.980 --> 00:09:05.899
have two wells, so I'm running two well pumps and
118
00:09:05.940 --> 00:09:12.230
then all the other stuff, plus whatever. And I have
119
00:09:12.269 --> 00:09:18.059
to be able to power the house because the Wi-Fi
120
00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:25.120
from the house is what runs my temperature alarms and
121
00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:28.250
my point-of-sale system runs off of that and other things,
122
00:09:28.330 --> 00:09:32.129
so I have to have power in both places. But
123
00:09:32.769 --> 00:09:37.669
the idea of practicing, just taking a day and... Okay,
124
00:09:37.769 --> 00:09:40.909
we're going to go ahead and pretend like we don't
125
00:09:40.950 --> 00:09:45.679
have power today, see how it works. And these are
126
00:09:45.700 --> 00:09:49.059
just the general rules that can apply to any backup
127
00:09:49.639 --> 00:09:55.909
system that you're trying to develop. I give an example
128
00:09:56.269 --> 00:10:00.940
of where, okay, so I teach this stuff, right? You
129
00:10:00.980 --> 00:10:06.080
would think that I would follow all of my own rules. Well,
130
00:10:06.659 --> 00:10:11.960
guess what? I didn't. And it was a good reminder,
131
00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:14.929
a good reminder. So I won't forget for a while,
132
00:10:15.230 --> 00:10:19.289
but eventually I'll become complacent and won't practice, won't test
133
00:10:19.330 --> 00:10:27.840
things out ahead of time. Our main greenhouse that we
134
00:10:27.899 --> 00:10:35.679
start first in the cold, cold part of February, early March,
135
00:10:39.139 --> 00:10:43.279
if the furnaces go down in there, it's a pretty serious,
136
00:10:44.100 --> 00:10:49.309
pretty serious problem. And this particular time, we had a
137
00:10:49.350 --> 00:10:51.850
backup plan, but we've never actually had to use it.
138
00:10:52.610 --> 00:10:59.039
And so we started getting lax on making sure everything
139
00:10:59.080 --> 00:11:02.879
was where it was supposed to be. The backup plan
140
00:11:02.940 --> 00:11:07.580
is I've got tools, I've got spare parts for the furnace,
141
00:11:08.559 --> 00:11:12.350
I
understand how to fix furnaces, so I just need
142
00:11:12.490 --> 00:11:14.490
to be able to keep it warm in there until
143
00:11:14.549 --> 00:11:17.639
I get the furnace fixed and Not a big deal.
144
00:11:17.919 --> 00:11:20.059
The few times that we had problems were in the
145
00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:24.179
warmer part of the year, and it wasn't like you
146
00:11:24.220 --> 00:11:26.769
had three to four minutes or you were going to
147
00:11:26.799 --> 00:11:33.340
lose everything. So we got kind of lackadaisical about it.
148
00:11:34.850 --> 00:11:40.830
We had needed the backup salamander, which is our fuel
149
00:11:40.970 --> 00:11:44.519
oil salamander. that if the furnace goes down, you fire
150
00:11:44.559 --> 00:11:46.559
that thing up, and it makes just enough heat to
151
00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:49.019
keep everything from freezing while you're working on the furnace.
152
00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:55.720
So one day, and it was cold, it was pretty
153
00:11:55.740 --> 00:12:04.169
sure it was below zero, and early March, and the
154
00:12:04.389 --> 00:12:11.590
alarm for house 10 went off. And none of us
155
00:12:11.649 --> 00:12:17.379
were here, So Isaiah and I dropped what we were
156
00:12:17.399 --> 00:12:20.419
doing and drove as fast as we could to get
157
00:12:20.519 --> 00:12:27.399
over here. Go in. It's almost down to freezing, almost
158
00:12:27.500 --> 00:12:31.279
about to lose. What we had in there was probably
159
00:12:31.799 --> 00:12:34.529
the retail value on what we had going so far
160
00:12:34.610 --> 00:12:39.789
in there was probably $ 15, 000, $ 20, 000 worth of geranium baskets
161
00:12:41.190 --> 00:12:47.450
that were in there. And If they die, the timing
162
00:12:47.529 --> 00:12:51.289
for that particular window when we sell those baskets is
163
00:12:51.370 --> 00:12:55.720
such that you can't just start over. It ain't going
164
00:12:55.740 --> 00:12:57.340
to work. So you're just not going to have a
165
00:12:57.379 --> 00:13:00.480
crop for that. So we run in there and go
166
00:13:00.519 --> 00:13:08.019
to grab the salamander. Where is it? Oh, we took
167
00:13:08.059 --> 00:13:09.659
it over to the barn when we were working on
168
00:13:10.600 --> 00:13:13.179
bearings or something on a piece of machinery and needed
169
00:13:13.220 --> 00:13:15.440
some heat. to keep us from freezing while we were
170
00:13:15.480 --> 00:13:18.740
working on it and never brought it back. They'll run
171
00:13:18.820 --> 00:13:23.379
over there, get it, get back. That makes you open
172
00:13:23.419 --> 00:13:26.990
the door one more time, which isn't great. You only
173
00:13:27.009 --> 00:13:32.389
got two pieces of poly are all that's separating the
174
00:13:32.409 --> 00:13:37.529
plants and that temperature from below zero weather outside. The
175
00:13:37.580 --> 00:13:39.919
sun hasn't come up yet. It's early in the morning.
176
00:13:41.220 --> 00:13:47.399
It's just about daybreak. Then somebody
took the extension cord
177
00:13:47.419 --> 00:13:49.740
that was supposed to be hanging there for the thing.
178
00:13:49.799 --> 00:13:54.480
So I had to run and get an extension cord. Well, thankfully,
179
00:13:54.919 --> 00:13:57.750
we had just enough time. Got that thing fired up.
180
00:13:57.830 --> 00:14:01.250
It started making some heat, and I could watch the
181
00:14:01.269 --> 00:14:04.570
thermometer in there start inching up a little bit. And
182
00:14:04.629 --> 00:14:07.809
then the sun peeked up over the horizon and sent
183
00:14:07.850 --> 00:14:11.129
its rays through the plastic, and that was a big help.
184
00:14:12.330 --> 00:14:17.919
And we were like, okay, let's... Let's get into fixing
185
00:14:17.960 --> 00:14:23.820
the furnace. So now we've already learned several things. Before
186
00:14:23.919 --> 00:14:26.059
anybody goes home at the end of the day, you
187
00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:29.059
better make sure that that salamander is back in house
188
00:14:29.059 --> 00:14:34.559
10 full of fuel and underneath the bench where we
189
00:14:34.580 --> 00:14:38.299
can grab it easy. And two, if anybody touches the
190
00:14:38.360 --> 00:14:42.090
extension cord that's coiled up hanging on that nail, that's
191
00:14:42.120 --> 00:14:44.840
the only way to turn that thing on. They should
192
00:14:44.879 --> 00:14:48.059
have their fingers cut off because that was not good.
193
00:14:49.960 --> 00:14:53.100
That stuff has to be there. This is something we
194
00:14:53.139 --> 00:14:59.990
learned real quick. This is like religious dogma now. It
195
00:15:00.090 --> 00:15:04.190
has to be there. So, like I said, I got
196
00:15:04.230 --> 00:15:07.730
plenty of spare parts and everything. Shouldn't be a problem.
197
00:15:09.049 --> 00:15:14.299
Tear into it immediately. Start checking... the things that you
198
00:15:14.350 --> 00:15:18.090
know to check. There's the little cad eye that sees
199
00:15:18.149 --> 00:15:21.730
whether or not there's a flame. And if that goes bad,
200
00:15:22.129 --> 00:15:27.070
it won't run because it's a safety switch inside your
201
00:15:27.110 --> 00:15:29.710
fuel oil furnace that if it's not seeing a flame,
202
00:15:30.009 --> 00:15:31.970
it doesn't want you pumping a whole tank of fuel
203
00:15:32.029 --> 00:15:36.899
in there. Sometimes those go bad. But I change those
204
00:15:36.940 --> 00:15:40.379
cad eyes every season, whether they need it or not.
205
00:15:40.700 --> 00:15:46.240
I have thrown away a ridiculous amount of $ 15 Cad-Eyes
206
00:15:46.379 --> 00:15:48.299
every year because I want a brand new one on
207
00:15:48.320 --> 00:15:51.200
there every year. It's worth $ 15 worth of insurance for me.
208
00:15:51.559 --> 00:15:53.919
I didn't think that was the problem, and it wasn't
209
00:15:53.960 --> 00:16:04.429
the problem. Switch out the nozzle. Check your points. Got
210
00:16:04.509 --> 00:16:14.889
power to the transformer. What's going on? I'm not getting fuel. Well,
211
00:16:15.409 --> 00:16:17.450
I just put a brand new filter in it, but
212
00:16:18.090 --> 00:16:20.830
maybe the filter's plugged. I don't know how, but maybe
213
00:16:20.850 --> 00:16:29.620
the filter's plugged. The filter off. Filter's not plugged, but
214
00:16:30.759 --> 00:16:38.419
there's no fuel coming. So we got to go out there.
215
00:16:38.450 --> 00:16:42.190
So I'm trying to figure out why I'm not getting
216
00:16:42.250 --> 00:16:45.740
fuel to the filter. Isaiah goes out with a flashlight.
217
00:16:46.519 --> 00:16:50.129
We've got 1,200 gallons worth of fuel oil out there
218
00:16:51.830 --> 00:16:56.950
for that house. He hollers back and says, this is
219
00:16:57.009 --> 00:16:59.980
not good. It is not good. I said, well, what
220
00:17:00.029 --> 00:17:06.640
could be the problem? Get out there. 1,200 gallons of
221
00:17:06.700 --> 00:17:18.029
fuel oil solidified. It gelled. So what happened was, instead
222
00:17:18.109 --> 00:17:27.759
of delivering the cut winterized fuel, they had delivered the
223
00:17:27.799 --> 00:17:31.900
summer blend. Now, if I had known that, I would
224
00:17:31.920 --> 00:17:36.750
have treated it with some power service anti-gel stuff, and
225
00:17:36.769 --> 00:17:38.500
it would have been fine, but I didn't know it,
226
00:17:38.670 --> 00:17:44.420
and now it was solid. Well, what in the world
227
00:17:44.480 --> 00:17:51.029
are we going to do now? 1,200 gallons of solidified fuel.
228
00:17:52.630 --> 00:17:57.109
The only thing you can do is put diesel 911
229
00:17:57.109 --> 00:18:01.450
in it, and it will liquefy it. Now, I do
230
00:18:01.490 --> 00:18:06.420
not have enough diesel 911 to treat 1,200 gallons of fuel.
231
00:18:07.059 --> 00:18:10.119
And in the meantime, I like to run that house
232
00:18:10.180 --> 00:18:14.059
at 70 degrees, and we're We're keeping it at right
233
00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:18.339
about 34, 35 degrees. It's starting to inch up a
234
00:18:18.359 --> 00:18:20.180
little bit after the sun come up. It got up
235
00:18:20.220 --> 00:18:24.220
to 40. But stuff in the back and stuff on
236
00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:29.809
the edges had some frost damage already. And so jump
237
00:18:29.869 --> 00:18:34.430
in the truck, drive all the way to town, go
238
00:18:34.470 --> 00:18:39.349
to Napa. Isaiah walked in, says, I need enough 911
239
00:18:39.349 --> 00:18:43.309
for 1,200 gallons of fuel. And they all just stared
240
00:18:43.369 --> 00:18:46.950
at him. Said he explained what happened, and they came
241
00:18:47.009 --> 00:18:53.710
back with a great big cardboard case of 911 and said,
242
00:18:53.750 --> 00:18:58.930
that'll be $ 230. So we got that home. Had to
243
00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:03.000
put two jugs in each tank. Put two jugs in
244
00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:07.460
each tank, and we're watching it with the flashlight, and
245
00:19:07.539 --> 00:19:11.319
just like magic, it started wiggling and jiggling around in
there,
246
00:19:11.339 --> 00:19:15.740
and then whoo! It turned into liquid. I'm like, all right, good.
247
00:19:16.619 --> 00:19:20.700
Now let's fire it up. So I put everything back together,
248
00:19:22.559 --> 00:19:26.829
turn it on, hit the bleed screw, still no fuel. Well,
249
00:19:27.849 --> 00:19:33.029
it liquefied stuff in the tanks, but there's copper tubing
250
00:19:33.049 --> 00:19:36.319
that runs from all four or five, however many tanks
251
00:19:36.380 --> 00:19:39.220
are in there, I can't remember now, runs out of there,
252
00:19:39.599 --> 00:19:43.559
along the ground, into the side of the furnace room,
253
00:19:44.480 --> 00:19:50.660
that was all solidified, the whole tube. so grab the
254
00:19:50.740 --> 00:19:55.059
air compressor hook the air compressor up blow it backwards
255
00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:58.420
until you get bubbles but now I'm on the other
256
00:19:58.460 --> 00:20:02.240
side of the turn off switch so I had to
257
00:20:02.279 --> 00:20:05.349
have Isaiah out there so that once he heard the
258
00:20:05.410 --> 00:20:07.549
bubbles coming up in the tank he could turn all
259
00:20:07.569 --> 00:20:10.509
the valves off so that when I took the air
260
00:20:10.549 --> 00:20:12.970
compressor hose off of it, I didn't get all that
261
00:20:13.049 --> 00:20:16.630
fuel come flying back out at me. So we got
262
00:20:16.670 --> 00:20:20.509
that blowed out. In the meantime, a buddy from farm,
263
00:20:21.950 --> 00:20:24.450
the road came over, and he set up a couple
264
00:20:24.490 --> 00:20:28.400
of salamanders and a tarp in there to help heat
265
00:20:28.420 --> 00:20:30.940
it up while we were waiting for the 911 to
266
00:20:31.259 --> 00:20:38.079
do its trick. So then I finally hit it. Fuel
267
00:20:38.119 --> 00:20:40.259
came out of the bleed screw, closed the bleed screw,
268
00:20:40.420 --> 00:20:44.640
fired right up, heated the house up. But found a
269
00:20:44.779 --> 00:20:48.980
lot of holes in our supposed perfect backup plan for
270
00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:52.140
when the furnace goes down. Come to find out, none
271
00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:54.750
of the parts I had did me any good because
272
00:20:54.789 --> 00:21:00.150
they weren't the problem. I didn't have enough anti-gel, or
273
00:21:00.589 --> 00:21:03.430
I didn't treat the fuel with anti-gel because I assumed
274
00:21:03.829 --> 00:21:07.470
that I was delivered the proper product. I didn't have
275
00:21:07.529 --> 00:21:10.650
enough 911 for an emergency like that because I never
276
00:21:10.710 --> 00:21:12.890
in my wildest dreams ever thought that I would have
277
00:21:12.950 --> 00:21:17.980
to have an entire case of 911 for one emergency. So,
278
00:21:19.279 --> 00:21:23.660
what do we do different now? I wished I'd, I
279
00:21:23.700 --> 00:21:25.200
don't know, some of this stuff, the only way to
280
00:21:25.259 --> 00:21:27.140
learn it was to have it happen to you. But
281
00:21:27.980 --> 00:21:30.440
there's an extension cord coiled up, hangs on a nail.
282
00:21:30.569 --> 00:21:32.500
No one's allowed to touch it. If you touch it,
283
00:21:32.569 --> 00:21:37.750
you are dead to me. The salamander. remains under the
284
00:21:37.789 --> 00:21:40.740
little workbench in the furnace room. If you take it,
285
00:21:41.710 --> 00:21:44.210
that's fine. Make sure it's full of fuel and it
286
00:21:44.319 --> 00:21:49.700
is returned back there before you do anything else. Do
287
00:21:49.740 --> 00:21:52.960
we treat all fuel that comes onto the property? Yes,
288
00:21:53.259 --> 00:21:55.700
it's now pre-treated so that it's not going to gel
289
00:21:55.759 --> 00:22:02.000
no matter what. Do we have 911 on hand enough
290
00:22:02.460 --> 00:22:06.410
to do a mass catastrophe like 1,200 gallons of gelled fuel? Yes,
291
00:22:07.240 --> 00:22:09.660
we have a case of that. It is sitting there
292
00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:16.380
ready to go. What are some other things we learned?
293
00:22:16.559 --> 00:22:21.789
Every second counts. The amount of time that it took
294
00:22:21.890 --> 00:22:27.269
for that building to go from 70 degrees to... When
295
00:22:27.309 --> 00:22:31.849
we went in there, the thermometer said 32, but thank
296
00:22:31.869 --> 00:22:38.900
God it hadn't actually frozen anything yet. Um, so yeah, we,
297
00:22:39.069 --> 00:22:43.769
we got tested by tested by fire and learned, we
298
00:22:43.809 --> 00:22:46.210
had a whole list that we sat down afterwards, like
299
00:22:46.569 --> 00:22:49.269
we're going to sit down and find every hole in
300
00:22:49.349 --> 00:22:53.109
our plan and everything that we did wrong and make
301
00:22:53.170 --> 00:22:58.109
sure that it never happens again. So that's the other thing. When,
302
00:22:58.210 --> 00:23:02.819
when you, when you find these things during an emergency,
303
00:23:03.440 --> 00:23:05.150
Take the time to write them down so that when
304
00:23:05.170 --> 00:23:10.509
the emergency is all over and you have a meeting
305
00:23:10.569 --> 00:23:13.269
and be like, okay, well, how did this go? What
306
00:23:13.329 --> 00:23:14.930
do we want to change? How are we going to
307
00:23:14.970 --> 00:23:18.109
change our plan and make it better? And then make
308
00:23:18.170 --> 00:23:25.029
that your new rule, your new rules that cannot be broken.
309
00:23:27.450 --> 00:23:30.059
And another thing is, you know, no matter what kind
310
00:23:30.119 --> 00:23:34.829
of emergency that you're coming up with a a real
311
00:23:35.750 --> 00:23:39.710
down-to-earth backup plan that you're going to test and you're
312
00:23:39.730 --> 00:23:42.049
going to work all this stuff out. You're going to
313
00:23:42.650 --> 00:23:45.069
play with it and actually do it. You've got to
314
00:23:45.109 --> 00:23:48.349
think of all the things that have to be done
315
00:23:48.410 --> 00:23:52.069
and have plans for that. You've got livestock. How are
316
00:23:52.109 --> 00:23:54.450
you going to water them? How are you going to
317
00:23:54.490 --> 00:23:57.819
feed them? How are you going to, you know, and
318
00:23:57.839 --> 00:24:00.420
that could come down to, all right, well, you're dependent
319
00:24:00.500 --> 00:24:04.250
on a loader tractor to move around bales. If your
320
00:24:04.289 --> 00:24:08.150
only loader tractor dies, have you got a plan on
321
00:24:08.190 --> 00:24:11.670
how you're going to move round bales? There's a bunch
322
00:24:11.710 --> 00:24:13.920
of different things that you could do. But think about
323
00:24:13.960 --> 00:24:16.180
it before it actually happens so you already got some
324
00:24:16.279 --> 00:24:25.490
ideas planned out. Water. Always think about water. Water is life.
325
00:24:25.789 --> 00:24:28.750
You've got to have water. You need to have backup
326
00:24:28.789 --> 00:24:32.430
plans on how you're going to take care of stuff,
327
00:24:32.470 --> 00:24:36.970
whether it's a well pump failure, whether it's the electricity
328
00:24:36.990 --> 00:24:40.619
and you can't pump the wells, um, have backup plans,
329
00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:49.440
backup plans for water. Um, very important, but whatever, whatever
330
00:24:49.500 --> 00:24:54.160
plans you come up with, again, test out the plan
331
00:24:54.569 --> 00:24:58.799
in a non-emergency situation and then come up with a,
332
00:24:59.819 --> 00:25:05.299
come up with a good game plan. Two, every so often,
333
00:25:05.779 --> 00:25:11.359
the whole family practices these things. Practice for a power outage,
334
00:25:11.400 --> 00:25:14.859
shut the power off. Run the whole homestead off of
335
00:25:15.500 --> 00:25:19.500
your generators. Make sure everything still works. That's another thing,
336
00:25:19.559 --> 00:25:25.390
you know, things break in the meantime, and, uh, It'd
337
00:25:25.410 --> 00:25:28.349
be good to just test it and be, well, everything
338
00:25:28.390 --> 00:25:35.519
still works. Or, oh, no, this throwout switch doesn't even
339
00:25:35.559 --> 00:25:43.220
work anymore. Well, you better figure that out. But the practice,
340
00:25:43.380 --> 00:25:48.319
and then at the end of every emergency, just have
341
00:25:48.380 --> 00:25:51.759
a meeting with everybody that was involved in it and
342
00:25:51.839 --> 00:25:56.210
ask yourself the questions, okay, what worked really well and
343
00:25:56.309 --> 00:25:58.910
what could we have done better? What do we want
344
00:25:58.930 --> 00:26:08.099
to change about our emergency backup plan in this area? So, yeah,
345
00:26:08.299 --> 00:26:14.160
that was just, uh, don't know. I was thinking about,
346
00:26:14.799 --> 00:26:18.779
thinking about that this morning as we're starting to, starting
347
00:26:18.819 --> 00:26:24.289
to get ready for winter and, uh, I walked past
348
00:26:24.390 --> 00:26:30.250
the case of anti-gel sitting here and I thought, you know,
349
00:26:31.809 --> 00:26:33.990
it would probably be a good time to do a
350
00:26:33.990 --> 00:26:39.980
refresher course for folks on setting up backup plans that
351
00:26:40.119 --> 00:26:47.680
will actually work and I could use my example of
352
00:26:47.720 --> 00:26:50.839
me breaking my own rules and not really having as
353
00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:53.680
good a plan as I should have and why it
354
00:26:53.720 --> 00:26:56.980
was a big wake-up call to me and a reminder
355
00:26:57.059 --> 00:27:03.920
that this is important. It's an important thing for people
356
00:27:03.980 --> 00:27:09.519
to have their head wrapped around way, way before any
357
00:27:09.559 --> 00:27:14.420
type of emergency occurs. Alright, well I gotta get back
358
00:27:14.519 --> 00:27:18.619
to getting some stuff accomplished around here. I've been canning
359
00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:23.359
beets and carrots the last couple of days and I
360
00:27:23.440 --> 00:27:27.900
probably should get back at it because winter's coming quick.
361
00:27:28.880 --> 00:27:33.079
And got some firewood. We got just about wrapped up
362
00:27:33.180 --> 00:27:35.759
on firewood for the house. Still got to get some
363
00:27:35.779 --> 00:27:37.880
done for house 13. But I guess the boys are
364
00:27:37.900 --> 00:27:41.539
going to start digging trees today. We got our fall
365
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:48.170
orders for field-grown trees. And that's going to take a
366
00:27:48.210 --> 00:27:50.690
little bit of time. They got quite a list of
367
00:27:50.710 --> 00:27:56.339
trees they got to dig. So anyway, if you want
368
00:27:56.359 --> 00:27:58.440
to keep up with the show and what's going on,
369
00:27:59.079 --> 00:28:05.180
our website is ourlifeuphere.com. There's a place on there where
370
00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:08.970
you can sign up for our email list. If you
371
00:28:08.990 --> 00:28:13.710
want to hear more stuff from me, that would be
372
00:28:14.230 --> 00:28:16.630
the way to make that happen. Just sign up for
373
00:28:16.650 --> 00:28:22.369
the email list. And yeah. There's also the Supporting Listeners Club.
374
00:28:22.750 --> 00:28:26.079
If you enjoy the show and want to help support it,
375
00:28:26.490 --> 00:28:29.859
you can join there and you get exclusive content that
376
00:28:29.880 --> 00:28:36.119
is only for the supporting listeners. And, yeah, until next time.