What did you do today to prepare?

[Crosscut]

Window washing day in our passive solar home, almost 300 sq ft of south facing glazing - doubled when having to wash both sides of course.  I cheat using the garden hose and commercial soap sprayer on the outside but my arms feel like rubber after doing the inside with Windex and paper towels and I'm not even done yet.  The sun it getting low enough in the sky now that it's shining in about 3' on to the floor at midday, by late December it'll be flooding the entire interior on the south side.  Each Sept/Oct on hot days (like today) I curse myself for not extending the roof overhang further to keep the sun out, and each cold March/April day the same for not reducing it to let more sun in.  Best guess is it does provide about 30-40% of our heating needs seasonally tho.  The roof overhang was the cheapest part of the solution, zero cost basically, we just had the builder shift the pre-made roof trusses to overhang more on southern side to the 'right' length based on our latitude.  We built the house in 2006, in part to reduce our reliance on rising food and fuel prices that I anticipated would continue to rise - although obviously they didn't until just recently.  After over a decade of being wrong with commodity prices falling back down and remaining low it's finally starting to look like it might have been wise decision again, until it's not again anyway.

But meanwhile the wife is finishing the weekly laundry with the towels and jeans drying on the clothesline, and we have enough sun today that the batteries are in good shape and the generator didn't need to run to power the water pump and clothes washer - in fact it hasn't run since laundry day last weekend, and we're still using the original solar panels and batteries installed in 2006.  She does prefer the (propane) clothes dryer for the undergarments as they're less scratchy then when line drying, and I don't disagree.  In the winter months with the wood stove going I'll hang the heavier clothes near the fire to dry overnight which also adds some humidity to the air to counter the dry heat from the stove, a win-win which saves some power on the shortened winter days when we need it most. 

Forgive the blatant bragging, I've just been wrong for so long it feels good to think maybe I wasn't wrong afterall but just way too early.  Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket! 

[flybynight]

If you have some on hand. Newspaper is cheaper and it doesn't streak. Have you tried a window squeegee? Would make quick work of that 300 sq ft without the sore wax on wax off arms

[Crosscut]

If you have some on hand. Newspaper is cheaper and it doesn't streak. Have you tried a window squeegee? Would make quick work of that 300 sq ft without the sore wax on wax off arms

Newspaper is the best, but we don't purchase them often enough now to build up a supply.  I used to use a squeegee on the outside but i've been cheating with the hose and soap sprayer in the past few years, not as good but it's a LOT faster.  We get kamikaze bird strikes on the windows almost daily.  I do use a squeegee for the garage and patio room windows since they have plastic frames, but hard to keep the water/windex from dripping on the wood frames inside.

[Ghost]

Picked up a bipod for my Remington .308; next up 10 round mags.

[superduder]

Talked my "gun guy"/best friend, into buying the property next to mine,
so we'll have the same b.o.l. without him relying on me for one.
I'm still gonna have to help him get his cabin set up, but I'm willing to help.
He is after all my "dude".
Starting to get my group together
J

[Ghost]

Loaded up on more of the prepper essential foods, in this case ramen and turkey spam. "Don't knock it, its got its own key."

[RoneKiln]

After talking about it for years, finally ordered a plate carrier and plates. 

Also tried on my concealable pistol rated armor for the first time in a while and found it fits much better than it did last time. 

Spent part of today cleaning up and putting away the cider press. I took some sections apart to clean up some rust and oil it.

Yesterday I did laps at the climbing wall. Did over 1000 ft of climbing with significant portions of it with an overhang. Which might be part of why the concealable armor fits better. 

[NapalmMan67]

Saturday I made and canned 4 pints of Apple Butter.  Need moarrrrr.
.

[12_Gauge_Chimp]

Saturday I made and canned 4 pints of Apple Butter.  Need moarrrrr.
.

I've lived for 37 years and I've never tried apple butter.

I've tried cashew butter, but I found it was a bit saltier than I'd expected. Might have to try some apple butter at some point.

[NapalmMan67]

Saturday I made and canned 4 pints of Apple Butter.  Need moarrrrr.
.

I've lived for 37 years and I've never tried apple butter.

I've tried cashew butter, but I found it was a bit saltier than I'd expected. Might have to try some apple butter at some point.

Well truth be told, I wasn't real happy with how this batch turned out.  It got a slight scorched flavor, because I was distracted for a bit while it was cooking and the sugar carmelized hard on the bottom of the pot.  Still edible, but not quite what I normally make.
.

[Ghost]

Secured last parts for Bug out bags. More commentary in thread about "carrying stuff"

[RoneKiln]

Walked into REI tonight to return a pair of climbing shoes that were outrageously sized wrong, and walked out with a new day pack, scepter water can, and two headlamps.

[NT2C]

Bought a new garage door opener.  Yeah, I can hear you thinking, "How is that prep related?"  The answer is that I bought one with a battery backup in case the power goes out.

Our current Chamberlain belt drive model works fine and I have no complaints about it but it worried me that if there's a power failure while we can use the emergency release to open the door (and it's a big, heavy 14' insulated door), we can't secure it closed again from the outside.  There is a door near it we could come inside through and manually lock the door but there's stuff stored in front of it, so the only other option is the front door of the house to come in and lock the garage, then repeat the process to come home.

This new door, made by Genie, was on sale at Home Depot for $98 today and includes a battery backup for the door that will open and close it up to 50 times in case of a power failure.  Evidently, this is required in parts of California now and Genie decided to just include it on some of the regular models.  Now, once I get it installed I won't have to deal with getting out of the garage and back in if the power is out.  I could probably also devise a way to charge that battery with a spare 100 watt solar panel I have in the garage.   

[NapalmMan67]

Bought a new garage door opener.  Yeah, I can hear you thinking, "How is that prep related?"  The answer is that I bought one with a battery backup in case the power goes out.

Our current Chamberlain belt drive model works fine and I have no complaints about it but it worried me that if there's a power failure while we can use the emergency release to open the door (and it's a big, heavy 14' insulated door), we can't secure it closed again from the outside.  There is a door near it we could come inside through and manually lock the door but there's stuff stored in front of it, so the only other option is the front door of the house to come in and lock the garage, then repeat the process to come home.

This new door, made by Genie, was on sale at Home Depot for $98 today and includes a battery backup for the door that will open and close it up to 50 times in case of a power failure.  Evidently, this is required in parts of California now and Genie decided to just include it on some of the regular models.  Now, once I get it installed I won't have to deal with getting out of the garage and back in if the power is out.  I could probably also devise a way to charge that battery with a spare 100 watt solar panel I have in the garage. 

30 years living in our house, never have had a power garage door opener.  Manual labor baby, FTW!  Of course, ours is a detached unit also, so I'm not worried baout getting in/out of the  house through it either...

[EBuff75]

The Chamberlain B1381T that I had installed earlier this year has a battery backup as well, but I haven't needed to use it yet.  I also had the rollers upgraded while he was there, since they were original and approximately 30 years old.  The belt-drive mechanism is much quieter, but it's probably 2-3x slower than my old chain drive was.  He did comment that the 2" thick, 2-car wide door that I have is a very good / desirable door that is better than most of them which are currently on the market.

My grandparents had a manual open garage door for many years, but finally upgraded the door and installed an opener in the early 90s, IIRC.  The original door was somewhat unique (at least to me) in that it was a translucent plastic, sort like corrugated roof material.  It let light into the garage and it was very, very lightweight.

[RoneKiln]

Ordered stuff for a few trauma kits last weekend and today nearly everything I ordered went on sale for 25% off. 

So I ordered a ton more stuff tonight, including stuff that will become stocking stuffers for family.

[tirls]

Not so much to prepare and more in terms of general living things. Also not today but the last 6 months or so:

• We renovated our old flat and moved into our house.
• Said house now has outer walls, running water and electricity (mostly)
• Our bathroom is nearly finished, with warm (!) water, a working shower, sink and toilet 
• The kitchen is done apart from small things such as window sills
• We have a washing machine and dishwasher 
• Our temporary fire wood shelter is done, including 9 stere of neatly stacked firewood, sawn to 25 cm and split (all by hand). This should last us the entire winter.

We're absolutely knackered but it finally feels more like a house and less like camping.

[EBuff75]

I just ordered some winter vehicle items to better organize my truck.  While I've already got a prepared winter bag for my car, I'd just been tossing a bunch of stuff into my truck each year, rather than having a pre-set bag.  So, I've ordered a duffel for storage and went ahead and ordered some hats, a blanket, and balaclavas as dedicated items, rather than needing to pull from stuff that I have around the house.

[Halfapint]

Purchased 2 275gal IBC totes, black covers for them, and plywood to build rain collection tops for them. Need to buy the plumbing for the rain catchment. Here in WA we get enough rain in the winter to fill the tote just by putting a catch on top of the tote.

I bohhht 2 15' hoop house greenhouses. I plan to get them set up in the area I just cleared for food production.

I straightened out the bent bracket for the wind turbine. I hope to have it up and running by spring as a test for a larger system.

[Moab]

Purchased 2 275gal IBC totes, black covers for them, and plywood to build rain collection tops for them. Need to buy the plumbing for the rain catchment. Here in WA we get enough rain in the winter to fill the tote just by putting a catch on top of the tote.

I bohhht 2 15' hoop house greenhouses. I plan to get them set up in the area I just cleared for food production.

I straightened out the bent bracket for the wind turbine. I hope to have it up and running by spring as a test for a larger system.

Are those the ones with the aluminum cage around them?