Well, we have progress. Yesterday, the mial came for the first time, and at noon today, we have POWER!! But on the down side, our old fridge gave up the ghost. It worked OK this morning but when I went to move it to plug in the new extension I wrote about, it sadly expired. It wanted donations to the "Ancient Frigidaire Home for Non-Icemakers" instead of flowers at the service. And a new fridge can't get here before Wednesday.

On to old news and clarifications.

We aren't stocking charcoal. if the new Coleman should fail or I don't horde enough gas, we'd have to cook over open fire. But fuel won't be a problem, I've got acres of highly flammable pine forest to pick over.

The generator is a Porter Cable 5250 continuous watts with higher surge. It burns about 5 gal per 12 to 14 hour day. Easy to start. We'll be changing the oil tomorrow before storage, and I'll run it every couple of months to keep it and us in practice.

Now for something new.

For light we couldn't use candles since my mom is here, she's on O2 part time. Oxygen and flames are a bad combo. So we had to use electric torches. We had numerous varities, including the Photons. But one of the nice surprises were some hand crank lights from Walgreen's, $14.99 each. Very effective.

But for next time, I'll get four Krill lights, two 180's and two 360's with rechargeables and a small solar charger. Unfortunately many of the neato lights use 123's or other batteries while AA's are highly available even in times of crisis.

Tomorrow more tree clearing, and Monday I get to haul the spare barn roof I have to the dump.

More reports as necessary.

Peanut