Emergency Heater and Cotton Ball Fire Starter

Emergency Heater http://www.youtube.comlwatch?v=OPABQW9gN2Q
Materials:

         Empty quart paint can ($3 at Lowes)

·        Isopropyl Alcohol

·        Roll of toilet paper

·        Lighter

·        Paint can key

Step 1: Remove cardboard roll from center of toilet paper (do this by pinching and twisting out cardboard roll)
Step 2: Compress toilet paper and insert into can (if needed, remove layers of toilet paper for it to fit)

Step 3: Slowly pour in alcohol until paper is saturated and submerged

Step 4: Tape key and lighter to side of can for future use

How To Use: Remove can lid with key and light toilet paper on fire. This heater does not produce a significant amount of
Carbon-monoxide but will burn oxygen, so use in a ventilated area. When finished using, extinguish fire by putting lid on.

         

                                .

Cotton Ball Fire Starter www.youtube.comlwatch?v=BF4WDVVDTpO
Materials:

·        Cotton balls

·        Petroleum Jelly

·        Container to keep cotton balls in (ie: empty pill bottle)

·        Spoon and bowl

·        Lighter

Step 1: Using BACK of spoon, scoop out petroleum jelly about 1/3 the size of the cotton ball.

Step 2: In the bowl, "knead" petroleum jelly into the cotton ball with the back of the spoon until saturated. Make several
and store in container

How To Use: When needed to start a fire, remove 1 cotton ball and light on fire. Cotton ball will burn for an extended
period of time allowing you to get kindling started.

The Bickhams sent over these recipes, and I was excited to see that I've actually used them! A couple years ago while camping with my family, my dad brought out all the materials for the emergency heater and had us all make our own. It was fun to do together, and now I have an emergency heater in the trunk of my car, in case the need ever arises. It works really well, and it's super easy to put together. And cheap.

The cotton ball fire starter I also know from my dad.  I lived with them not too long ago, and so was around to help him make them when he heard about them.  The only thing he did differently was he melted the petroleum jelly in a pan on the stove first, to make it easier to coat the cotton ball with it. He tried it a few times, and came to the conclusion that you really shouldn't saturate it. Less is better. He uses them at home all the time to start fires in his fireplace.

Poston's Experience Without Shopping for a Week

Guess what today is? Shopping day! Yay! I finally have milk in my fridge.
Other than the inconvenience of not having any milk, it wasn't really too challenging for us. We usually do fortnightly shopping trips anyway, other than milk or bread, or whatever else we might run out of.

Normally I am lazy and I just give my children cold cereal for breakfast. This week I had to get creative. We had pancakes three times, milkless malt-o-meal once, eggs, sausage, and this morning, the boys begged for dry cereal. They didn't want pancakes again and we were now out of eggs and pretty much everything else too. So I let them. :)

I do have a box of powdered milk mix in food storage that I vaguely considered trying out. But I kept thinking, "We're not that desperate!" It's probably expired anyway. But maybe I should have tried it, so we would know what to expect if/when we are that desperate.

Milk goes in a lot of things, and so I really had to be more creative in other cooking as well.  As a result, I probably fed my children healthier meals at lunch and breakfast. Ya can't do a quick meal of boxed mac and cheese without milk. So instead I'd make a potato, egg, and sausage scramble instead.

Anyway, I've heard there are better instant milks available these days. Does anyone know much about them? Let me know by commenting! Thanks!

Poston's experience without electricity

Yesterday was our second challenge. This time we were supposed to turn off the lights and electronics, and pretty much everything that used power, other than your fridge. 

I forgot about starting this challenge in the morning, so we only did a half day. We only had two of our four children at home yesterday, which worked out alright, since the two that were gone would have most likely been afraid of the dark.

After Morgan, (our six year old) understood that there would be no electronics used for the afternoon and evening, he stopped complaining. Though he did ask a time or two, "why do we have to do these challenges?" Which was a good teaching moment.

We didn't use the stove, oven, or microwave for dinner. We didn't do anything fancy though. The children ate sandwiches, and David and I had leftovers that were heated up on the grill. 

As the evening progressed and the sun went down, we congregated to the kitchen and used a kerosene lantern to see. 

Morgan and Lydia colored.

We are definitely a card and board game playing family, but we never actually got them out last night. However, I did teach David (and sort of Morgan) the rhythmic cup tapping game that I learned at girls camp! I asked Morgan to take pictures of David and I playing, but with the combo of low light, and six year old photography skills, nothing really came out. Here's the best shot.

Before heading to bed, we had our family scripture study.

Lydia found a blanket and crawled into my lap and cuddled, and for the first time since she was just an infant, she fell asleep in my arms. Aww.

When the kids were in bed, I admit, there was some temptation to break the no electronics rule. Instead, David and I read a book together. We went to bed much earlier than normal, too. 

At one point, David made a comment about how he understands now why people used to go to bed at 8:00 and wake up at 6:00. Not having good lights really makes staying up late not make much sense. 

We had fun with the challenge. It was good family time. I think we decided that we should get another kerosene lantern or two, and stock up on kerosene. 

How did it go for your family?

Nielson Family without heat

Larry and Diane Nielson participated in the challenge and sent a report. I love their sense of humor and outlook!


We survived fine! We have a fireplace! (We have to be sure that we have wood in case we need it.)

 (I'm not getting out of bed until 9:00!)

(Trying to stay warm.)

Poston family without heat

The first challenge is over! How did everyone do?

For our family, it was a little easier than anticipated. The heat went off a few minutes after 3:00 on Friday, but our house retained it really well. The children didn't notice it being colder or anything by the time we put them in bed. We did let them know that it might get extra cold though, and to let us know if they were chilly. David and I made a bit of a wager. We tried to guess what temperature the house would be at the next morning. My guess was 54 degrees, and David's was 50 degrees.
We did notice it was a little nippier in the house as David and I headed to bed. We threw an extra blanket on all four children and called it good.  However, we made mental notes that we really don't have a lot of extra blankets in the house. Not good ones, anyway. We've got lots of little baby blankets left over from baby days, and we have a couple extra queen sized comforters, but not really any good blankets for a twin bed.
It was pretty cold in the morning when I woke up, which made it harder to have motivation to get out of bed, but it really wasn't too bad. 
I checked the thermostat.

Ha! Well no wonder everything was going so smoothly. That's nothing. I kind of feel like we should have kept the heat off longer for a truer test, but, well, I was cold! So, when 9:00 rolled around, I dutifully turned the heat back on.
Morgan, our 6 year old boy, woke up and called from his bed, "Daddy! Can you turn the heater on?" Then he proceeded to whine throughout the morning about it being cold.
Here's Morgan looking miserable while waiting for a nice warm oatmeal breakfast.

While we ate breakfast, I noticed something rather amusing. My two kids and I were all bundled up and cold. David and his two boys were just fine! They didn't think it was a bit cold, and were walking around in normal clothes, short sleeves and all. Genetics!

In my defense, I must say, if the challenge was to turn off the AC in the summer, I'd handle that much better than my other half. :)

We will be adding "good blankets" to our necessities shopping list.

I'll post more stories from you all as they trickle in. Stay tuned!

An Experience with a Broken Furnace

Here is an experience from a family in our ward. Thanks, Brittania, for sharing your family's experience this winter!

 So I have a little bit of insight about staying warm in the winter with no electricity(before we do our little test.)  Our furnace has been going in and out all throughout this cold spell (work for a day and a half and then go out again.)  We mostly rely on our fireplace for heat in the winter but with all of this single * weather and dropping down into the negative numbers, our wood stove has just not been enough.  But when the furnace goes out and you don't have money to replace it, you learn to be really thankful for that wood stove.  However, in the low low temperatures it has NOT kept our house sufficiently warm.  Even with running space heaters in the bedrooms at night and putting wood on the fire throughout the night, we would still wake up in the morning and our living room (where the stove is) would be 57*.  I got news for you...that is not warm enough.  I have a baby that is crawling around on the floor and I have her dressed in 3 layers of a onsie, long johns, and a fleece sleeper and her little hands and feet are still like ice, and her cheeks are red and chapped, and my kids were sick for a month because I believe, quite frankly, they just couldn't stay warm.  One thing that I noticed (for when you do this little test)  Going one night without heat or enough heat isn't too bad...your house will retain some of that heat. However, after the second night, your temperatures will drop even further, SIGNIFICANTLY. And if there is an extended period of power outage (for example a bad snow storm or blizzard, which is very much a possibility where we live,) you need to make sure you can stay warm.  My suggestion is from a quote I once heard along the lines of "all the clothes in the world are no good if they can't keep you warm." Also, you'd be surprised how grumpy and stressed you get when you are cold and you know your children are cold!  I had to go out and purchase several clothing items for my children to keep them warm.  My other suggestion is this, if you are going to put money into your home, before you do the "stuff that looks pretty" make sure you have enough insulation in your home.  Walls and ceiling   We live in an older home and it is NOT very efficient   So before we replace the carpet, or redo the wood floors, or get a new oven (which I really want) we will be adding insulation, and updating a few windows at a time. Because, quite frankly...I would rather be warm in the winter and cool in the summer, despite the fact that some may say my house looks old!  Thankfully now our furnace is working (yeah for a brilliant husband) and we are warm...and best of all, the weather isn't as bad the last couple of days.  

     And one last note to remember when times are hard.  It's better to laugh than cry, so when you're cold...laugh, and remember that it could be worse (you could be outside in a cardboard box!) And remember to thank your Heavenly Father for your blessings and be grateful for the things you do have and not angry about the things you don't. 

     We wish all the best in this upcoming challenge.

Hope this helps,

The Butlers

You know what they say about hind sight....

Welcome Caldwell 3rd ward-ers! And anyone else who may be visiting.
As you probably know, we are going to work on getting ourselves more prepared by following certain challenges that will be outlined here. It is the hope of the preparation specialists in the ward, that through these challenges, we can learn from each other, and our own experiences, how to prepare for certain contingencies.

Let me tell you a little story that just happened to my family, about how preparation, and knowing how to prepare, is so important.

My husband, David, and our four children, (aged 2-6) and I were driving home from my parent's house. We left their home around 8:45 at night, and started the half hour drive around the South-West side of the lake. 15 minutes into the drive we got a flat tire.
Well, that's inconvenient, but shouldn't be a big deal, right? David is more than capable of changing a tire. That is, if he had the proper tools. As it happened, there were no tools in the car at all. Strike one. So, while David parks the car in a more safe location, I call my dad with my cell phone. He agrees to come to the rescue, bringing tools and a nice car jack. My phone died almost as soon as I hung up with him, and we didn't have the cord to charge it in the car with us. Strike two.
The temperature outside was about 5 degrees. and I was thankful for the heater. But in no time at all the gas light went on. Strike three. Perfect. Now we have the option of keeping the car running and staying warm, but possibly running out of fuel before we could get to a gas station, OR, we could save the gas and freeze. The car went off. Then the cold came in.
After several minutes of waiting, my dad arrived. He and David set to work changing the tire. I made a mental note at about this time that I was happy that I was the woman, and didn't have to go out in the cold, lay in the snow, and touch the cold metal of the car. But while the kids and I were warmer than we'd have been if we had to go outside, the inside of our mini-van was no tropical paradise. The doors and the hatch had to keep being opened as the men did their thing, which pretty quickly depleted any reserved heat.
My kids were great though, considering. There were lots of comments about how "we're going to die!" but they had pretty good attitudes. :) Better than mine, especially when David came back into the car and informed me that my dad didn't have a screwdriver in the tool set he brought, and a screwdriver was necessary for removing the spare tire from the under carriage, so he was going to drive back home for one.
Splendid. We periodically turned the engine on to blast some warm air into the car, but it was never enough. And you know how you always hear about how you should have a nice blanket in your car at all times in the winter, "just in case?" I've heard that a lot. I've thought that was sound advise. But guess what we didn't have in the car? Strike four.
I called my mom from David's phone, and asked her to have some blankets ready to hand off to my dad for his quick return.
When my dad returned with the proper tools, the tire was changed in no time at all, and, now 10:45, we were on our way home. We finally had blankets, the tire was successfully changed, and we made it to a gas station, and then home.

Everything worked out fine, but it could have been a lot worse. It also could have been a lot better, had we been more prepared.

Let's take a look at our mistakes.
Strike one: No tools in the car. - Had we been wise enough to have a tool set stored in the car, none of the other issues would have even mattered, in this case. David could have changed the tire in a few minutes, and we would have been on our way. So guess what is on my shopping list? Time to pick up a cheap tool set. It's not going to be top of the market tools, (much to my husbands chagrin) since they will be in the car at all times.

Strike two: Dead phone with no way to charge it. - This could have been a lot worse. As it happened, my husband has his cell phone also. If he didn't, and if my cell died only 5 minutes sooner, one of us would have had to walk a long time before we even got to a house, and who's to say the occupants would have been willing and able to assist?

Strike three: Low fuel. - I don't know how many times my dad has told me never let my cars have less than half a tank of gas. There have been times in my life where I have faithfully followed his advise. This isn't one of those, but that night, I certainly wished it was.

Strike four: No blankets in the car. - The funny thing is, until about two weeks before this incident, we did have a blanket in the car. I had my boys help clean out the car, and when I noticed that they'd removed the blanket, I didn't take the time to put it back in.

I had all these regrets. All these easily remedied regrets. It isn't hard to keep tools and blankets in the car, it isn't hard to keep a phone charger on hand. And for me, the gas tank was empty only because of inattention, rather than thriftiness. Each of them contributed to the inconvenience and discomfort of the night. And, nearly all of them made it so we had to rely on outside hands for our well being.
I don't know about you, but I don't want my family to have to rely on the preparation or goodness of others; I want to be self-sufficient and prepared. This was kind of a wake up call for me. Hopefully I learned my lesson so that experience doesn't have to be repeated.

That was a long way to illustrate the importance of participating in this 12 month challenge. What better way to learn where you lack in preparation than to be thrown into the thick of a mini-crisis? The challenge isn't to give us bad experiences, but to help us learn how best to make a potentially bad experience comfortable.

All are invited to enthusiastically participate in the challenges, as well as return and report. We'd love to hear how things go with your families.

I look forward to learning with you all!