Weeping and Wailing

Taking great liberties with Jeremiah chapter 9:

19 For a voice of wailing is heard out of Patty's house, How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the water storage, because our body odor has made us cast out.

20 Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Patty, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your children of emergency wailing, and every one her body hygiene.

Yes, in our house there was great wailing as the children came home and I don't blame my children. This wasn't a fun challenge, but it was even less fun than it could have been. See, I had not adequately prepared my family. I never even thought of telling them this challenge was coming up. My mind was wrapped up in other things and obviously the challenge would affect me more than them so why worry. Besides they had done so well when we lived for a month on our food storage.

I've been reading Counseling with Our Councils. Most of it applies to ward councils, presidency meetings etc., but part of it applies to families and you could even apply it to work settings.

So as the afternoon wore on I realized that we would have to have a family counsel. Over dinner we sat and talked. One child refused to come to the table at first. We talked about what we had learned about the challenge so far. We talked about how things would be different if this was a real emergency. Then we talked about what happened when we lived on our food storage last spring. Boy were my eyes opened! Why had we never sat down as a family and discussed that? Oh, we said things to each other here and there, but never had a discussion specifically about what we liked, didn't like and what was learned.

By then it seemed everyone had calmed down about things. So we took a vote. Would we continue on with the challenge? Or would we quit the challenge and work on some things that we had been negligent on? There was not a single vote to continue with the challenge and all supported in helping me get things prepared.

So what do we need to do?

• Buy and fill more 5 gallon water containers. Having 55 gallon drums is nice. It stores a lot of water well, but even with the pump it isn't the easiest thing to use. By having more 5 gallon containers we can scatter them throughout the house better.
  
  
• Get a disposable toilet. There are several to choose from. You can get a seat that goes on a 5 gallon bucket. There are cardboard toilets. And camping toilets you can buy from the store. You line these with bags and have chemicals of some sort to take care of odor etc. Why get them? Because even if you are trying to conserve by not flushing for liquids you will go through a lot of water just for toilet needs. Your basic 2 week supply isn't going to last 2 weeks.

• Update our 72 hour kits. It's time to change when my 15yo can get into his change of clothes and find that it will fit my 9yo. It's certainly time to change when you realize that can of chili has been in there for 5 years! Our new goal, ok well, our old goal that never got done, was to change out things at conference time. We have renewed motivation this time.

• Now that we have chickens we have to remember water storage for them as well.

• We also need to figure out a system that works for us for filtering fresh water found in canals, rivers and lakes.

So our goal is to have this done by conference in a few weeks.

NO WATER!

Back in August I joined a 7 day challenge. The challenge would be announced on a surprise day in September. It was to see how well you would do in case of emergencies of some kind. You even get to fill out a report card showing how you have done. The challenge started today!

A disaster has occurred near the water supply source for your town. All of the water supply has been contaminated and is no longer drinkable or usable for cooking/washing/etc. It is estimated that it will be several days before things are restored to normal. For today’s tasks, assume it is the end of the third day of having no water.

If you want to see more of the rules just go to the linked website. I challenge you to start this today (whenever you are reading it). See what you can learn from it.

My biggest fear for today? I put off doing the white laundry yesterday! Ughh! So not looking forward to doing it by hand. My second biggest fear is wondering if I will be able to get the water out of the drums by myself.

I was thinking the rest wouldn't be too bad. It didn't take me 5 minutes to discover there are many things I use water for. I went out to collect eggs from the chickens, headed into the kitchen to wash them and then realized that I will have to get the water from the basement first. This will be interesting.

I'll be honest. I have no desire to do this challenge. When I decided to live off food storage for a month I was kind of excited. No excitement for this one. I've thought several times of not doing it, but that just makes me realize I really need to do it.

Today’s Tasks:

• Go and shut off the main water supply to your house immediately. DONE!
  
• You must find a way for you (and your family if applicable) to bathe or shower today
• Cook all of your meals with only the water you have in storage DONE!
  
• Locate the nearest source of fresh water to your home DONE!
  
• Print out some resources on alternate water sources and water purification in case the contamination is prolonged. DONE!
  

Today’s Limitations:

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
• You can’t use a water purifier for your tap water, the contamination is too bad.
• Remember that this is the third day without water and account for that when you consider how much you have stored.
• Also remember … toilets require water to “flush”.

Advanced Tasks:

• Go to the nearest source of fresh water and fill up several water containers.
• Purify that water with either a water purifier or an alternate purification method.