Summer is drawing to a close soon and many of you are probably dreaming of fall and cooler weather, but those that are still working outside in the woods and brush in this dog days of summer heat may find this treatment for chigger bites helpful. If you are experiencing multiple chigger bites, you know they feel like the bane of one’s existence!
Continue reading “Treating Chigger Bites with Clove Essential Oil”
As we spring our clocks forward this weekend for Daylight Savings Time, take a few minutes to check your home smoke detectors to ensure that they are working properly. Using Daylight Savings Time is a great way to remember to perform your routine smoke detector maintenance.
In the US, 2450 deaths and 13,900 injuries resulted from residential building fires in 2011.
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| US Residential Building Fire Statistics (2007-2011) – US Fire Administration |
Continue reading “Smoke Detector Maintenance at Daylight Savings Time”
I grew up in the country crawling around in weeds and such as a kid. We were always warned we were going to get chigger bites, but never did I in my entire 38 years until this year. While mowing and working out at the land several weeks back, Jon and I and one of the boys got a bad case of chigger bites. I even got them twice. The second time was horrific and they even blistered. No chigger bites in 38 and years and now twice within a few weeks of each other!
Here is a very simple, and cheap home security improvement that anyone can do in just a few minutes.
The plates in your door right now probably have 3/4″ or 1″ screws holding them in place. All this accomplishes is holding the plate in place. If you remove those screws and replace them with longer screws, it will add a little more resistance should an intruder even try to kick your door in.
Using 2″ or 2 1/2″ screws will secure the, plate in place as well as go through the door frame and into the stud next to the frame. This will make your door more sound.
Now, I am not suggesting this will stop an intruder, because it won’t. However, with 2 screws through the door knob plate, and 2 more through the dead bolt plate, it just may add enough resistance to force an intruder to fail to breach your door on the first try, or cause them to loose their balance due to the additional force. This could buy you some precious time. Enough time to get your wits about you, or give you a jump on preparing to defend your home and family.
There is no guarantee that any of this will help. However, there is a chance it will slow an intruder down just enough to change the outcome in you favor. For the few cents 4 screws cost, why not? Even if you think the odds of this helping are as low a 1%. Wouldn’t you buy that extra 1% for under a buck?
Just 4 days after my post, Is It Spring Already?, we had snow, thundersnow to be exact. Have you ever heard of thundersnow? It is simply a thunderstorm with snow instead of rain. It is not a common thing. This one was a doozie! The thundering was loud and plentiful and the lightening was bright! Have you ever heard that 10 days after thundersnow there will be another snow? I always have. I guess we will wait and see.
It has been raining pretty much non-stop since Monday. Everything everywhere had standing water. Yards, field, and some roads were looking like lakes. Thursday afternoon the wind was really strong. It had the potential for some serious downed trees and power outages. The lights flickered a few times. So, I filled the upstairs garden tub with water and told everyone to charge all of their electronic devices now in case the power went out. We had one flicker long enough that the TV did not come back on by itself.
Then, Thursday evening’s temperatures dropped changing the rain over to sleet and quickly to snow. It was some of the biggest flakes I have seen in a long time. Several of my facebook friends within 30 miles or less were reporting power outages. Luckily, we never had any power outages this time, but it is good to be prepared.
Our primary source of heat is an electric heat pump. The home is also equipped with older electric baseboard heat that we do not use due to the lack of efficiency. I do check them once a year to make sure they are working in case we have to rely on them if there is ever an issue with the heat pump. I did rely on them for a couple of weeks about 6 years ago when the heat pump went out in February and had to be replaced. The power bill tripled from just 2 weeks of use! Still it was nice to have a backup and much better than freezing.
We have been following A Bowl Full of Lemons weekly blog series Emergency Preparedness in 8 Weeks. Each week we have tailored the tasks for our needs a bit. Additionally, there have been somethings that we had already done in our prior preparations that we simply just skipped. But I believe this is a nicely structured step by step process for someone who does not know where to start. This is not an extensive long term preparedness plan, but a short term (few days) emergency plan.
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| First Aid Kit Organization |
Information is powerful. One problem with many emergencies is getting the right information or getting any information at all. Even a weather related emergency from a winter storm can cut a family off from all lines of communication. It is important to be able to hear news updates, weather alerts, and the current state of affairs so that you can make informed decisions.
We recently purchased the Discovery Expedition AM/FM/SW Weather Radio. We actually bought ours from Sears as we had some shop rewards to redeem. I can no longer find it on the Sears website so the link is to the same radio on amazon. This is a reasonably inexpensive small model that has AM/FM, shortwave, and NOAA Weather. It has a hand crank on the side and a solar panel on top that can charge the built in Ni-MH battery. It also has a handy USB port that can charge phones, ipods, or anything equipped with a USB charger.
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| View of the box and hand crank |
There are many facets to being prepared. If you’re not careful it can become overwhelming because there is always something you should be doing. It is best to think about what are the likely situations that you and your family should prepare for. Natural disasters and severe weather vary depending on your location. Each type of natural disaster and severe weather requires specific ways to prepare. However, a home fire is a common threat that virtually all of us should prepare for. Fire statistics can be found at US Fire Administration.
Is your home prepared in the case of a fire? Up until recently we did not even have a fire extinguisher in our home. We did have the suggested number of smoke detectors. Most homeowner’s policies require them to be insured. But when is the last time you actually tested your smoke detector and changed the batteries? A common suggestion is to change them when the time changes in the fall and spring for daylight savings time.
We have been fortunate enough to never have a fire in our home, but I remember a kitchen fire at my parents’ house scared me to death. I was pregnant with my first child (who is now 19 years old) and no longer lived at home. I stopped by Mama’s to visit for a moment. We all lived nearby. My sister and I were out in the yard chatting and Mama came out and joined in. When Mama went back in the house the stove was on fire!
Continue reading “Fire Extinguishers | Preparation for Home Fire”
Initially, we have put a lot of focus on gardening because food is a top priority. If you don’t have food and water nobody will last very long. However, Jon and I both know that personal protection of ourselves and family is also very important.
Neither of us have a great deal of knowledge with guns but we did have a little exposure to them over the years. My Daddy always had several different kinds growing up, but I never really did much target shooting. About the most I ever shot was a 22 rifle and that was many years ago. We had both been wanting to get some training and also get our conceal carry permit.
This would be a costly process. There was a cost for the class, a cost for the CCP application, and of course a large cost for a firearm. We were finally ready financially to take that plunge. So what did we do on one of our first days off of our “vacation” this summer? We attended our CCP class at First Shot Personal Protection, Inc. in Walkertown, NC.
There are many places where you can go take CCP classes around here like the Sheriff’s department or the nearby indoor shooting range. Before we found out about First Shot Personal Protection, we really hadn’t decided on where to go. A girlfriend of mine from work actually told me about it because her and her husband had recently completed their class there. She highly recommended it and now I know why.
Larry is the instructor and him and his wife Kathy do the classroom instruction in their home in the basement. They are such a fun couple. They do give classes for groups, but I was happy to know they would let us take the class just by ourselves. You see I am a bit of a perfectionist. For some reason I think I should be able to do everything perfect the first time. Well of course that is not humanly possible so in situations like this I can have a little performance anxiety. So, it was nice to know we could schedule a small intimate class. Additionally, as I did not have a lot of hands on experience with firearms, I did not want to be in a large group where I would feel rushed and unsure of myself. I really appreciated the individual personal attention. It really helped with my confidence level.