Dec. 15: I am really impressed with what everybody is doing. Been thinking about the lights out practice and realized I am absolutely not ready. We could survive with difficulty – have solar lamps and candles, gas stove I can light with matches, gravity fed water filter and relatively close by water sources, but the heating situation would be miserable, and we need some sort of solar panel system for recharging phones and computers. The phones can be used to access the internet for work, if cell phones are working. Otherwise, it wouldn’t really matter, I guess.
Looked up information on radicchio, endive, chicory and escarole – bitter lettuces – in Eliot Coleman and on the Internet. Made a note to buy the seeds in January. Some of these are traditionally “forced” as well, I found out. That is, regrown inside the house in the middle of winter after harvesting once outside in the spring or fall. I think I need to concentrate on lettuces and greens anyway – most space efficient – and we need to be efficient.
Sent husband out to shop so I could work today, and not on Sunday. He got an electric blanket for daughter. Not exactly a prep for lights out, but a necessity right now because of an inability to maintain body temperature – at times. Wish I had a wood stove – we’ve either got to get one here or move. If I had a wood stove, I’d bundle her in wool blankets and set her in front of it. But wishing doesn’t make things happen. We do have a propane heater for backup heat, but we’d all have to gather around it in a single room with the doors closed. Better than nothing – but that’s why the heating situation would be miserable.
Thinking a lot about business plan – right now working mostly for contract research organizations and pharmaceutical companies. Not where I really want to be, but it pays the bills. I want to be working in the field of plant medicine. Husband and I will both be able to get Social Security this year, so the tentative plan is (1) get on Social Security for the “pad”, (2) transition as much as possible to working part-time in plant medicine research (me) and editing scientific papers written in English by people who don’t speak English as their first language (him), then (3) start a business growing herbs and making value-added products from them, keeping it small, at farmer’s markets maybe, or develop an herbal medicine CSA (way to stay under the radar, legally). But nothing that requires more than part time. Need to break all this down into smaller units and go at it aggressively. Right now, my work schedule is literally killing me. And it seems to me that herbal knowledge and products might be valuable in a collapse.
Looked at the yurts at yurta.ca and dreamed.
Made food for church tomorrow. We all eat together between mass and Sunday school. Going to bed. Have to leave at 7:30 in the morning and drive over an hour to get there. Some people drive even longer.