Reading Melton's  phlog [0] has made  me miss my own  experiments in
self-sufficiency and preparedness.

Hurricane Katrina was  a wakeup call for many  Americans, our family
included. I  lived in Connecticut at  the time, with a  wife and two
young  children.  The  realization  that if  there  was a  disaster,
natural or otherwise, you were largely  on your own was sobering. We
endeavored to prep, as it were, and over the course of several years
we built up a cache of storage food, water and essentials.

For food  we stored staples  like milk, flour, honey,  dried veggies
and some dried meals  in the 20-year cans.  My wife  and I started a
vegetable garden. I built three raised beds and we attempted to grow
various sorts  of vegetables over  the years (cucumbers  and lettuce
were the  most successful).   We had three  apple trees  and several
blueberry bushes on our property.

For cooking we had a propane  tank that provided gas for our kitchen
stove, and  a gas grill,  as well as  several camp stoves.   With no
electricity we  relied on matches  to light  the burners, so  we had
plenty of those.

For water  we had  four, five-gallon containers  of fresh  water and
lots of smaller spring water bottles -  you know the kind you can buy
in the grocery store for a few  bucks in packs of 24. Because we had
a well  and could not  ensure an unlimited supply  of gas to  run the
water pump off  of the generator, we purchased a  well bucket, which
for a residential well is a long, narrow stainless-steel tube with a
one-way flap on the end. The flap  lifts when you lower it down into
your well, and closes when you pull it up, full of water.

For  heat, our  house  had a  wood  stove, and  we  purchased a  gas
generator. We had an electrician  install a transfer switch, so that
we  could run  the major  appliances  off of  the generator  safely,
including  the oil  furnace.  For fuel we had stored  20 gallons  of
gasoline (stabilized with  Stabil). In the fall we  would order four
cords of firewood, and  I'd stack and split it over  the course of a
few weeks.  A  neighbor who had experience in tree  work suggested a
Fiskars  axe,  I bought  one  to  replace  my  old, wooden  axe  and
immediately noticed how much easier it was to split wood with it (it
has a  specially shaped head  and is formed  in one piece,  I highly
recommend it).

For  lighting   we  had  various  solar   lanterns  (D-Lite  brand),
flashlights, lots of candles and  several oil lanterns.  We had five
gallons of lamp  oil (clean-burning synthetic kerosene  - Kleen Heat
was the brand).

For communication I got my ham license (general class), and tinkered
with various  HTs and HF  radios. I also  had an SDF  dialup account
which  theoretically would  allow internet  from my  laptop and  USB
modem for  a week  or so without  power - in  practice I  found that
modern-day phone  companies provide a day  or less of power  to your
phone jacks if they themselves are on battery power.

Apart from the  generator, we had two solar panels  and a deep-cycle
battery that we could setup on  our south-facing deck as needed. The
battery I used to power my HF radio, an Icom IC-718.

For defense  and hunting  I had  one handgun, a  Sig P228,  one 12ga
Remington 870  pump shotgun,  and a bolt-action  .22 rifle.  Both my
wife and  I were  comfortable around  guns - I  had been  hunting or
target shooting  since I was 18  and had a concealed  pistol permit,
and my wife used to be in  the Army Reserve, and so had her training
there to fall back on. Obviously  those stayed locked up most of the
time, but I felt better having them.

For  bugout purposes  we  had camping  supplies  and two  pre-packed
storage boxes  of essentials that we  could quickly load into  a car
and go. We never had to use those, however.

So how  did all this  work?  We had  several power outages  over the
years, the longest was 11 days after that freak, late fall snowstorm
in New  England that knocked down  so many trees and  power lines, I
think that was in 2013. In 2011 we had no power for three days after
Hurricane Irene. Things worked pretty well. We learned to ration the
use of  our generator to  conserve fuel, so we  would use it  in the
morning, then again  at lunchtime, then once more for  dinner. So it
was only  on for about four  hours a day, and  the seven-gallon tank
will last a while if you use it like that. Obviously this only works
if you have secondary lighting  and heat sources.  During the 11-day
outage we  had several neighbors  who left their  generators running
overnight. Some  of them had  them stolen. The clever  thieves would
start a lawnmower to cover the sound of the generator, so the owners
would not notice when it was shut off.

When we moved to Canada in 2016,  we gave away most of our supplies,
simply due to space constraints. It  would have been both costly and
time-consuming to  try and  import the weapons,  as Canada  has much
stricter gun laws  than the US, so  I gave my guns to  a good friend
who  is  an  avid hunter.   A  lot  of  the  tools we  gave  to  our
neighbors. We kept the generator,  one lantern, the Fiskars axe (our
house here has a fireplace at  least) and some storage food. We rent
our house,  and don't have  the property  to garden. But  someday we
will move and enjoy gardening and prepping again.

[0] gopher://sdf.org/1/users/melton/phlog