I’m up late because I’ve worried myself frantic about our house.

It’s dumb, really. I started hearing lots of sirens in the streets around our house, and then I thought about our house catching on fire. From there, it was off to the races; Do we have enough insurance? I could put a fire extinguisher in every room couldn’t I? How would my wife survive on her own if I died in the fire? Do I have enough life insurance? etc, etc, etc.

I’m now so pumped on adrenaline that I can’t sleep, and I want to go to WalMart and buy 12 fire extinguishers.

Exaggeration aside, I could and should be doing a lot more to keep us safe. I should know whether my insurance is adequate or not. I should know where our fire extinguishers are.

But, growing up on GI Joe cartoons, I learned that knowing is only half the battle. You must put your knowledge to use in order to gain any benefit from it.

I’d like to start working out some of the areas our safety is deficient in, and begin improving them. Everything sounds easy late at night typing into your blog, so we’ll see how much action this translates into in the morning.

Let me know if the comments; what are some of YOUR safety concerns? What steps are YOU taking to ensure your family is safe and well cared for? In what areas could we concentrate and learn together?

Several folks have asked me recently for my Super Secret Oatmeal Recipe, so I’m going to immortalize it here.

I make this stuff BY THE POUND, and FoodSaver it into bags of 1 week’s worth of servings. Please note, I use the metric system for my recipes. The USA’s tradition of measuring by VOLUME is completely dumb. Every other modern nation in the world measures by WEIGHT; a far more efficient system. I found my metric kitchen scale at Target for less than $20.

Without further ado;

Wulfgar’s Super Secret Oatmeal

• 400g (grams)   oats, rolled (Get the good steelcut kind. they’re far healthier and better tasting.)
• 90g   raisins (Black or yellow, doesn’t matter)
• 95g   apricots, dried (Buy these prepackaged, in bulk. I use the Good Sense brand.)
• 35g   dates, chopped (Medjool is fine, whatever you can find.)
• 65g   cranberries, dried (Same deal as the apricots-in bulk, Good Sense brand.)
• 5g   cinnamon (Seems like a lot, but it has to cover a lot of oats.)

Wulfgar’s Shake Yer Nutz Mix

• 65g   almonds, sliced
• 70g   sunflower seeds

Put the oats in a LARGE bowl (think salad bowl). Pour in the raisins and cranberries and cinnamon. Then dice the apricots and dates, and throw them in too. Mix it all up real good with your hands, to coat everything in cinnamon.

Mix up the Shake Yer Nutz Mix, and put it into a shaker bottle with big enough holes to shake or pour it out. Bulk spice containers work great for this, because they always have that lid that you open to spoon them out.

150g Wulfgar’s Super Secret Oatmeal Recipe = 2 servings

75g Wulfgar’s Super Secret Oatmeal Recipe = 1 serving

You’ll need 500mls (milliliters) of water for 2 servings, 250mls of water for 1 serving. Your Pyrex measuring cups should have these amounts on them already.

Bring water to a boil. Add oatmeal mix. Turn heat to medium-low and cook uncovered for 7 minutes (or whatever works on your stove) until water is mostly absorbed, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, stir again, and cover.  Let it sit for 4 minutes. Serve.

I pour Vanilla Soy Milk over mine, and then heavily sprinkle on Wulfgar’s Shake Yer Nutz Mix, and turn it into porridge. My wife puts brown sugar on hers.

Let me know if the comments how this worked out for you! It’s an awesome way to start the day!

used under Creative Commons license from pthread1981

It’s looking like The Aporkalypse is not quite the global doomsday that was predicted.  And that’s cool.  I appreciate that.  I mean, I know folks are dying from it.  But the daily deaths are far less than the average daily deaths from normal, every-day, plain vanilla influenza.

So, we got that going for us.  But, it still provides a great reminder that perhaps we should do a little planning for the future.  These epidemics are only going to increase in severity and frequency, so it would be smart of us to do some small things now that would pay off later, if we should need them.  And if we don’t need them, well, we’re that much more prepared, eh?  Some preparations have the added benefit of increasing your readiness for other problems as well.  How about job loss, or natural disaster, or serious illness?

For instance, If the Swine Flu did go badly, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have set aside some basic supplies?  We’re so used to running down to the store for everything, and keeping very little food and water in the house, that a disruption of a day or two would put a lot of us in a bad spot.

Disruptions don’t happen, you say?  What if folks got a little paranoid and cleared out the store shelves before you could purchase anything?  It happens all the time before every hurricane in the Gulf states.

What if restrictions were placed on interstate travel, and the supply trucks couldn’t get in to restock the stores?  Those plans are already on the books, and part of every state’s Emergency Response protocols.

What if the combination of an epidemic and our current financial meltdown result in large numbers of people pulling their money from banks, and then there’s nothing left to pay for YOUR supplies in an emergency?  That’s historically been a common occurrence in prior natural disasters.

For some more real-life examples of what can happen when the unexpected comes calling, check out Sharon Astyk’s most excellent blog “Casaubon’s Book-Real Life Food Storage Stories.”

Now I’m not advocating that we all hole up in our basements and shoot on sight.  I’m suggesting we have a bit of forethought.  One of my favorite maxims is “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.”

What can we do?  How can we plan?  The first step is to simply increase what we’re already doing;

• purchase a few more cans of food or a couple extra pounds of beans or rice each time you normally shop.

• Each time you finish a gallon of milk at your house, rinse it, fill it with clean tap water, and set it on the floor of a closet, or on a sturdy shelf in the basement.  You should aim for a minimum of 2 gallons of water per person per day, for as many days as you think necessary.

• Begin considering ‘half full’ as the minimum that you’ll allow your car’s gas tank to fall.  Always keep at least half a tank in your cars at all times.

These simple, easy steps will start you on the path to ensuring you’re not caught flatfooted when challenges find you.

What other simple measures can you come up with?  Let’s hear them in the comments!