My family and I came up here to our "Bugout" home in rural, northeastern, Pennsylvania over the weekend. Drove up Friday afternoon. Arrived a little after 4:00 PM.
Checked the electricity: Grid operating normally. Solar power system operating normally. Fully Functional. Emergency generator tests itself once a week for 15 minutes. Data log shows it is fine.
Checked the four, 120 gallon propane tanks that fuel the furnace, stove/oven, hot water heater, and gas laundry dryer: Between the four tanks, they average 72% full. When the local gas company comes to fill the tanks, they only fill them to 80% to leave room for expansion, so gas is good.
Checked the water well pump: normal.
Ran the hot water to make certain the on-demand gas hot water heater is working: Normal.
Opened all the windows to air the house out. It was a beautiful day, Friday. Nice breeze.
Checked for signs of rodents (chewed food packages. Droppings.) All clear. No sign of bugs or rodents.
Cleaned out the refrigerator of things like milk, and any left-over foods in containers which had been in there about a month. No good. Out it went.
Loaded up the dishwasher to clean some dishware. It works fine.
Used the microwave. Works fine.
Pre-heated the oven for dinner. Stove and oven work fine.
Checked Internet connectivity. Fiber, Cable, Cellular-fail-over, StarLink and ViaSat all fully functional.
SATURDAY
My son put together the two new steel gasoline caddies I bought 10 days ago. They delivered last week and were on a pallet in the parking area at the end of our driveway. They are designed to hold 30 gallons each.
Once assembled, we poured the five-gallon plastic gas cans into the caddies. Before pouring each 5 gallon can in, we added two ounces of STA--BIL gas stabilizer. Yes, it should be used with FRESH gasoline, but it can't hurt, so we added fresh STA-BIL as each five gallon can was poured-in, thereby mixing it in well. Dumped twelve, 5-gallon plastic gas cans, one of which was leaking!
Now the fuel is all good. Storage area where we kept those cans is now a lot less cluttered. Much better.
Checked the other caddy and two five gallon plastic cans with the diesel fuel for my truck. 40 gallons total. All good. (That 40 gallons is a tiny bit more than ONE tank full for the truck.
Need to refill the propane tanks for the barbecue grill. Two of the three tanks we have are empty from last summer's use. Will fill them today.
Did some laundry. Washer and dryer work fine.
Changed the bed sheets.
Washed the bed blankets, bed spreads, pillow cases and pillow protectors.
It started raining Saturday evening, so we Vegged. Just relaxed. It felt good. TV and DirecTV work fine. So quiet. Safe.
SUNDAY
Took all the Windows and other software updates on the three computers up here. Did all the Driver updates. Anti-virus updates. Router Updates. All current and good.
Virus scanned all machines: all clean.
It's about time for the first grass-cutting, but it was raining, so that has to wait.
Plants and flowers are already coming out of the ground. Some of the trees are blooming. Others not yet.
There are two birds that are a real pain in the neck. They sit in the evergreen trees on either side of the Bay Window in the living room. From those tree branches, they can see their own reflection in the window glass. One is a Robin red breast, the other has a yellow breast. Apparently, they're territorial, so they fly at the glass to chase away the "other bird." All we keep hearing is thwap, Thwap, THWAP as these birds keep fighting their own reflections and hitting the window glass! ARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH.
They fly away when any of us walk over to the window, but a few minutes later, they're back at it. Dumb ! ! !
I have to go to the store today to buy RIDEX for the Septic System. We're told to use that once a month to keep bacteria in the Septic tank, which helps keep the tank clear.
Also have to go get weed killer. Dandelions are popping up in the lawn. Have to kill them all now, otherwise they're ruin the lawn with ugly weeds by mid-summer.
Went to the local supermarket around 6:00 Sunday night. Spent about $597 stocking-up on mostly meat, canned veggies, another bag of Rice, after clearing out the freezer my mom had here before she died. Some of the food was so encased with ice, we couldn't even see what it actually was! That's all out.
We checked all the supplies of food. We have what we're able to afford and store, space-wise, which isn't all that much, but we will eat for a couple months (or a little longer) if the economy - or the war - all goes to hell.
Our original plan was to return to New Jersey late last night. I told my wife what's been going on with the Iran thing and that it appears to me this week is going to be "make-or-break." I explained that the traitorous Democrat Biden Regime garbage left the southern border open for four years, and that among the millions of illegal aliens who came here, were probably sleeper cells from Iran.
I explained that it is possible such people will try to do us harm inside our own country if this Iran war kicks-off again, and so I think it is best we stay up here for maybe a week or two. Especially since so many of the illegal aliens now reside in New Jersey and New York City thanks to the traitorous local and state politicians who side with invaders over their own countrymen. She agreed.
Our son had to head back to NJ for his job. He left here around 9:00 texted us that he'd arrived home just after midnight.
Woke up around 7:00 this morning. It got cold again! 34 degrees. We have a FREEZE WARNING for tonight into tomorrow morning. Temps supposed to drop to 24 degrees -- in April -- go figure.
Anyway, I'll be up here for at least this week. Will do the radio show from here.
