I told my wife and daughter I would like to start having a "Light's Out" night at our house regularly. Maybe at first just once a month. One night, where we do not rely on electricty for anything (except for ac, I don't want a mutiny in Texas in the summer.) For this night, we are going to cook outside, using either the pit or the Coleman stove, we will play board games, cards, use candles and lanterns for light, and come up with ideas to make the experience more fun. Years ago, we had a big snowstorm in North Louisiana and we were without power for three days. It was Christmas, and my parents and brother were there for the holidays. We lived out in the country, but had everything we needed. All of us have said that was the best Christmas we ever had. We had so much fun. We played on the four wheeler, fired up the generator to keep the refrigerator/freezer going (and of course my daughter's new E-Z Bake oven she got for Christmas that year) and every now and then we would use the generator for other small appliances. We didn't use it much though. We had plenty of wood and a wood burning fireplace, and the house stayed warm. We cooked outside, and used the pit and Coleman stove, used the Coleman lantern, and even more so we used candles and oil lanterns. We told stories, we played, and we had more fun than a barrel full of survival monkeys. I loved it, and I want to bring a little bit of that back to our home. My just-turned-teen-age daughter of course was not real receptive to the idea when I told her, but she is the type that once we start she will really like it. I am looking forward to it, and I am preparing to make it as fun and enjoyable as I can. I hope to also gain new ideas in preparing our emergency kits, and thoughts of what we need to do in the event that this was long term, instead of just one night. I am open to suggestions for making this as fun and enjoyable as possible, but still making it a learning experience.
I think that is a great idea E.L. When I was living in Cal. years ago we had a power outage that lasted for three days.We had candles and a couple of oil lanterns,cooked outside and played board games and cards.My oldest was about 7 then.She's 25 now and she still talks about how much fun we had during that time.Some years later we were struggling to make it and had the oppurtunity to buy an old run down farm house.The wiring had all been stripped out and the well didn't have a pump.It had a big stone fireplace and we cooked on it,used oil lanterns,hauled our water from town.I rigged up a 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat on the back porch,and a bathtub behind the house.We lived like that for a couple of months until we could afford to have the place re-wired and buy a pump.My daughter kids her younger sisters about not knowing what it means to rough it.What we thought were hard times turns out to be some of our most cherished family memories.
Nice to have some test runs. Like Fire drills really. People learn what to do in xyz situation by repitition
