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Posted: 10/19/2017 1:32:22 PM EDT
A “Water Day”

I’m writing this so I will remember what my life was like when I grow up and old. I don’t want to forget. I hope I grow up and live to remember. Mom and Dad say this will get better, but they always were saying things like that to my little brother and then whispered to each other about “keeping his spirits up” after he went asleep.

Anyway, this was a good day for us.

We began by running the generator for almost a half-hour. The heat pump warmed the downstairs family room, while the well pump filled the bathtub bladder, the water heater, and the small blue tank up by the ceiling, above the battery bank.

Then the showers started. A small tube from the blue tank brought down the cold water to our sponge. After scrubbing with soap and water, a quick rinse from the tube. Each of us in turn had a brief, weekly cleaning this way.

The drained water was pumped by a 12 volt pump into a bucket. That was used to flush the toilet. One, maybe two flushes we didn’t have to go to the creek for the water to do. Absolutely the best in Fall and Spring. Winter? Don’t ask.

We had the standard 250 gallon propane tank, which meant it held 180 gallons of propane that day. At 2 gallons per hour at an 80% load, it would last six months at half an hour of power every other day.  Now, we had just two months left.

That was the “whole-house standby generator.” We also had a gasoline powered portable generator we had used first. Gasoline goes bad after a while.

We had been using that at 1 gallon per hour per day for the first 80 or 90 days.  Then the generator wore out. The second oil change was the last. We still had over a hundred gallons of gasoline in the tank, so chainsaws and neighbors benefitted.

It was a hard lesson to learn, conserving to the point of pain. No lights at night. No heat from anything that used electricity, even the fireplace fan.

We were lucky, so my parents said, we had prepared. We had food for a year. Water storage. Generators, a battery bank so we could run a few small things between generator days, like the radio. Generator days are almost as good as water days. We run the generator for half an hour to do everything else, like the saw and the electric chain saw- the gas one broke or wore out because there were so many trees to do.

Trees mean heat, but they have to be cut up and dried for a year. We only had fire wood for a few months ready. Radio is great! They said on the radio that the Russians did it. That we were going to use the military to stop them from invading any more countries, and they decided to tell us to mind our own business. But they didn’t hit our cities and kill people. Our government was blinded and confused, and didn’t know what to do. If we nuked them, the radio said it would have been ‘mutually assured destruction’ meaning we would all be dead. Maybe we should have. The radio said that the cities now have power, mostly and we will too, someday. Then there still won’t be any school; they will use radio and television to teach us.

Anyway, it was water day and it was good.
Link Posted: 10/20/2017 7:26:50 AM EDT
[#1]
Not bad!
Link Posted: 10/30/2017 3:00:21 PM EDT
[#2]
I'd definitely read some more!

This is an interesting perspective.

How old is the character that's writing?

What period in time are we hearing about?
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