A challenge, and fuel preparedness

Already mentioned this on my other blog, but there is a Food Challenge over at Preparedness Pro. Started on the 1st of this month, and runs all month long, and is basically a challenge to stop shopping for necessities for a 2 week period. Just in case you are interested, the clock's a-tickin....


We went out recently into the wilderness (alright, it was a campground, with a firepit, but it was aways away from home, and wilderness sounds so much better when you're telling a story :) and cooked an outdoor meal. It was prompted by a requirement for an organization that one of my children is participating in, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Since it was sort of short notice, I ended up going to the local national chainstore for supplies. Some of the things I learned from this experience:

--Buying campout supplies on short notice, when everyone else is out buying similar items for campouts/reunions/ insert weekend activity of your choice here is not my idea of a good time. Would definitely not want to be out trying to gather supplies in an actual emergency situation. Already knew that, but having a real-life reminder can be a really good thing...


---My husband and child planned the meal (the child was involved in the planning as part of the requirement being fulfilled) and I took the list. One of the items on the list was charcoal briquets. I spent time wandering around the store looking for charcoal in places I thought it was likely to be, or for an employee to supply me with such information, before I found someone who informed me it was in the home and garden section. If you have to wait until the last minute to purchase items, (it would be wonderful to purchase all of your emergency items in one shopping trip, but one's expenses don't always permit such a shopping trip) you would do well to know where the items are located and at least take care of that portion of the mad rush....

---Know ahead of time which kind of fuel you will be needing for heat, cooking, etc. When we got to the campout location, my husband took out some wood (left over from our last winter's wood storage) and left the charcoal in the car. I asked him why charcoal had been on the list, and he said that it was in case the cooking facilities at the campground required charcoal, and not wood. Since it was just basically a firepit, we used the wood. So know ahead of time what you will be using for your purposes, or just plan for every and anything....

*Bug spray would have been handy. The mosquitos only really seemed to be interested in me, however...
**Glad we carried in water to put the fire out.

So now we have charcoal, which we really should have had before. Need to get some more in, just for variety and options if/when it's needed. Cooking out can be fun if it's planned, so I guess it can be fun to cook out even in an emergency if we do the planning now, and not so much on short notice....