I asked my family the other night… what if all the power went out? What would we do?  These are the responses I received.
My 7-year-old got really wide eyed and looked around questioningly… I don’t think he can imagine a world without electricity. This leads me to believe we may need to have a few practice blackout nights.
My 15-year-old son immediately thought of something vitally important to all 15 year old boys. Food! Save the food! He declared, “Don’t open the refrigerator unless absolutely necessary!â€Â He is right, keeping the refrigerator door closed will preserve the cold in the refrigerator. The food will stay cooler until the power has returned.
My ever-practical and always-prepared husband immediately grabbed a piece of paper and started jotting notes. His list includes a few tips of things to do, but the bulk of it is is all the things that we should have already done before the outage.
Have on hand:
oil lamp and oil.
matches and/or lighters.
flashlights and batteries.
standard phone (one that can be used without electricity, remember those?).
wind up or battery operated clock.
To do:
Make a plan to stay warm or cool, depending on the season. Have a supply of wood for the stove and extra blankets if needed.
Call power company to be sure they know of the outage. Don’t assume that the whole area must be out and surely they already know. If you don’t call, they won’t know that you have a problem. What if they fix the issue and everyone else gets power back but you? They think everything is fine and are finished with it. They won’t know to check with you, unless you are on their list.
He also mentioned the fact that if you have generator back up, checking that back up system should be a regular event before any need arises. Be sure that when the time comes… you don’t find that the power you were counting on is having problems of its own.
As for me? The impractical optimist in me takes over. The part that loves to make the best of everything. My thoughts run to things like….
Ooooh, wouldn’t it be fun to play games by lamp light? We need to get out the games.
Lets pull out the real popcorn popper and make popcorn! We don’t need the microwave.
How about roasting marshmallows at the wood stove?… This could be a perfect time to try it.
I wonder if our lamps will provide enough light to read by. Currently I’m reading through the Little House Series with my 7-year-old son.  Reading Farmer Boy by lamplight appeals to my old fashioned senses.
I look forward to the type of quiet that comes with a power outage. In previous power outages I’ve noticed that when nothing is humming or running (like the refrigerator) … it is heavenly quiet.
Yes indeed, a power outage can be a blessing. It all depends on your viewpoint.
Wonder how your kids would fare without a telephone for a week? I only have access to cell and the tower has been broken for 7 days.
We live completely off the grid, but we still have blackout nights. That way, we find out what we still need and better ways of doing things. It’s fun for the children, and I agree about games by lamplight, and heavenly quiet. We have those kinds of days/nights on purpose.
We have power outages fairly regularly, but that’s because we don’t pay the bill on time.
I used to live in a heavily wooded area and our power would go out frequently during storms due to trees falling on the power lines. We never panicked or batted an eye. We fired up the wood stove, lit our oil lamps, used our old fashioned water pump, and stayed warm and happy. The longest power outage occurred during an ice storm and it lasted twelve days. You know what got us by? You guessed it- products from Lehman’s! We relied on Lehman’s products for over sixteen years. Thanks for making my childhood years of frequent power outages happy ones!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with giving our children a little reality check every now and then. I know a lot of people take electricity and grocery stores for granted, I want to make sure my kids don’t. Plus we all have a little more to learn.