Yes, we went though a three day event ourselves, lost power in one of the spring ice storms. So in our case, we had stored water (I always fill any empty spots in the canner with jars of water, so we have a home done supply of water in reserve if needed) plus we have water jugs. so house water was covered, at that time of the year, the rain catchment was back in place and so we had just over 300 gallons of water for the livestock in reserve (that is our basic just in case ) After that, we would have had to hand pump it from the well for restock.

The freezers where covered fast (any power outage has me covering them fast, but I keep frozen two liter pop bottles in them to make them run less when they are not full and so those keep the freezers cold and can have one added at a time to the fridge to keep it cold.. I did my normal fridge trick when the power goes out.. Get your cooler out, add in a frozen water bottle, move everything from the fridge to the cooler that needs to be eaten and then close the fridge up.. if need be.. put a piece of tape across the fridge as a reminder do NOT open! Eat your food out of the cooler as required and needed. Much smaller space to keep cool and that way the fridge door does not get opened.

I have a shuttle chef cooking pot and outstanding rocket stove. The ecozoom. I also have a lot of cast iron to cook with, so the meals where done in three ways, one. The one of the point of canning up food is so that you can eat it cold when needed.. Two, while I do love to cook in the shuttle chef, I have learned that filling it and boiling the water and then holding it is perfect, a wash up, a hot cuppa tea, a hot cuppa coffee. So while I will heat canned goods in the Shuttle Chef, I tend to use it to hold hot water for 8 hours at a time. I do most of my cooking in my cast iron.

Eight sticks of wood in the eco-zoom is enough to boil the water, cook the food etc. that is equal to one small log.. I have a tin roofed over and sheltered pouch, with a cement step, this is where I do my cooking, out of the wind, out of the weather but with open air flow. Its perfect for year round use.

We did have to hook up the inverter to the car battery to run the sump pump and drain out the water in the celler. Having said that we know that the cellar is prone to water issues and so everything in that part of the house is up 12 inches (or one basic turned on its side cement building block in height. To date we have never had water get anywhere near that high.

As for the gardens, well to be honest as much as I admire raised beds, the reason you gave is the reason that very few of my gardens are raised beds in the sense of the norm. I do have a old horse trough "raised" bed gardens, they are manure based hot box's that are filled and covered to extend growing in the spring and fall. I do free form raised beds in most of the gardens in the sense of being 4 to 6 inches pulled from the walk ways over into the loose soiled beds but having said that I plant 90 plus percent of my annual garden's into dry land garden spacing. I also use hugelculture mounds for certain plants that require more steady access to water at the roots level.

And you gave the reason, the perfect reason.. because the simple truth of the matter is we can never haul enough water.. we can haul enough to do a bit of babying of seed starting, we can haul enough to give a little extra now an again to certain fussier plants but overall, if we garden like we have access and ability to move water like we can now.. when push comes to shove.. we are in big trouble.. I love when the weather works and when the plants thrive.. but its more important to me to grow, harvest and save seed from plants that produced in a wet year, a drought year a hot year that pushed them.. Most of the seeds we buy are being babied as seed growers and its up to us to work our own programs and to make them tougher plants!

On the flip side and I am quoting a friend who said it best.. I think my Annuals are my star's of my garden until something goes wrong.. and then its the perennial's that step up and feed my family. This is a simple truth.. its something that I look at hard.. I aim for every five to ten annuals I want at least one perennial food producing plant in my hedge rows, food forest, hugelculture area's.

Yes, I know its more work to do two different systems of gardening, but the good thing about it, is that if the annuals do great, you can put up a extra few months, half year or a whole extra year of food into the pantry (win-win) and the perennial food can go to reduce your critter costs by using it more for fodder or if you don't do critters to really bulk up your compost bins.

What I learned from the event was that having four outdoor working sets of clothing in a ice storm was not enough.. while I heated a small area nicely, the outer wear clothing was not drying out fast enough between uses. I have done some fiddle work on that drying system. It was a strange flaw to find but it was the big one..

Here was my little set up in action during the event itself..

Thank you for the very good run down on your event. It gives me hope and makes me feel I'm doing the right thing in pushing perennial systems in my garden. I'm perfecting my shrub layer before moving on to root stock for this harsh climate. Perennials are cheap when bought in bulk from strawberrytyme.ca, Treetime.ca and richters.ca. I'm not getting any more animals until I have ten paddocks/ greenhouses to rotationaly graze them. I like the cooler idea and when try to practice the frozen water trick but refilling after use is key.

This year taught us a major lesson in making sure we add compost in every hole and water catchment system with drip irrigation is a must. Perrenials don't die. They take the heat and keep on fighting year after year without much work after the first few.

Were trying to make landrace seeds too. We got some with radishes and Asian mustard last year. I'm hoping to dig a pond for bulk water catchment. We could fill a cistern and drip irrigate from that too along with the roof catchment. Ideally only when those two sources are empty would I use the well.

If you do a video on your land I'd appreciate seeing it. Canada needs more permaculturalists like you.

Bought enough bleach granules for years in one fell swoop. Be careful because the smaller ones are actually 5$ more than the 5gal one at canadian tire.

It won't accept my picture file size and I decreased the size twice. Any help on this?

I've boosted the file size limit...try now.

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The original was 2mb

The upload limit is set at 2M per picture.
This should be enough to get by with.
I can't set it much higher than that unless I pay a lot more for my hosting as disk space is limited.

It won't accept my picture file size and I decreased the size twice. Any help on this?

Hard as it is, I just ask the nearest kid to show you how, its only embarassing the first time. My phone for some reason turned the camera to selfie mode I tried everything to turn it back to camera mode, but had to ask someone 30-40 years younger to do it and show me how. Not a proud moment

Hi all! It's been a while;

We got water filtration and boafeng radios for a group; for a year a least. Those we're the two big purchases of the year besides an ever increasing garden of perrenials and putting a bailling tarp down to kill weeds to start another garden plot. I've been laxing in water and food, gas storage. 3 of the 4 freezers are full but if we lose electricity. That will be gone quick.

I put it out their as I'm going to be on a MAG episode for a podcast in the coming weeks called Canadian Prepper Podcast. Their on iTunes and Podbean. Good people from our community before I get on anyways lol and you always learn something.

Anyways I found an old post i did and thought it perfectly portraits how I feel about preppers waiting for the ideal person or group to come along.

I'm no doctor and im not even a good gardener but I have heart like few others. Find someone like that even if their 10hrs away. Spend a week or two together and pretend it was the week before EMP and get things done to improve your families lifes.

Here's the post:

Sorry about the angry reply. I don't understand people. Immigrants pay off a house in 5yrs by working together to pay it off and then buy another. Menonites, large corporations and churches do the same.

They get everything on sale with bulk buys or very little of their own money because they work together.

I've been trying to get people to buy perrenials together and split the fruit, berries and veggies even stephen for over a decade.

Nobody has taken me up on it. Everyones to scared, lazy or "busy" to give their own family a forever supply of fruit and berries.

Those same people I'll bet have spent little to no money and have little to zero perrenials planted since I made my offer.

People deserve whatever work they put in. Do nothing and get nothing.

I did most the small 42 raised beds with a cast and a two wheeled wheelbarrow. Mostly on my own in the same summer. Imagine what we could get done together? Makes me furious sometimes.

We eat some good garden food but together at even 1 week a yr. Both our families wouldn't need to buy food by year 3. It will take me 10 yrs on my own. I'm slowly giving up on ever finding a MAG. My family will have to do but its all on me then

Look yourself in the mirror! Do you have backup to feed your family if your not around anymore? How many perrenials come back to feed your family year after year? Work with someone else. Hire a gardner; Do what you need to do to protect your family. Very bad things do happen like illness/ death. Find another family or group and PROTECT eachother.

Yes most MAG's won't work out. Most people are lazy. It will be worse after an event. Stealing anything they can just to survive. Parasites on society. Some are ready. Really ready but they are the key person of their family. The survivability of their family goes way down once they get sick/ injured/ elderly/ die. We work to enhance the skills of our family but are worried with reason the preparedness will be gone with us.

Find a MAG and protection. Even a small step like Exchanging caches is a giant leap.

Hi all! It's been a while;
I put it out their as I'm going to be on a MAG episode for a podcast in the coming week

I look forward to your episode.

I'm going to be on Youtube live tonight. Subscribe to

The island retreat

Should start around 9pm eastern time

Im hoping this podcast will empower you to seek out other preppers and start a MAG. If you live anywhere in Ontario or Quebec I'm always looking to meet new folk. It takes alot of time and effort but one good MAG member usually includes a family so you're so thats many prepared hands working together

I am going out but will view it Friday.

So shows done. Did my best to get some info out. Great guys on the podcast and I have a new found respect for the hard work and just being interesting when you read is a tough job. Hope everyones learned something and if not you're an advanced prepper so kudos to you either way.