prepper fiction: falling off the grid, part 2

Monday, the 15th

   It's at the same time beautiful and scary, when you have to go peeing
   during the night, and the only light you see outside are the stars and
   the anti-theft system LED blinking in your neighbours car.

   We got up at the usual time, the kids having their accurate biological
   clock. Breakfast was quite normal, except for the slight butane smell
   in the kitchen, and the rather warm milk: we'll have to start eating
   all the perishable stuff, unless power returns until noon. Cleaning
   dishes with rainwater for first and a bit of clean water for second
   rinse might not be the best long term solution. The house was already
   rather cold, around 15 centigrades in the living room, with outside
   temperature around 5; I wish we had installed the fireplace we were
   considering last year!

   I'm astonished some of the public radio stations are still continuously
   transmitting; to keep up morale? Seems rather a waste to me: I would
   save fuel (they certainly must run on generators) by transmitting just
   news every half hour or so, but then people might start panicking
   earlier... I wonder whether it would not be better to have one big AM
   transmitter instead of all the smaller FM ones, but unfortunately our
   country decommisioned our last AM station about two years ago.
   Satellites and internet streaming are cool, aren't they?

   Public transport apparently has shut down, because drivers and
   maintenance people are missing, and for most people there is no sense
   in going to work without electricity; same for me. I accompanied my
   kids to the school, but as I suspected, it was closed, and so we went
   for some urban exploring.

   We visited the neighbours sharing the car with us, and we agreed on
   only using it in case of emergency -- whatever that is now. The tank is
   2/3 full, fortunately.

   The hospital nearby still had power for most systems; there was only
   emergency lighting at the entrance, but it was warm, and people behind
   the desk were working at computers. They didn't want to tell me for how
   long the generators still have fuel, though.

   When we returned at noon, it started snowing, which was welcomed at
   least by the kids.

   We've stopped using our toilet except for peeing, because I don't want
   to see all that rainwater just going down the drain. At the moment, we
   collect feces in plastic bags (in a bucket with an improvised toilet
   seat), and rinse the water toilet with the water from dishwashing.

   After lunch mainly consisting of some more steaks (better eat them
   before dumping), the sun came out a bit, so we sent the kids outside
   around the house, hoping they would not be completely wet and cold
   afterwards. When they returned exhausted after an hour of play with
   neighbour kids, we just rubbed them dry with towels: they were not
   dirty enough to justify heating up water for soap and washcloth. We
   have four canisters with butane, and one is halfway used I guess; that
   means we have minimal heat for just about a week. We've got quite some
   logs of wood, but currently I can only use it for the fireplace
   outside; the perfect opportunity to get used to winter barbecue?

   Later in the afternoon, I helped my older son with his homework. He's
   young enough for not requiring any electronic devices for school.
   Meanwhile, the little one played with his toys, and my wife went to
   visit some other neighbours.

   We must assist the one with two small kids, and the old woman living on
   her own; they're all not much prepared and suffer from the missing
   heating. The old woman at least has a recently unused but working
   fireplace in her living room, so we decided it best she take the mother
   and kids into her quite large house, and I chop some of our wood for
   them. Her toilet required some serious flushing, and so I've decided to
   get water from the small creek nearby. I wonder what happens at the
   waste water treatment station without power -- _IF_ the waste water
   arrives there without pumps and does not just fill up the sewers -- but
   in this case we _had_ to get rid of the issue.

   Now that is has gotten colder, we can put some of our food from the
   fridge outside, but the frozen stuff soon could perish. We already made
   an ice cream party for the kids.

   I have put together a wire antenna, a simple inverted V dipole, as I
   can power my shortwave transceiver (trx) from the solar battery. Never
   was the noise floor so low: mains power failure does have some
   advantages! Also today I have been in contact with some radio amateurs
   through the FM handheld trx, but with all of the repeaters having shut
   down now (at least those I could reach from home), there's almost no
   activity on VHF and UHF. Shortwave will be different, and that's where
   I'll hang around this evening -- stay tuned!

   .:.