Summer Complacency...beware

[Scythe13]

The sun is shining, weather is sweet yeah (Bob Marley)

Mr Marley is spot on. We are entering the season to relax, put up our feet and enjoy the fruits of our labour.

Well, as good as that would be, I wish it was true.

Summer is the time to make those repairs, plant, repot, fortify, and get out and about more.

If you're looking for an easy summer, you're either prepping wrong or not prepping at all.

Granted it's a requirement to get some downtime. To relax and enjoy the fruits of your labours. But I bet there is so much more you could do.

For the last week we have lived off the garden and the farm. Easy! Plenty of veg and eggs and rabbits. The water storage is good too. But the number of other things we could do!

Until my name is SD and I'm 100% set and ready, there is a lot more to do.

The real trick is to make a conscious effort to do one more prep, clean out the fireplace, build a solar panel, install a battery, store more water, increase the growing space....the list is endless!

Beware of summer complacency. Just because the forum is quiet, doesn't mean that you should be.

[Jace]

Hm, things are a little different in my area, as summer is when we are most likely to be having "events".

While it has not been too hot yet (only a few days of 35 or so degrees, then back to 30-ish every day since), we have been told to "look forward" to at least 40 days of 35+ temps, as well as at least 3 typhoons this summer. The weather bureau here rarely get any of their forecasts right, but we did actually have around 5 weeks of continuous temps over 35 last year, with around 7 or 8 days being over 40. Luckily we are far enough inland that the typhoons have pretty much degraded down to storm level by the time we get them though, although we do get very heavy rains -- we had falls over 300mm in a couple of hours one morning.

If the power were to go off for more than a day or so in summer, I'm sure things would go downhill rapidly though. When we had rolling brownouts a few years ago, the shopping centers etc filled up with people who just sat down under the AC all day (without buying anything). The hospitals also filled up with elderly patients pretty quickly too.

While I don't really have the option of getting a solar powered AC unit or whatever for our apartment, I have made a few changes -- got heavy blackout curtains on all the windows, shade cloth over the balcony and converted one window that gets full midday sun to a small one that we can open up for cross-ventilation. Are also busy stocking up on water reserves (as it has to be pumped up to us, so no power no water), hand fans, plenty of ice in the fridge freezer, towels that we can soak in the tub and hang over the windows etc.

Hopefully none of them will be needed, but hey, as they say in the scouts - be prepared!

[Skean Dhude]

If anyone every tells you they are 100% ready then they need to be avoided at all cost. I may be up there with some that are well on the path to being prepared but nowhere near 100% ready. Always something to do and things to learn.