First thoughts

Well this is the start of a new adventure. I have never written down my thoughts before and doing so is much harder than i have imagined.
For over thirty years i have lived mostly off the grid and under the radar so to speak. I have tried to never be dependant on the goverment or power companies or anyone else for that matter. For one, depending on someone else is like leaning on a crutch of straw. When you really need the support everyone you have depended on seems to vanish into
thin air.
Now I'm not talking about family. Most families are there in good times and bad, (mostly good, when something good happens all of a sudden you have more relatives then you ever knew). But when there is a major disaster, your the low man on the totem pole, and if you try to get your head up to hollar, everybody above you just shoves you back down.
People who live in temperate zones don't remember most disasters longer than the next season. but for those who live through them, it's a big marker in ones life.
One ( of many) I remember was back about ten years ago in the late 90's. '97 I believe. I was living on my 28' sailboat in Camden Maine, when the big ice storm struck. Knocking power lines down and blocking roads. Power was out for several weeks in some areas, and I was amazed at how unprepared people were. I would sit at the galley table and listen to the stories comeing in over the radio of people dying in their homes from carbon monoxcide poisning from kersosene heaters or gas generators. People who were freezing because all they had was electric heat with no backup. And i would look around at my cozy little boat and marvel at the comfort i had less then twenty miles from a major disaster. I had a propane heater with three backup tanks, 50 gallons of water, a small salt water filter, three solar panels and a wind generator. and three kerosene. lamps for backup lighting, plus a two months food supply.
About a week into the storm I had rowed in to visit the library to get some more reading material when i met a young couple with their four year old son trying to find some books on emergencies and what to do. They had a house with no power, couldn't afford a generator set and were living huddled around a small kerosene stove they used for warmth and cooking.
After talking for awhile, Ioffered to let them sleep on my boat. it would be cramped quarters but it was warm and had most of the amenities. They wound up staying for a week before power was restored in their neighborhood, and we spent hours talking about being prepared and thinking about the future. When they moved back into their home,.
they had a notebook filled with ideas and plans for living a little more off the grid.
One story in the news was about two sisters widowers i think ,who were helping out by letting neighbors take turns staying at their house. They had a wood heating stove, solar panels, propane cookstove and a good supply of water and food. Like me, the only, way they could tell there was a major disaster was by the radio and their neighbors telling them so.
I guess it just seems strange with the technoligies we have now and all the stories coming over the tv, that people still depend on others to save them.
One thing before i close this post. Over the years i have stored lots of eggs outside a cooler and sometimes you don't know if they are edible or not. There are two ways i know of, one is candleing them, ie. holding them up to the light and checking how much air space is inside the fat part of the egg. If you see more than a quarter of an inch of air it's bad. But a more reliable way is putting them in a pan of fresh water, if they stay on the bottom they're fresh but if they start dancing on their tips they are starting to go bad. I have eaten them when they just start to float off the bottom, but when they stay more than an eighth of an inch off the bottom out they go.