I bought a Stihl 250 chainsaw (with EasyStart -- it's true!) today and I spent some time cutting branches all over the property and then splitting many of the logs. I love the power-to-weight ration of this thing! Since we now live on a wooded 13-acre property, there's no shortage of fallen branches to be found and a fair number of downed trees from storms past. I now have enough firewood to last a few days, should I need it.
We're on well water out here, so if the power goes out, so does our water. Because of that, we've stockpiled bottled water and we'll fill a few buckets to have on-hand for flushing toilets.
I cleaned the gutters over a month ago before leaves started falling. There was a lot of accumulated sludge in there -- likely would have made decent compost... Now most of the gutters have got dry leaves in them. If I have time tomorrow, I'll clear them out with my
lightweight shop-vac in blow mode. I'll just take the top portion (minus bucket) up the ladder with me and have it it.
We'll need to buy a couple sandbags to put against the basement door since the bell trap drain outside it tends to get overwhelmed in sustained downpours.
Whatever happens, we've got great neighbors and I'm sure we'll all pull together if we need to make food raids into West Virginia.
