“I meant to mention yesterday that I emptied that first row of wood in the wood-shed,” John told me over coffee.

“That’s good to know.  We are right on schedule,” and I explained how I had calculated my usage, and that each row inside the shed should last one month.  Our wood was in great shape!  Kindling was holding up too.  This made me think we need to do a mid-crisis inventory.  I had Jason check the gas level, only seems right, and the chainsaw supplies in the barn, and the chickens feed.  I had John help me in the pantries.

Mid-afternoon we had a conference to share data.

“Jason, what are your totals?” I asked.  I had a pretty good idea, but this would also drive home a point about conservation and about what we had.

“The two metal cans with chick feed are near empty, but there’s three bags each of feed and scratch,” I think he was starting with the good news.

“Excellent!  They’re using only one 50# sack per month of each.  Three more months will take us to spring when they can start to forage again.  What else?”

“It looks like there’s six gallons of Bars-oil, and six large bottles of gas mix, for the chainsaws.  But,” he hesitated, looking a bit sheepish, “one drum of gas is really low, maybe 15 gallons left.  The other drum is still full.”

“Ok, we’re not too far off, but I think we all realize we will have to be real stingy on the gas, unless some miracle happens that we can replenish the supply.”  It’s good to have hope.  “But let’s not count on it.  John, you want to share with Jason what we added up?”

“I still don’t know how or why you stocked like you did, but I’m certainly not going to complain.” He started.  “Other than having at least four more months of wood for the stove, we have 30 rolls of paper towels, 9 filters for the water filter on the washing machine, and 74 rolls of toilet paper.” He chuckled, then read the rest of the list.

I smiled and added, “Just remember, everything we’re inventorying here might never be replaced.  Ever.  These are all disposable stocks.”  I looked at these two men in my life and smiled.  “I tried hard; I did my best to guess what might be needed in a disaster event, to get us from one end of it to the other, without knowing how long I needed to prep for.”  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s been almost three months.  I think we’re doing really, really good.  Especially since I had no idea how many of us there would be.” I smiled at both of them, lingering on John. I think he actually blushed.

“Next is the food,” I went on. “We’re in really good shape there.  So I think we should celebrate.  What would you like for dinner tonight?”

Without hesitation, they both said, “lasagna!” then laughed.

“Oh, I found one more thing in the pantry,” John announced.  He went into that room and came out with one hand behind his back.  He smiled and set a 6-pack of Corona on the table!  Even I didn’t remember that being in there.  Since that room is unheated, the beer was well chilled.  Even though I’m not a beer drinker, I joined the two of them in the find.  We felt like a family.