No Power in Winter? How Farm Families Kept ONE Room Warm
Della Prosser
262 views
📖 My family's 90 years of hard-weather notes, checked against today's safety guidance → www.dellaprosser.com
It's the second night without power. Every blanket in the house is piled on the couch, you've got a sweater on over a sweater, and the thermometer by the back door says 51 degrees. You kept all the doors open so the warmth could spread, and the whole house just kept getting colder.
That wasn't because you didn't try hard enough. You were trying to heat a whole house. The farm women I learned from never did. My grandfather's winter page starts with one line, in pencil, dated 1951: "Pick one room. Let the rest of the house go cold."
I'm Della Prosser, third generation on the same ground in central Nebraska. In this video I go through the seven pieces of keeping one room warm when the power's out: the room, the doors, the windows, the floor, your body, the heat, and the neighbors. Then there's an eighth, the thing my mother did every winter night of my childhood. I've never once seen it done in a modern house.
One of those old rules nearly killed my father in January 1978. Grandpa's notebook said to open the oven door and sit by the stove. With a wood cookstove, that worked. With a gas range, it means carbon monoxide. I'll tell you plainly what's safe to warm yourself with, what never is, and why a battery-powered CO alarm belongs on your wall before the next storm.
"The house can be cold. The people can't." My mother said it every winter of her life.
Your one thing this week: pick your room, and put two nails above its doorway for a quilt.
Tell me in the comments. When the power went out when you were growing up, which room did your family pick? Did somebody hang a quilt over a door, or warm the beds with bricks or a water bottle? And tell me who taught you. I read every one.
Take care of yourself. And check on somebody who lives alone. That's the oldest rule in the notebook.
If your CO alarm goes off, or you feel headachy, dizzy or confused around a fuel-burning appliance, get into fresh air and call 911.
#FarmLife #PowerOutage #WinterPreparedness #OldWays #FarmWisdom #WinterStorm #IceStorm #StayWarm #CarbonMonoxide #Prepping #GrandmaWisdom #MidwestFarm #Homesteading
2 Comments
No Power in Winter? How Farm Families Kept ONE Room Warm
Della Prosser
262 views
📖 My family's 90 years of hard-weather notes, checked against today's safety guidance → www.dellaprosser.com
It's the second night without power. Every blanket in the house is piled on the couch, you've got a sweater on over a sweater, and the thermometer by the back door says 51 degrees. You kept all the doors open so the warmth could spread, and the whole house just kept getting colder.
That wasn't because you didn't try hard enough. You were trying to heat a whole house. The farm women I learned from never did. My grandfather's winter page starts with one line, in pencil, dated 1951: "Pick one room. Let the rest of the house go cold."
I'm Della Prosser, third generation on the same ground in central Nebraska. In this video I go through the seven pieces of keeping one room warm when the power's out: the room, the doors, the windows, the floor, your body, the heat, and the neighbors. Then there's an eighth, the thing my mother did every winter night of my childhood. I've never once seen it done in a modern house.
One of those old rules nearly killed my father in January 1978. Grandpa's notebook said to open the oven door and sit by the stove. With a wood cookstove, that worked. With a gas range, it means carbon monoxide. I'll tell you plainly what's safe to warm yourself with, what never is, and why a battery-powered CO alarm belongs on your wall before the next storm.
"The house can be cold. The people can't." My mother said it every winter of her life.
Your one thing this week: pick your room, and put two nails above its doorway for a quilt.
Tell me in the comments. When the power went out when you were growing up, which room did your family pick? Did somebody hang a quilt over a door, or warm the beds with bricks or a water bottle? And tell me who taught you. I read every one.
Take care of yourself. And check on somebody who lives alone. That's the oldest rule in the notebook.
If your CO alarm goes off, or you feel headachy, dizzy or confused around a fuel-burning appliance, get into fresh air and call 911.
#FarmLife #PowerOutage #WinterPreparedness #OldWays #FarmWisdom #WinterStorm #IceStorm #StayWarm #CarbonMonoxide #Prepping #GrandmaWisdom #MidwestFarm #Homesteading