When Scott and I moved back in May, we reconnected with a family from my years in Federal Way - the Kays. Glenna Kay was my mom's good friend and the best way that I can describe her is practical, pragmatic, and powerful - Glenna is a force to be reckoned with. She heads a committee for our church that encourages the members to prepare for emergencies and disasters with practical advice, including storing at least 72 hours worth of food, extra clothing, being aware of shutting off utilities, knowing how to stay in contact with loved ones, having an exit strategy, etc. Needless to say, Glenna is the perfect person for this kind of job because she won't take "no" for an answer. Since I see her every Sunday at church I am regularly accosted, um, I mean "encouraged" to get myself and my family prepared. Glenna has been urging me to sign-up to go to the cannery in Kent todo some canning. For those of you not familiar, the cannery is a church-owned facility where you can do both dry-and wet-pack canning of essentials in the event of an emergency. Not only does she want me to go to the cannery, she wants me to buy a mill to grind my own wheat (it's only $192), and organize my home in such a way that I can keep my canning out of the elements (i.e., not in the garage). Since I tend to operate off of two main motivators: logic and guilt, I could both reason the need to do it for practical reasons, and the tugging of my conscience to get off my hiney and get prepared. So I signed us up fo canning and I gave Scott and a 6 week lead-time so that he could mentally prepare himself for three hours at the cannery. And then this last Friday night, we realized the end of a "dream" and canned us some black beans, wheat, rice, sugar, and nonfat dry milk. I had to put my foot down with Glenna about how much I was willing to order, and promise to do more next month.
Here are a Top 5 list of things we learned about Emergency Preparedness at the cannery on Friday:
5) We need to do it, and do it well.
4) It takes a concerted effort to prepare your self with a three month supply.
3) Having to wear a hair net is not flattering for anyone.
2) Dry-pack canning is amazingly low-tech.
1) Working at the cannery with fellow members is actually quite fun.
After all the fun at the cannery, covered in dust from the products, we enjoyed a dinner Lobster Fest at Red Lobster. We felt it was a fitting end to a glamorous look and a glamorous night.
3 comments:
I couldn't get that picture to get any bigger. I wanted to enjoy the hair nets!
Have you gone back yet?
Awesome hair nets! Good job on getting prepared, that's something Matt and I need to do ourselves. We talk about it a lot but never get around to do doing it. I guess we need a guilt trip to get motivated also! :)
I have gone to the cannery a couple times and I was amazed that I had fun too. We recently did a whole canning day with my family and it was fun.
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