Around our house, stormy weather typically coincides with the power going out. And this week we’ve had plenty of stormy weather.

THE WEATHER

We had over a foot of snow. We had freezing rain. And, we had a high wind warning.

EMERGENCY PREPARATIONS

No matter what time of year it is, we have learned to be prepared for a power outage. We usually have plenty of food, flashlights, batteries, emergency supplies, hand-crank radio, etc.

We have well water, which means when the power goes out, so does our water supply. I make sure we have a couple fresh jugs of water, so we can hold off using our emergency water for as long as possible.

Farmer John makes sure there’s a fire going in the wood stove.

We cook by lantern light on our propane powered stovetop.

The kids each have their own flashlight. It makes them feel better, but mostly they just like to play with them.

THE INCUBATOR

But this particular storm, my concern really wasn’t about us humans, but about the chicks developing in the incubator. They need electricity to stay warm & continue to grow.

FARMER JOHN’S SOLUTION

We have a generator, but the amount of time we can run it usually has to do with how much gas we have on hand. When our power goes out, there’s a good chance it will be out for at least a day. There’s an equally good chance it could be out longer. The first December we lived here the power was out for 18 days. A week would go by & the power would come on for a day, maybe less, then go back out. And, we were snowed in. We didn’t have a tractor at the time to push the snow out of the driveway.

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Back when I was home schooling, as part of our Farmer Boy unit, we made candles. In the book Almanzo talks about taking his lantern out to do chores and walk to his room at night. We discussed how they didn’t have electricity for lighting and instead used candles. We talked about how their method to make candles was different than how we were making candles. I think Farm Kid1 got the idea & I hope this makes the book a bit more relatable.

SUPPLIES

The supplies are fairly simple. The necessities are wax, wick & a mold. We used a waxy coated dixie cup as our mold. Our extra goodies were crayons for color & liquid apple scent.

MELTING WAX

Next, fill a pot with a couple inches of water & set it over a high stove top setting. Once boiling, turn the heat down a bit. Place a bar of wax & crayon pieces in a tin can & place the can in the hot water to melt the wax. The crayons melted quicker than the bar of wax.

THE MOLD

Start by cutting a length of wick about 3″ taller than your mold. Tape one end of the wick to the bottom of your mold & wrap the other end around a pencil. I found that we needed to tape the wick to the pencil or it wanted to unwind. I also cut notches out of the dixie cup to hold the pencil.

Using a pot holder, pour the melted hot wax into your mold.

Now wait for the wax to harden. Our one box of wax made 8 little candles.

FINISHING THE CANDLE

After the wax is hard, peel off the mold and voila a candle. I love how most of the crayon wax settled toward the bottom of the candle giving it a gradient appearance.

Trim the wick to about half an inch.

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