And so it begins....(Part 2)

Part 2
2) I know the majority of people where we live are wondering how they’re going to be heating their homes next winter. My mom estimates that it will cost them approximately $5000 to heat their 1500sqf home for the months of October through mid-May (this is with the thermostat set at 64* during the day, and 55* at night). They’re not the only ones. My grandfather will most likely be moving in with them, because he can’t afford to heat his house.

When the price of basic living expenses (food, heating, etc) start going up, people start getting scared. Some people will struggle along with what they have, doing what they can, skimping where they have to. Other people resort to thievery. I know this sounds extreme, but it’s the truth and it’s sad.

We heat our home with both natural gas and a wood furnace. Like my parents we keep our house at 64* while we’re home and 55* at night and when we’re out. You can bet the wood furnace will be getting used more this winter than the gas (which is still a little cheaper than heating oil).

Our load of logs, that’s right a tractor trailer with 15’ trees on it, should be coming in the next week or so ($575, plus our time). Once we get that cut, split, and stacked we’ll hopefully get another load before the end of the summer, because you can guarantee that will be going up soon.

A fence has been something we’ve been deliberating, mainly because of our dogs and future children. We want them to be safe in our yard. The deliberation has ended: We’re building the fence next month. There is one other main reason for this, beyond the dogs/kids, security.

This is back to my previous comment on thievery. You can guarantee if things get bad enough (which they will) the dishonest people will start stealing whatever they can: Wood for heat, siphoning gas from home tanks and vehicles, other things that can be sold for money.

We’ll also be putting a lock on our hen house. Yes, we may be paranoid, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. You probably won’t see these things happening in more urban settings, but you will in rural settings. Those places were people believe that their possessions are secure.

The people who are already being victimized by these crimes are the people that I mentioned briefly before: The truckers and the small business owners. If you notice, a lot of tractor-trailers have locking gas caps on their tank, because people are siphoning fuel out of their 100-gallon tanks. My father went out and bought 2 on Monday, for his truck.