In this vlog, Victor (Speaker A) documents his homestead family’s day‑to‑day survival during a week‑long power outage caused by Hurricane Helene. The narrative blends a conversational walkthrough of practical off‑grid routines with explicit preparedness advice. The family relies on a rooster‑driven wake‑up, propane stovetops, 5‑gallon water jugs, and re‑using clothing to minimize laundry. They emphasize always keeping fuel and grain reserves, noting their diesel‑powered Cummins generator’s low fuel draw (2 gal/hr) and the advantage of diesel availability. A gravity‑fed water system draws from a mountain creek into a 225‑gallon tank, with recent repairs highlighted. Solar energizers—originally for bee hives—run continuously, providing limited power for small devices. Food preservation tactics include using ice packs, double‑cooking meals, and monitoring freezer temperatures to protect two years of stored meat and vegetables. Household chores are divided among family members: cooking, cleaning, laundry, and outdoor tasks are assigned to specific children, with “power hours” designated for dishwashing and laundry using a solar‑powered clothes dryer. Communication is maintained via a weather radio, local stations, and a neighbor’s Starlink internet, underscoring the critical role of connectivity. The vlog also mentions remote editing by Austin, who uploads footage from Charlotte. Throughout, the tone is upbeat and resilient, framing the outage as an opportunity to thrive off‑grid.
Chapters
Hurricane Helene has knocked out our power. It's been a week. This is how we're surviving. You might even say thriving without electricity. Wait for it. We get up with the rooster. That's trick number 1. I know you can't see in here, but I can. Propane stovetops. No power needed. I have these 5-gallon water jugs when the power's on. Physical mechanical pump on it. Gotta make sure to wear the apron, keep these clothes tidy because I've worn them for like 3 days in a row. What, do you smell something? Do I smell something? What am I, hard of smelling? Of course I smell something. We going, boys? We awake? Sure. Come on, let's go. It minimizes the amount of wash we will have to do. Thankfully we were well stashed on fuel. Also feed. The homestead preparedness life— I mean, this, this lifestyle lends itself to preparedness. A good habit is to always be in fuel, always be in grain, because you never know when anything like this is going to happen. We didn't. Happy day! You making a video?
Yeah.
Sweet. We knew hurricane rains were coming. We thought it was going to be our typical crazy hurricane hurricane rainstorm, but nothing like the monsoon that happened. I haven't even found out how much rain we had. Rebecca said somebody was saying 40 inches. Oh, oh shoot! Hey, hey, that would be bad. There, thank you. Out here in the field, we want to minimize our power use. We're actually using a solar energizer. We can't turn it off. The only way to turn it off is just unhook it. And it's not because that solar energizer sucks. It's actually quite the contrary. That solar energizer was for our bees. It actually got washed down the creek a half a mile. Sam and John found it and rescued it. It still works, albeit all the time. You can't turn it off. Happy day! We just used one cleaning cloth. Normally we have one for each cow, plus two drying cloths, but we're just letting them air dry. That way we don't dirty as many cloths. Hang it up too to be reused as a wash the window shield cloth. Milk tap doesn't need any electricity. Kaden, you come help push. All hands on deck. It's gonna be a tricky move today with the milk sled. It's going uphill and it's dewy. Even though I was pushing, we slid out. I had him turn a little bit down the hill and that was all it needed. Wow, getting South Mathur, man. You knew it, you knew it. What do you think? The generator's turned off. I know, but maybe Jonas got the gray— what? Turned off on the mountain. Yeah, that's not gonna cut it. We can go off of the well, but we're only running well during power hours. More about that in a second. It'd be better to make sure our gravity-fed water system is working. What's the word? You got water. Why isn't it crazy? The tank isn't full. Why not? The thing got knocked off. Oh, it did? You fixed it? What thing? The thing where the water comes in. Where it goes across the half barrel. Thanks for doing that. Were you able to drive up there? No, not all the way. We have a new trail up there, but it's probably littered with trees, huh? Oh yeah. This water line goes all the way up to the mountain where we have a little small creek, and we fill up a 225-gallon tank. But if it's empty, which it is now— something went wrong up there, Jonah fixed it— it's only going to come down as fast as we're filling that up. That's why we have the tank up there, because when the tank's full It blasts! Whoa! Are you serious? This Cummins generator has been clutch diesel! I get excited every time it starts! I emphasize diesel because you can actually get diesel fuel right now! Than anything else. If we were dependent on propane, we'd be dependent on the propane tank to fill it up. It just started. Morning power hours. We're conserving. We're not running that all the time because it does do 2 gallons an hour. Freezer check. Okay, reset. 17. Okay, that's a little higher than I would like. 24. Much higher than I would like. That is a year, 2 years worth of meat and veggies in our freezer. It would be absolutely— it would be an absolute disaster if we lost that. These froze-ish.
Hey babe, I'm making breakfast.
Yeah, you're good with— you're good to make breakfast. We kind of freeze-ish these ice packs. The reason I'm doing that, this is another trick, is it's taking some pressure off of the fridge. So we're going to this cooler before we go into the fridge. We've been just going straight into the fridge, but that fridge is probably not as warm as it— I know it's not as warm, cold as it should be. Now we put these back. We should probably put them in separate freezers. Washing dishes by hand during power hour. Also this skim from the cream separating we just did. That's a lot of food for the pigs. And I don't know how soon we're gonna be able to get grain. Hey, what's your job during power loss? What's your job? Play nice and quiet. And what's your job during power outage?
Watching the baby.
Yeah, buddy. Freezer's down to 4 already. Oh, this one's at 22. I know, and it's not going down as fast, but it's very frozen. Look at that. Whoa, that looks so good, guys. Look at this, Lily. You've cleaned up in here. What's your role during power outage?
Uh, cooking and cleaning.
Heck yes, she's heavy on the domestics during this. The boys can be out running them. And what?
And laundry.
Yeah, the boys can be out doing the machine work, stuff that she can't do. We had no power to run our little 100-degree yogurt oven here. It's not really a yogurt oven, it's a dehydrator. Uh, so we're just— we just got it started and we're just letting it sit at room temp. It's sour enough after 2 days. Heck yes. Notice how bright in here it is? There are no lights on. Whoa, hold on. Keep the powers off. It burns less electricity. That'd be another trick. Use minimal electricity. When the generator is on, uses less fuel. 4 skylights. We don't need any lights in here again. No, there are no lights on. There are no lights on upstairs. Getting batteries going. Dang power hour. That GoPro, that drone is done. We just spent the afternoon bailing out Lily's horse trainer. She's making a video for her channel about the hurricane, and your horse trainer has been hauling water to 20 horses. So we went, hauled some water for her, and going to— we got Mark, we hired Mark to get generator hooked up to her well.
Lisa doesn't have much water, so we're gonna get someone to come and fix her generator so she can get a pump fixed up so she can have water for horses, but she's gonna have enough to last till then.
One of the big tricks, if we didn't already mention it, is cooking just twice a day. I don't know if I mentioned it on the vlog. Put this over here on low, Lily. Put a little more water in it. And it's leftovers. I mean, we always do that, but really cook breakfast, every brunch, and then a nice supper and cook double so you have it for leftovers the next day. What is your role without power?
I'm trying to just get all the stuff done.
It's the afternoon power hour. Yeah, and we're doing laundry. How many days in a row have you worn that outfit?
Oh, this is a new outfit today. I've worn my previous one several— 3, 2, 3 days.
I think I'm on 3 for the shirt and I'm like on 14 for the pants.
I took a shower today.
Afternoon power hour for doing dishes. I haven't actually had to touch these. Jonah and Mom are doing a good job at this. We did end up getting hot water hooked up to our generator. Thankfully our electrician is right up the road. Oh, for drying. We stay on top of it because the dishwashers are not on the generator. After this, once it settles, we'll get one of those on. What is your role during this power outage? Working outside. I got no shaving this. I found some paper plates in the Suburban. We ran out. We are going to use paper plates while we have power outage. Kids are on a weekly rotation to help Mama in the kitchen. Is everything okay in there? Yeah, she's staying informed, catching up on the internet.
I'm looking at the outage paths.
They're saying Friday at like 11:00 PM. It's not happening, they would already be here. Can you tell me how much rain we got? We haven't even had the wherewithal to figure that out. I feel like today was our first day It's been 6 days. It feels like it's our first day in non-emergency mode. We got 22 inches of rain. Like, we normally get 40 inches of rain a year. This weather radio has been key. We can also get local radio stations, which has been our— which was our source of community, you know, word from the outside world besides neighbor just coming and updating us. Our weakest link during this communication— we've been strong on power, very strong. It's keeping our freezers going. We're surviving, if not thriving. This is clutch. We went to the neighbors who are not here, and they're— they were very kind to offer us their Starlink. Thank you, Elon Musk. I hope you make another billion. I'm happy to send money that way. I've ordered one of these. I get one in 2 weeks. So next time the power goes off here, we're trucking. We're still internetting. We're still internetting, which is very important these days. That's how we communicate. Super fast, super affordable, more affordable than what I was having to use, which shoots up to the mountain and then shoots out. So it's just super vulnerable. Even when we get our power out, if the guy up the hill does not have his power, we're still screwed. How are you getting these edits? Well, Austin was here, my editor. He was— he's able to get here from Charlotte. He, uh, took all the footage and is uploading. Oh, he's coming tomorrow, and he's coming tomorrow to grab some more footage apparently. How do you like our fancy solar-powered clothes dryer?
It's wonderful. The nice thing about it is if it rains, I don't have to run out here and take everything down, and you don't have to sweat getting it out.
At night.
Yeah, because it doesn't get dew.
It doesn't get dew. And so for our final trick for thriving unwantedly off-grid, going to bed with the sun. Happy day. La la la la la, let me be free.
