Reaching across the divide

TL;DR: Reaching across political divides. Self-reflection after failed effort. (Image of “my favorite big fat swimming pool,” AKA the Atlantic Ocean at the end of my street, for visual interest.)

Putting this out there in case my experience might help other people. And also as a note to my future self, so I can at least avoid adding more discord into the world even in situations where I fail to increase the peace.

The topic of this post is “Reaching out to social-media friends across political divides’.”

This post is meant to serve as a reference for myself, and possibly for other people, who are striving to be more authentic and more effective in “reaching across the divide.”

Specifically, I’m talking about communicating with people who I’m connected with on Facebook, who either 1) I have never met in real life, just friended through business circles or something; or 2) we know each other IRL but haven’t been in touch for some years.

And suddenly a post of theirs pops up in my feed. Just out of the blue for some reason suddenly I see one of their posts. Whereas I usually don’t. And the post is very shocking somehow. In a political / societal sense. Like a strong hate meme or something.

My first impulse is to just block those people; decide that they are impossible and off the deep end and no use trying to talk to them.

But the thing is, people are influenced by other people. How often in my life have I ended up shifting my viewpoint because a fellow human being in my proximity chose to engage with me instead of just cutting me out? Maybe not everyone has experienced this, but it has definitely happened a lot with me. Because I am no saint and have had to do a lot of evolving in my life to become a somewhat decent person.

Which is not by any means to say that by reaching out, I should expect to change everyone’s mind, or even change a lot of people’s minds. But at least sometimes it’s worth trying to bridge the divide. ***And (very important!) actually a lot of the time, we end up finding out that the divide was an illusion and we really are more on the same page than we had thought.***

In my anti-racism learning in recent years, I’ve been introduced to the concept of calling people IN as opposed to calling-out.

This is not about glossing over racism, misogyny, transphobia, xenophobia, or any other hate and bigotry. The object of such communication isn’t to have warm fuzzy feelings and be pals with people who spout that kind of stuff & live it to some degree.

Rather, the object is to try to make some kind of difference in that person’s outlook, based on my connection with the person (whatever connection existed before I saw the person post hate speech). ***OR, probably just as often — or maybe even more often — to realize that we actually really are basically on the same page!***

So far, most of my efforts to call people in have been very clumsy. Today an old social acquaintance I tried to engage got furious, accused me of fakeness and narcissism, and blocked me.

Now I’m not saying the outcome would’ve been any different if I had tread more slowly and cautiously. But next time something like this comes up, I have an idea of how I could approach things so there might be a little bit more of a chance of an opening for dialogue.

What I did was jump right into a direct message to someone I hadn’t spoken with in 10 years or more! After seeing a really strong hate meme on their page. For some reason today a post of theirs suddenly popped up on my feed. Let’s just say it managed to cover the bases of misogynoir, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, just plain recreational cruelty, and probably some other things as well. And their followers posted additional hateful GIFs reinforcing the original.

I decided to direct message my old friend.

What I should’ve done is just written something like, “Hey _, it’s been some years and suddenly your post popped up on my feed so I thought I would say hi. How are you doing?”

And then let the response come, and then try something from there.

Instead, I launched into the whole kit and caboodle all at once. I did at least first ask “How are you?” — but then rather than just wait for a response to that, and go from there, I immediately launched into “what’s the deal with that meme, you always seemed like a really nice person” etc.

A couple months ago, this shoe was on the other foot with a different person from my life. Someone from way back in school days, who I had “Facebook friended” but we had never really talked, messaged me in response to a post of mine that she interpreted as being antisemitic. Accused me of supporting Nazis, condoning murder etc.

I was too reactive and started jumping down their throat, when instead what I needed to do was take a deep breath and ask which post they were referring to, because I actually didn’t know and I had to go checking back.

That encounter was salvaged because I was able to explain to this old school acquaintance that the post they had interpreted as being antisemitic had nothing to do with Israel, and was about Native Americans.

Now still, there is a gap between me and that person. I have not attempted further discussion, and I imagine that if they knew that I was sympathetic towards the Palestinians as well as the Israelis they would not be happy. But at least there is some possibility for further discussion.

Whereas with the person who I contacted today, my hasty jumping-in closed off all possibility of a dialogue as I have been blocked.

Again I’m not looking for any kind of reassurance that I’m a good person yada yada. This is practical troubleshooting.

Why does it matter? Who cares what individuals are saying to each other in the direct messages of social media?

Well, I don’t think that war and peace are an on-off switch thing that only has to do with what governments are doing from on high. I think that war or peace is here and now, on the ground in front of us, happening between us as everyday grassroots individuals.

I am a strong believer in the butterfly effect, and the neighbor effect. Contagion can be beneficial or not.

In World War II Germany and other parts of Europe, neighborly relations broke down as people found themselves on opposite sides of the political divide. Now, as well as back then, some of the divide probably will not be able to be helped. If somebody is going to spout hate and genocide, there may likely be no reasoning with them. But there are times when I feel I have a responsibility to try.

Another dimension of my personal sense of responsibility is in my capacity as a person who identifies as “left/liberal.” Many times, we so-called “liberals” have been meanspirited in our characterizations of “the other side,” and we have posted mean memes as well. Two wrongs don’t make a right. I have started talking with my “liberalish” friends about this, and I should have started long ago. So my attempts at outreach across the liberal – conservative divide are part of an ongoing amends and reform too.

Note, I would not presume to try to tell someone else that they need to try to engage people who are spouting hate. Activism takes many forms.

Other lessons for me:

  • After the incident, I realized belatedly that although I thought I had gotten my intention focused on increasing understanding, there was still some part of me that was in it to try to convert somebody. The feeling of me being right and wanting to prove someone else wrong.
  • It’s OK to feel sad. The person this morning was someone I had known from a very peace-centered community years back. I literally can’t remember anyone in that community being mean to anyone. I was actually the meanest person I knew in that community! There is grief in acknowledging that people change, and/or that all along this person was not who I thought they were. In such cases, though, I need to remind myself that the tragedy is collective rather than just personal.
  • Although I have done a lot of work on it, I am still too much of an approval-seeker. When I catch myself trying to just “be liked,” I have to acknowledge it and check myself. On that note, when the person called me narcissistic they were actually right in a way, because in part of my message I was “trying to be nice” in a way that, when I thought about it later, was inauthentic. People who have dealt with narcissism are very rightfully allergic to fakeness. We should all be allergic to fakeness.And I can see how that would come across as like narcissistic love-bombing.
  • Things work better in these interactions if I stay focused on my larger purpose, which is to try to add to the level of peace in the world, or failing that, at least not add to the pain & discord that’s already out there.
  • By no means is it good, necessary, possible, or wise to try to talk to everyone. When I first saw the hate meme meme pop up on my feed, my first impulse was oh, just unfriend this person. And sometimes that might be the best course.
  • If I’m going to choose to try to talk to people, popular movies and social stuff can be a good onramp. For example, when I checked this person’s page after seeing the hate meme, I saw that they had posted about a current popular movie, dealing with TEOTWAWKI / Doomer-adjacent themes. One thing I noticed about the great political divide in the USA is that there are Doomers on both sides of it. And doomerism is something I can relate to.
  • And regarding social stuff as an onramp: I could just ask “Hey, are you still going to XYZ community social event that we used to go to back in the day?” Or “Do you still do XYZ type of work?”
  • If I’m going to choose to try to do this engagement, I have to remember to correct for my problematic behavior patterns. Which I have made progress on but they still do crop up. Mine include a general lack of social skills, and a tendency to talk too much, use too many words. Those tendencies are things I can correct for if I remember to do that.

And in closing (if you have read this far, thank you so much!!):

How about you? Have you had experience with trying to reach across “the divide”? And have you had experience where you just decided to quietly block or unfriend somebody? (I have done that too.)

Please feel free to share anything that has worked for you, or has not worked for you. I’m not so self-important as to believe that my tiny actions are going to make the difference between our country breaking out in a civil war or not, but I do really strongly believe in the butterfly effect and all that, and I believe in doing what I can as an individual. And I know a lot of you are similarly minded and that things weigh on your hearts.

Further exploration:

• Posting a quote here from one of my alltime favorite teachers. Harry Palmer, author of the Avatar® materials. This quote has made a huge difference in my life: “When we perceive that the only difference between us is beliefs and that beliefs can be created or discreated with ease, the right and wrong game will wind down, a co-create game will unfold, and world peace will ensue.”

• And a dear steadfast reader, Tim B, shares this excellent quote from a transcript of popular commentator Rachel Maddow’s podcast: ” … I want us all to make ourselves as resilient as we can. And that means not having baggage trailing behind you that you don’t want to be trailing behind you. It means making up with your estranged family members. It means getting to know your neighbors. It means if you have very serious concerns about politics, it means working in a political campaign. It means having something to do with the civic life of where you are so that you are not alone. While we have a tough year in this country, this has come for us in this generation, in this country, in this lifetime. And it does not come for every generation. It has come for us and we need to be up to it. And it means you cannot live in your phone and you cannot, you can’t build from a position of despair and feeling powerless.”

• Tim B also reminded me that Katharine Hayhoe’s book has been on my reading list. Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. I need to bump it up. Tim shared this quote from the book: ” … ironically, the very thing we fear most. Talk about it. Why are people not talking about something that matters to them so much? Even if we agree it’s real and it’s serious, talking about it can be discouraging and depressing. There’s too great a risk the conversation might devolve into a screaming match or end up leaving everyone overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem. We want to talk about it; we just don’t know how.” (Her highly acclaimed book sets out to explain the “how.”)

Food desert fusion cuisine, continued

Today I forgot to set up the solar oven in time to make a hot lunch.

(This being a regular urban house, hooked up to the grid with electricity and running water and all that stuff, we do of course have a regular oven, stovetop, etc. But I really like to use the solar oven whenever I can.) 

That’s OK, the weather has been warm so I didn’t really feel the need for hot lunch. So instead I opted for one of my favorite, easy-prep cold lunches.

  • Greens from my garden
  • Wild greens foraged from nearby
  • The last of an onion and a jalapeño purchased last week from Joanne’s organic shop (on West ISB just the other side of the bridge)
  • Can of refried beans from rotating out old hurricane-rations this past week
    - Remains of a bag of shredded cheddar purchased at the 1313 neighborhood minimart last week
  • Tabasco sauce, probably purchased from minimart
  • Ritz crackers and sour cream purchased at neighborhood 711 today

Chopped all veggies into small pieces.

Combined all ingredients except the crackers. Left the various ingredients loosely layered in the bowl rather than vigorously mixed. Then spooned the dip onto the crackers. Tasty, filling lunch w plenty of leftovers! This will end up being multiple meals.

Note: If I had felt inclined, I could have puréed the dip ingredients in my mini blender to make a smooth creamy dip. I sometimes do that. But today I felt like having a more chunky, multi-colored, multi-textured lunch experience.

Fun fact about the shredded cheddar: It was cheaper by pound to buy it shredded than to buy it in a block. The minimart proprietor thinks it’s because shrink-wrapping a block of cheddar costs the cheesemaking company more than packing shredded cheddar loosely into a bag.

(I say “fun fact” because the favorable price meant not having to use the cheese-grater. One less dish for me to wash.)

Eco note: Both types of cheese, the block and the shredded, came packaged in plastic. So there was no advantage, in terms of single-use-plastic avoidance, to either the block of cheese or the bag of shredded cheese.

PS. Oh, and an apple for dessert. Also from the 7-Eleven. They seem to make an effort to offer fresh fruit at low prices there. For example, I routinely pick up two bananas for a dollar. Can’t beat that in the neighborhood!

You can see pics here, in this post on my Deep Green Book page on Facebook.

#fooddesertfusioncuisine #PrepperHomeEc #DoomerBoomer #TEOTWAWKIstylefiles

Chilly-weather musings

We’ve had a few nights of what in Florida passes as chilly weather. Last night it dropped from 73 to 48!

A lot of the houses in my historic seaside neighborhood actually have fireplaces. Some of the fireplaces are still usable, while others have been converted to strictly decorative. Or in my case, removed by previous owners in order to create a bedroom closet. Boo, hiss!!!

I wish the prior owners of my house had left the fireplace intact, instead of turning it into a closet. I would love to have a compact, high-efficiency woodstove attached to that chimney. Right now, the house just has a chimney with no fireplace or way to rig up a woodstove.

In my experience, closets in Florida are just mold-boxes, and here in the semitropics I much prefer a wicker armoire to a closet. Of course the real-estate industry or some other well-heeled industry has made sure that we can’t legally call any room a “bedroom” unless it has a closet, which is just plain silly because obviously people got along for many years living in bedrooms that had no closets.

Interested in high-efficiency heating with deadwood twigs? Visit the forums at https://www.permies.com and look for Rocket Mass Heater (RMH), Rocket Stove, Russian Stove. There are also abundant videos on YouTube from many sources, and writings in many places online. (I’m not being coy here; there are just literally more than I can keep track of!)

Also check out at Aprovecho Research Center’s booklet/series Capturing Heat, which I think is available as PDF even if it’s out of print.

And be sure to Google or other type of search for “passive solar.” Simple, low-tech ways to stay warm just by using the heat of the sun plus glass windows, dark-painted surfaces, rocks, discarded concrete chunks, and other elements widely available for cheap or free. No photons were murdered in the making of my warm kettle of water in the solar oven this afternoon!

Regarding heat tolerance: The human body seems to have a certain temperature envelope. Interestingly though, a lot of people here in Florida are very heat-intolerant as well as being cold-intolerant. But that heat-intolerance is probably mostly an artifact of the modern age of ubiquitous central AC.

There are ways to acclimate to the heat though, probably a lot more easily than acclimating to the cold! Fortunately the human body is more heat-tolerant than cold-tolerant overall.

That said, I accidentally found one of the best ways of becoming cold-tolerant. I gained a bunch of weight LOL. I’m still a fairly average-size person, which just means I was extremely stringbean-skinny before. I will say, if you are a fellow stringbean who plans to pursue the weight-gain plan for surviving the zombie apocalypse, try to gain your weight a little earlier in life than I did. If you gain a bunch of weight in your 50s, it’s super heavy to carry around ha ha.

So how about you guys, has it gotten chilly where you are? And have you turned on the heat yet this season?

Do you have central heating, or do you use radiant heaters etc.?

This house came with central heating and AC, but since we have different temperature tolerances, each housemate uses their own little heater to control their room temperature. I am in my I believe 14th winter with no heat other than passive solar. It’s going great, and if anything I have trouble when I spend a long time in buildings with forced-air heating; I end up with dry skin and dry nose/throat etc. And I really love cold temperatures for sleeping.

When I was a kid, I was amazed to find out that my grandparents in Massachusetts would sleep with their bedroom window open even in January. Now I totally get it!

PS. I almost forgot to mention! For more tips on thriving in chilly weather, you can also use the search feature of this blog, as I have often posted about the topic. Look for terms such as “doing without heat” and “winter.”

Bicycles: An essential industry

Someone posted on Facebook a picture of a wartime newspaper page, reporting that bicycles were an essential industry, and preferred form of transportation, because the metal needed to make one car could instead be used to make 150 bicycles.

This prompted me to write a bit about my choice to get around mainly by bicycle and foot rather than own a car.

I live in a place where bicycles are not seen as a legitimate mode of transport. Same with walking.

(As I point out in my book DEEP GREEN, in USA society nobody questions it when you pay money to drive to a gym in order to walk on the treadmill or ride a stationary bicycle. But if you do those same activities outdoors, and it also serves as your transportation to run errands and get to meetings and such, you’re considered some kind of a wacko! Go figure!)

People who actually choose to not own a car are marginalized and looked down upon, treated like some kind of sideshow exhibit or someone who needs looking after. It is very exhausting sometimes. But at the end of the day, I’m OK with being treated like some kind of extremely rare zoo animal <laugh-hysterical emoticon x 3>, because what I do is for a larger purpose of conducting research, raising awareness, AND (take note!!) for many reasons related to my own personal preference and self-interest as well!

A very important thing to be aware of is that not everyone in our car-centered USA culture has the choice to not own a car. Some people are forced to incur the expense of a car just to get to their job and get their basic everyday needs met. And the expense of the car, including constant worry of breakdowns etc., eats into their household budget to the point where they are not getting adequate nutrition and are struggling to be able to afford a place to live!

It’s by no means so extremely car-chauvinistic everywhere I’ve lived, but this is the place I fell in love with and adopted as my hometown, so I will continue my transportation activism and keep pushing for the infrastructure to become more friendly to all people, not just people who drive and can afford cars. Look at how our current society keeps children and many elders dependent on someone else to drive them around! This is no way to live and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

This is kind of getting long, but I do have many personal reasons for choosing not to own a car. First, I will ALWAYS have better ways to spend that money. ALWAYS. Books, online courses, eating at my favorite restaurants, contributing what I can to essential causes including mental health, local indie cinema & other local arts, literacy, mutual aid in my community. The list goes on and on, of better things I have to do with my money then use it for a car.

I am happy to pay a neighbor to be my occasional taxi for those rare times I just can’t get somewhere I need to be without a car. Would rather pay that money to my friend, a young single mom, than have my own whole entire car to deal with.

And yes I do have my driver’s license and a perfect record, I even have my motorcycle endorsement, but I just choose not to own a motor vehicle.

Second, I need plenty of exercise to stay healthy. I’m talking about mental health as much as physical.

Also, I just feel kind of trapped when I’m inside a car, I feel separated from things and people, and it’s not safe or easy to just stop and look at something interesting while one is behind the wheel.

If I ever become not able to walk or ride a bicycle, I would want to get a nice rugged little mobility scooter. Our infrastructure needs to be 100% friendly to people on mobility scooters and wheelchairs.

Also, another reason I prefer not to own a car is that the things are a pain to park. It would be great if at one’s destination a car could be folded up into a compact size about the size of a handbag and be carried over one’s shoulder until one was ready to drive home. But under the current laws of physics, it doesn’t work that way. Having to look for parking is a tedious chore. And parking chews up so much land and turns our once-lively downtowns into vacant wastelands of asphalt.

Also, when I’m driving, I never meet anybody. Funny how that works. Whereas on the bus or train, or on foot or bicycle, I meet so many interesting people! Even if I am in total introvert mode. I can totally be quiet and not have to talk and still get to hear so many wonderful stories. And find out so much community info that I would not find out otherwise.

OK, and let’s be honest, I really really really like FOOD, and if I were to suddenly start getting around by car instead of human-powered transport, I’m pretty sure my blood sugar and cholesterol and all that would just go through the roof! I’m in my 60s, and have to deal with paying much more attention to my health than I used to when I was young!

And there is the environmental footprint of course too.

(Eco good news note — regarding the figure of 150 bicycles shown in the post — I am copying someone’s comment from the original post: Bikes can be made mostly of wood or bamboo with steel required only for moving parts. Hence, the ratio could be even better.)

You can see my post on Facebook, with the original meme, here.

Let’s stop “othering” China and other “big bad polluters”

We environmentalists have a sad habit of wanting to “other” other countries, as well as the petroleum industry etc. A lot of my fellow environmentalists like to share memes about how China is a big bad polluter and so on.

I guess it’s sort of human nature, to not want to face up to the pain. We care passionately about the environment, ecosystems, fellow creatures — and the idea that we are causing so much damage just by trying to get our daily needs met is very painful.

But the good news is it doesn’t have to be that way; that’s my basic message in my book and blog and other platforms.

And: Finger-pointing doesn’t solve things. What does help start to get the solution happening, is looking in the mirror; looking at what we ourselves can do.

And regarding China: We are all connected. A lot of China’s pollution comes from USA consumer demand. Also if it’s pollution per capita, USA probably tops the list, or close to it.

World Population Review offers a useful graphic representation of countries’ footprints from a per capita standpoint:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/ecological-footprint-by-country

The positive flipside is that our country (USA, and also places with certain similarities of lifestyle such as Canada and Australia) has a lot of power to make change for the better if we put our attention in that direction.

That applies particularly to us Boomers, with our spending power and the sheer numbers of us.

Note, certain petro-intensive economies such as Qatar, Dubai in the UAE do have a higher per capita footprint than USA but they are the rare exception.

Would you like to know your personal footprint and get some tips and inspiration for reducing? Footprint Calculator is a page I’ve been using for awhile to keep rough track of my personal footprint:

http://www.footprintcalculator.org/home/en

My footprint seems to vary a lot between 0.6 earths and 1.5 earths depending on how I calculate my household size, and how much local food I’m eating that week.

But of course, personal changes are no substitute for activism, and I will always be an ACTIVIST first, pushing for policies and infrastructure that support/allow sustainable practices among the general population. It’s no good if I’m living comfortably and happily with my thrifty lifestyle, but other people do not have the same access and opportunities. If it’s not healthy and equitable for all of us, it’s not healthy for the planet.

To get back to the original header of this post: We need to stop othering China and other so-called “big bad polluters.” And instead, if we really want to get to the roots of change, we need to first look in the mirror. LITM!!

Cooking with the sun; and an intro to “food-desert fusion cuisine”

Solar cooking yesterday afternoon. Today’s lunch was cheesy biscuits. Canned biscuit dough smashed flat in the pan, then topped with sliced onion and a bit of butter, and some shredded cheese. Jalapeños on one half.

For veggies, I munched on some celery stalks, and also picked some Okinawa spinach from my little garden. Dressing was the famous super-popular Judah’s salad dressing made by Kale Cafe Juice Bar & Vegan Cuisine.

My name for my genre of cooking is “food-desert fusion cuisine.” Whatever groceries I can obtain within a 25-minute walk of my house. (The nearest full-size grocery stores are 2 to 3 miles away, which makes this area a food desert.)

Ideally, every neighborhood would have a full grocery store within a 10-minute walk. That’s how it traditionally was in neighborhoods. Grocery store, drugstore, and other basic essential needs all within the neighborhood.

My friend Joanne’s wonderful little organic grocery shop, Natural Concepts Revisited LLC, is about a 25-minute brisk walk, over the ISB bridge. She sells local fresh vegetables and fruits, all organic, and packaged foods, nutritional supplements, coffees and teas, and much more. She also hosts classes and vendors’ markets. A real community resource!

Another place I get groceries is a minimart in my neighborhood, where the owner very kindly tries to meet people’s grocery needs to some degree. (That minimart, about a 5-minute walk from my house, is where I got the canned biscuits and shredded cheese and the butter, well actually margarine since they didn’t have any butter.)

Other sources of groceries in walking distance include my little garden, as well as whatever tasty wild nutritious edibles I find growing nearby, which at some times of the year is actually quite a lot – unless the owners of empty lots are being really aggressive about mowing. (I always hate to see a whole field of free food, free herbal medicine, and beautiful wildflowers that provide food & habitat for other species get mowed down to dust!).

There is something humorous yet very practical about a meal that combines fresh-picked wild plants or garden veggies with canned biscuits from the neighborhood minimart, and / or a can of beans left over from the weekly food distribution at the church down the street.

(People who go to the church on Wednesdays to pick up their mixed bag of groceries sometimes leave some of the items on the sidewalk nearby. Maybe because the cans get too heavy to carry home, or maybe they just don’t like canned beans, or maybe their cabinets are full already. Me, I make use of these curbside windfalls to swap out my hurricane rations. Yesterday along with some cans of beans was an extra score, two big bags of raisins!)

I have fun doing this kind of cooking challenge, but I also do it to raise awareness of food deserts, nutritious wild edible plants, the challenges to aging in place, and the need for walkable communities where all have access to basic services.

The ideal would be if we were growing food all over the city. Fruit trees, nuts, vegetables in every neighborhood. And of course a full grocery store in every neighborhood, with lots of fresh produce and other high-quality groceries.

I used to get a very high percentage of my groceries from the Saturday farmers’ market downtown, til it got shut down.

Many people I know use grocery delivery services, which are a great help for people who don’t drive.

Also, a lot of people order food items from Amazon or other online merchants. I myself purchased two big bags of protein powder a while back from a small business I met on TikTok.

#solarcooking #renewableenergy #passivesolar #fooddesertfusioncuisine #PrepperHomeEc #offgrid

You can see pix here.

Recharging my 4Patriots generator with its included solar panel

Testing the solar-panel charge mode of my 4Patriots Sidekick. A compact, handy 300W unit, the Sidekick is the smallest model offered by 4Patriots and is perfect for our household electricity needs, which in times of emergency mainly just consist of keeping our phones charged.

(And in everyday non-emergency times, it’s perfect for recharging my phone/ebook device while I’m glamping in my super stylish urban offgrid she-shed! <winky heart smile>)

There is also a handy LED lamp built-into the generator, which not only makes a super reading light if I’m reading a paper book while glamping in the she-shed, but for times of emergency also has an SOS signal flash mode.

And, I can also use this baby to power my little coffee-grinder, and my Bullet smoothie maker! Tested it out on both and it works great!

The solar panel is a 40W that folds very compactly, Very convenient and easy to stow and easy to use and it seems to work pretty good. Charging is very very slow, but interestingly enough, charging indoors from the AC wall outlet to DC unit is very very slow as well, and at least with the solar panel I’m not having to pay FPL to recharge the unit ha ha.

By the way, the manufacturer estimated charging time for the unit is seven hours. That’s quite substantial, but also in real life it seems to take significantly longer than seven hours. (Update: actually not sure about that, I lost track of the time. I now think it may be pretty close to the seven hours rated by the manufacturer.)

Overall, I am pretty happy with this unit, but the lengthy recharge time is inconvenient. BUT WAIT!! Great news!! — I just now walked back down to the foot of my driveway to check on the charging status, and saw that it had suddenly reached 100% charged!

So either the solar panels work a lot better than indoor AC-wall-socket-to-DC charging mode, or the battery just charges very abruptly, or maybe both.

But whatever the case, I am very happy with how my charging experiment with the solar panel went today. And I’m very happy with this 4Patriots Sidekick unit.

By the way, 4Patriots offers a full line of different-size generators, some of them capable of powering a refrigerator, air conditioner, or even a freezer. But for needs like that, I myself have always found the “soft skills” of living without refrigeration / freezer capability to be a lot more convenient and robust than relying on a generator for such high-wattage needs.

The manufacturer actually recommends running the unit down to zero at least once every few months to keep the battery in shape. This fits in just fine with my newfound she-shed glamping habit. And I will always make sure it’s fully charged going into hurricane season.

Yeah, you can just call me the Martha Stewart of the zombie apocalypse <wink>.

You can see pics here of the setup charging in my driveway.

#DoomerWithASmile #PrepperHomeEc