Our tomato plants are still growing and producing, and we have far too many cherry and grape tomatoes. They are hard to can because of the skins, so we decided to try and dehydrate them. The experiment was a success. It does take almost 24 hours to dry the big ones in the Excalibur. Brad cut them in half and put them cut side up on the trays and turned it on the vegetable setting.
Once dry they are tiny and very sweet with a lot of tomato flavor, they
will make a good replacement for sun dried tomatoes in recipes and cost
us almost nothing to have. I am going to seal them up in jars with the
food saver jar sealer to add one more layer of preservation.
We are going to have to do a round of canning this weekend again we have another 10-20 lbs of regular tomatoes as well. I think I will start blanching peeling and cutting them up as soon as I have some energy today and just keep them in the fridge until we decide what to make with them this time. I am leaning toward spaghetti sauce or chili mix (no meat) this time.
Preparednesspro.com had a wonderful article on equipment for a prepping kitchen yesterday too - here is a link to that.
http://preparednesspro.com/four-must-have-items-in-your-kitchen/
Makes me want to get a pressure cooker just to try it out! We do not do grains anymore so we don't need the grain mill either. I actually had a nutrimill that I passed on to my dad for his own home grain making. I do have a canner and the food saver with the jar attachment that I love.
Oh and here is a link to a nice easy way to make almond flour for cheaper too! I think for prepping purposes we will have to grind it up and seal it already ground.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IKOXUlXHhg
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Canning Adventures
So we took the plunge and started canning our own food today. Spent some time yesterday snapping 6 bags of green beans that we got from our co-op. Tomatoes have started slowly ripening so we have been picking and saving them for several days now. We got about 8 qt and another 10 pints of green beans and about 7 or 8 pints of home-made salsa. Seems like not much for an 8 hours day of work but it's a start! We will be more efficient now that we know a little more what to do.
We learned that canning takes longer than you would think and having 2 canners will speed things up once we get the gasket and valve replaced on mine (also part of the adventure...why is this thing leaking!?) we can use that along side the one we borrowed from my mom. When something says you need to process it for 30 mins its really 60-90 mins with the heating up, venting, processing time and cooling down. It was also a blessing to have an extra table to set up in the middle of our kitchen floor to hold all the jars we were filling and getting ready. I can't imagine doing this without a dishwasher either, it made the cleaning of the jars so much easier. Next time however we will do the jars before we go to bed as we spent over an hour waiting on the dishwasher to finish so we could start and it put us behind for the day.
When we get a big batch of tomatoes we will can those diced and whole for cooking and soups. We are also going to make some homemade spaghetti sauce with meat and some kind of soup. The salsa sounded so good and the cilantro is coming in fast and the tomatoes were a bit sparse so we figured while we have only a small amount of tomatoes we will just salsa it.
I am going to try and do some canning weekly and experiment to see what we find we like and what tastes good once we crack it open and try it. We will also be getting a beef quarter byt the end of this month so some meat canning is also planned. We actually have enough stew meat now to make some meat soups and maybe some canned stew meat.
Its been fun and I think we will enjoy the food this winter as well as feel more prepared with our food stores.
We learned that canning takes longer than you would think and having 2 canners will speed things up once we get the gasket and valve replaced on mine (also part of the adventure...why is this thing leaking!?) we can use that along side the one we borrowed from my mom. When something says you need to process it for 30 mins its really 60-90 mins with the heating up, venting, processing time and cooling down. It was also a blessing to have an extra table to set up in the middle of our kitchen floor to hold all the jars we were filling and getting ready. I can't imagine doing this without a dishwasher either, it made the cleaning of the jars so much easier. Next time however we will do the jars before we go to bed as we spent over an hour waiting on the dishwasher to finish so we could start and it put us behind for the day.
When we get a big batch of tomatoes we will can those diced and whole for cooking and soups. We are also going to make some homemade spaghetti sauce with meat and some kind of soup. The salsa sounded so good and the cilantro is coming in fast and the tomatoes were a bit sparse so we figured while we have only a small amount of tomatoes we will just salsa it.
I am going to try and do some canning weekly and experiment to see what we find we like and what tastes good once we crack it open and try it. We will also be getting a beef quarter byt the end of this month so some meat canning is also planned. We actually have enough stew meat now to make some meat soups and maybe some canned stew meat.
Its been fun and I think we will enjoy the food this winter as well as feel more prepared with our food stores.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Paleo prepping
As I was laying in bed last night about to fall asleep it dawned on me that the food storage we need to do for my special diet needs and Pierce's is pretty much Paleo with some rice/potatoes/dairy added in. That means we need to focus on dried fruits, nuts, canned meats, dried and canned veges and any kind of raw organic dairy that is storable (which right now is pretty much zero dairy!). Some of this I have been doing, raisins are great in sealed bags and pouches, I food-saver seal up nuts and have a bunch plans to can tomatoes and green beans in the next few weeks.
What we have not been doing is saving any kind of canned meats, I think I will start picking up some kipper snacks and sardines every time I grocery shop and see if I can find any good brands of other kind of canned meats and buy them in bulk at Sam's club. I am also going to explore canning my own meats as well. Its a relief to think this way because I was beginning to think if we didn't store grains and corn my family would starve. And grains and corn make at least 2 of us very sick, so that was a lose/lose proposition.
I also got an inspiration to actually reserve the paloepreppers.com web name so that in the future if I can find some others who are like me (which seems pretty unlikely at this point!) we can have a place to talk about how we non-mainstream eaters can stash away food for emergencies and just to save money in general.
I am reading a really good book on Paleo eating called "Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat" . I actually got it for free as my kindle loaner book (thanks again Steve!) for the month and it is a wonderful instructional book with lots of recipes and idea included. It also has ways to save money, cook all your own food and making the bulk of it in one day to eat for the week, which is kind of how we do things around here already. it is so good I will probably end up buying it to keep. She does keep it a lot lower carb than we can with 2 thin growing children so I will add in my usually dairy and extra fruits and some starch for the kiddos as well, plus some of our cocnut flour goodies that I bake regularly. The book also gave me some really good ideas for stuff to keep on hand preparedness wise as well as just for being able to whip up a fast yummy nutritious meal. All in all if you have a special diet or even if you don't and are just interested in moving toward a more healthy eating style I recommend you check it out.
What we have not been doing is saving any kind of canned meats, I think I will start picking up some kipper snacks and sardines every time I grocery shop and see if I can find any good brands of other kind of canned meats and buy them in bulk at Sam's club. I am also going to explore canning my own meats as well. Its a relief to think this way because I was beginning to think if we didn't store grains and corn my family would starve. And grains and corn make at least 2 of us very sick, so that was a lose/lose proposition.
I also got an inspiration to actually reserve the paloepreppers.com web name so that in the future if I can find some others who are like me (which seems pretty unlikely at this point!) we can have a place to talk about how we non-mainstream eaters can stash away food for emergencies and just to save money in general.
I am reading a really good book on Paleo eating called "Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat" . I actually got it for free as my kindle loaner book (thanks again Steve!) for the month and it is a wonderful instructional book with lots of recipes and idea included. It also has ways to save money, cook all your own food and making the bulk of it in one day to eat for the week, which is kind of how we do things around here already. it is so good I will probably end up buying it to keep. She does keep it a lot lower carb than we can with 2 thin growing children so I will add in my usually dairy and extra fruits and some starch for the kiddos as well, plus some of our cocnut flour goodies that I bake regularly. The book also gave me some really good ideas for stuff to keep on hand preparedness wise as well as just for being able to whip up a fast yummy nutritious meal. All in all if you have a special diet or even if you don't and are just interested in moving toward a more healthy eating style I recommend you check it out.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Dejunking is prepping too!
I am on a mission to get my house organized and de-junked and our prepping stuff more easily accessible. I am spending 15 minutes (or more) a day cleaning out cupboards, organizing supplies and just making things easier for us to grab and go if needed. I am getting back into writing, so I am going to blog daily as an exercise in consistency. Some on this blog and some on my other personal blog that I tend to ramble on with my health issues. Keeping them separate allows me not to bore people to death!
Each day I come across so many reasons to be prepared and so many good ideas that I want to implement. So for now it will be baby steps, 15 minutes of cleaning and writing a day, and learning to dream and have goals again. I am starting a nice list of "wants" for our prepping and everyday life and I am going to save for things that overlap on both lists. My new addition for today is a Sun Oven that Mary Hunt reviewed. I thought that would be a wonderful addition to our home now and for preparedness.
I still feel like I am lacking in community and friends, I spend most every day home alone not really talking to anyone, which is a nasty by-product of being such a hermit for the past few years. Unfortunately, I couldn't choose not to be sick and my illness took all I had leaving me nothing to give anyone, and barely enough to do even the basic care for my family. Mood swings and general crankiness probably chased a few people away as well. As I am climbing out of that health pit I am slowly moving back into the world and craving some companionship and more importantly community or kindred friends to share my time and my life with. Lets hope I can collect some more along the journey.
The garden is going really well, our tomato plants grew absolutely huge for some odd reason, like 6.5 ft tall and 3-4 feet across. We are just starting to pick the ripe ones, but with 10-12 of those enormous plants I am going to be drowning in tomatoes pretty soon. In other news the peppers and spices are also taking off. We already froze up one batch of basil/oregano/garlic seasoning cubes and there is enough basil to do another one of those. I think I may package them up and give them as gifts this Christmas. With our new lower budget I need to get creative for gift giving! It has been a short but productive summer and I feel like I am moving forward for the first time in years.
Each day I come across so many reasons to be prepared and so many good ideas that I want to implement. So for now it will be baby steps, 15 minutes of cleaning and writing a day, and learning to dream and have goals again. I am starting a nice list of "wants" for our prepping and everyday life and I am going to save for things that overlap on both lists. My new addition for today is a Sun Oven that Mary Hunt reviewed. I thought that would be a wonderful addition to our home now and for preparedness.
I still feel like I am lacking in community and friends, I spend most every day home alone not really talking to anyone, which is a nasty by-product of being such a hermit for the past few years. Unfortunately, I couldn't choose not to be sick and my illness took all I had leaving me nothing to give anyone, and barely enough to do even the basic care for my family. Mood swings and general crankiness probably chased a few people away as well. As I am climbing out of that health pit I am slowly moving back into the world and craving some companionship and more importantly community or kindred friends to share my time and my life with. Lets hope I can collect some more along the journey.
The garden is going really well, our tomato plants grew absolutely huge for some odd reason, like 6.5 ft tall and 3-4 feet across. We are just starting to pick the ripe ones, but with 10-12 of those enormous plants I am going to be drowning in tomatoes pretty soon. In other news the peppers and spices are also taking off. We already froze up one batch of basil/oregano/garlic seasoning cubes and there is enough basil to do another one of those. I think I may package them up and give them as gifts this Christmas. With our new lower budget I need to get creative for gift giving! It has been a short but productive summer and I feel like I am moving forward for the first time in years.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Latest News
So, been a while since I blogged, things have been crazy here with health issues, financial changes and in general being busy with the kids and summer.
We have our 3 containers of water filled now. I am slowly stocking up on other necessities, we have sugar, Sugar leaf that I got for a good deal in bulk, some fruit dried, nuts, coconut flour, raisins and other shelf stable stuff that I come across in my shopping journey. We discovered that blueberries make really good fruit leather that needs almost no sugar, we bought 20 lbs and froze about 15 lbs and made the rest into fruit leather. Five lbs of berries makes very little leather! We will need to remember to eat it sparingly.
We are still dealing with the special diet issues and finding ways to store food to eat with no wheat, corn, oats or other grains. I did buy some dried buttermilk and am looking into butter powder although I know that has to be used within 6 months or so. I think the easiest way to use that will be to start cooking with it. Will still rely primarily on frozen food storage, which is good for a few day or until it all starts thawing. I figure if that happens we will have a great big BBQ and cook all the meat we can. we would like to get some kind of portable generator as well, and with that we could actually take a few days to dry everything we have frozen for a bit longer storage.
Our biggest problem right now is that our storage room turned into a complete disaster very quickly and we need to reorganize it again so that I can get in there and keep the food rotated and organized. the nice shelving unit we bought it already full. I think we are a bit of pack rats around here. I am trying to shift that to a prepping type pack rate and get rid of useless stuff we do not need or use. I revamped our plastic storage container cupboard today and actually store all the container with their lids on them, what a difference that makes when we go to grab a bowl or box to put things in! I plan on bullying my husband into tackling the storage room together this week or next weekend.
We are continuing to make survival bracelets, let me know if you want to purchase any we do special orders and have almost every color there is. I prefer them as ankle bracelets so we make those as well.
We have our 3 containers of water filled now. I am slowly stocking up on other necessities, we have sugar, Sugar leaf that I got for a good deal in bulk, some fruit dried, nuts, coconut flour, raisins and other shelf stable stuff that I come across in my shopping journey. We discovered that blueberries make really good fruit leather that needs almost no sugar, we bought 20 lbs and froze about 15 lbs and made the rest into fruit leather. Five lbs of berries makes very little leather! We will need to remember to eat it sparingly.
We are still dealing with the special diet issues and finding ways to store food to eat with no wheat, corn, oats or other grains. I did buy some dried buttermilk and am looking into butter powder although I know that has to be used within 6 months or so. I think the easiest way to use that will be to start cooking with it. Will still rely primarily on frozen food storage, which is good for a few day or until it all starts thawing. I figure if that happens we will have a great big BBQ and cook all the meat we can. we would like to get some kind of portable generator as well, and with that we could actually take a few days to dry everything we have frozen for a bit longer storage.
Our biggest problem right now is that our storage room turned into a complete disaster very quickly and we need to reorganize it again so that I can get in there and keep the food rotated and organized. the nice shelving unit we bought it already full. I think we are a bit of pack rats around here. I am trying to shift that to a prepping type pack rate and get rid of useless stuff we do not need or use. I revamped our plastic storage container cupboard today and actually store all the container with their lids on them, what a difference that makes when we go to grab a bowl or box to put things in! I plan on bullying my husband into tackling the storage room together this week or next weekend.
We are continuing to make survival bracelets, let me know if you want to purchase any we do special orders and have almost every color there is. I prefer them as ankle bracelets so we make those as well.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Focus during storms
So how do you keep focused on prepping during personal storms? Lately things have been stormy, health storms, work storms, financial storms. So many storms that we are drowning in stress, we have found some new friends through these storms, and learned that we have very little of what we need to survive a real emergency crisis that lasts longer than a few days.
During this process I am taking the time to dream, to give myself some strength to get though this time in my life where life sometimes seems pretty disappointing and so completely off the track from my past dreams. Where would we live if we could? What things would we have to help us be better prepared for a famine or a sustained power outage or a tornado that wrecks everything. how woudl our friendships and relationships look? Can we set up a future for our children that is better than the life we are currently struggling in?
So here is a little bit of my dream:
We would live on some land (preferably at least 10 acres) with a water source, some wooded areas and a few acres that are farm-able. There will be a root cellar or a nice basement for food storage. Our house would be designed to be as energy efficient as possible, and easy to keep up with some sort of solar power and a engineered field for a septic system, and well water or some other form of non- city water supply, rain barrels catches etc. Wind power is also an option.
The storage area will be well defensible for our food and emergency water supplies, I prefer that the house be solid and hard to break into - but with the windows needed for energy efficiency we may have to come up with some kind of special shutters for a true disaster. An emergency escape vehicle is a must - Brad wants a Deuce and a half, but in the interests of costs we may have to go a bit smaller than that. I also want a camper trailer of some sort as temporary shelter and for us to use for camping and vacations (something we have not really had in many years). There will be a barn with chickens and perhaps a milk and beef cow for food, maybe even goats instead of cows because they are edible and produce good milk as well and are much hardier and easy to feed.
Our house would be as much off the grid as we can make it and it will be in proximity to a community of people who want to work together and share our lives and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. I feel a need to surround myself with friends and people we can count on in this world today where people are so busy we all end up alone or living just for ourselves. This is the most important part of my vision, the house is negotiable, the land is negotiable, but I really feel a need to be part of a "village" so to speak, with neighbors that are friends as well as family and fellow villagers. I would be able to use my weird backwoods skills for everyday enjoyment and activities as well as possibly to barter or trade for things I can't do. Back to the basics or what life was life before the information and technology age. Not that I mind information and technology, I just think we need to integrate it a little bit better into a more old fashioned approach for keeping people connected and working together.
So anyway this is the start of my vision of the life an home that I want!
During this process I am taking the time to dream, to give myself some strength to get though this time in my life where life sometimes seems pretty disappointing and so completely off the track from my past dreams. Where would we live if we could? What things would we have to help us be better prepared for a famine or a sustained power outage or a tornado that wrecks everything. how woudl our friendships and relationships look? Can we set up a future for our children that is better than the life we are currently struggling in?
So here is a little bit of my dream:
We would live on some land (preferably at least 10 acres) with a water source, some wooded areas and a few acres that are farm-able. There will be a root cellar or a nice basement for food storage. Our house would be designed to be as energy efficient as possible, and easy to keep up with some sort of solar power and a engineered field for a septic system, and well water or some other form of non- city water supply, rain barrels catches etc. Wind power is also an option.
The storage area will be well defensible for our food and emergency water supplies, I prefer that the house be solid and hard to break into - but with the windows needed for energy efficiency we may have to come up with some kind of special shutters for a true disaster. An emergency escape vehicle is a must - Brad wants a Deuce and a half, but in the interests of costs we may have to go a bit smaller than that. I also want a camper trailer of some sort as temporary shelter and for us to use for camping and vacations (something we have not really had in many years). There will be a barn with chickens and perhaps a milk and beef cow for food, maybe even goats instead of cows because they are edible and produce good milk as well and are much hardier and easy to feed.
Our house would be as much off the grid as we can make it and it will be in proximity to a community of people who want to work together and share our lives and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. I feel a need to surround myself with friends and people we can count on in this world today where people are so busy we all end up alone or living just for ourselves. This is the most important part of my vision, the house is negotiable, the land is negotiable, but I really feel a need to be part of a "village" so to speak, with neighbors that are friends as well as family and fellow villagers. I would be able to use my weird backwoods skills for everyday enjoyment and activities as well as possibly to barter or trade for things I can't do. Back to the basics or what life was life before the information and technology age. Not that I mind information and technology, I just think we need to integrate it a little bit better into a more old fashioned approach for keeping people connected and working together.
So anyway this is the start of my vision of the life an home that I want!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Water Storage
Well we finally have one 7 gallon water storage container full - which could be stretched to 72 hours of drinking for the 4 of us, so goal number one complete! We have 3 more containers to fill and a 4th that was stained inside that we filled for non-drinking usage. We are using our R/O filtered water to fill the containers for drinking so it takes a few days to fill up.
We had one short power outage last week with the hail storm that came through here, I was actually a bit calmer about it as we had enough stuff stored for a few days without power. A little peace of mind goes along way and makes for a good mini practice session.
We still need to come up with a better long term solution for water, something to clean it and a place to get more if we need it. There are so many options out there and most are expensive and some are just not very portable or realistic. One thing that I looked at many years ago was a natural clay or stone filter/cooler for drinking water. They are portable and can last for up to 5 years to purify drinking water. It might even be worth learning how to make a water filter from materials on hand. its my next research project.
We had one short power outage last week with the hail storm that came through here, I was actually a bit calmer about it as we had enough stuff stored for a few days without power. A little peace of mind goes along way and makes for a good mini practice session.
We still need to come up with a better long term solution for water, something to clean it and a place to get more if we need it. There are so many options out there and most are expensive and some are just not very portable or realistic. One thing that I looked at many years ago was a natural clay or stone filter/cooler for drinking water. They are portable and can last for up to 5 years to purify drinking water. It might even be worth learning how to make a water filter from materials on hand. its my next research project.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Snail's Pace
Sometimes it seems to take so long to get even a little bit stored. I am slowly buying things for our food stores. I have added a little canned milk this week. We got a flat of strawberries, which I made into fruit leather but the kids are gobbling it down so I can't count that as stored! The tomatoes are all planted and growing well, a couple days of rain made them grow a lot faster. I have plans this year to can tomatoes and beans, and I am hoping to get some more berries for some jam and fruit leather.
On a really good note, Brad cleaned out our shed and found several water storage containers we bought years again, so I am going to wash them and slowly start filling them with filtered water from our tap. They are the long term blue HDPE containers so they are good for a minimum of 6 months and probably for a lot longer than that. I am tempted to put a little bleach in them just to make them last longer. All I have to do to get rid of the bleach is open up the cap and let them sit for a day or two. And meanwhile I will have our 2 liter bottle stores while the bleach evaporates off.
I am really interested in learning to can meat, I had some canned whitefish at a friends the other day and it was fabulous, I would like to be able to make my own. I am still cruising Craig's List for a pressure canner, as well as an Avion tow behind camper. We are looking at ways to get out of this house and move to a real house with acreage, a place for a root cellar and possibly some chickens and a bigger garden. We are also looking at building a community because we have been alone and on our own for far too long.
The possibilities keep opening up and we are praying about it and keeping our eyes and hearts open for which way we need to go.
On a really good note, Brad cleaned out our shed and found several water storage containers we bought years again, so I am going to wash them and slowly start filling them with filtered water from our tap. They are the long term blue HDPE containers so they are good for a minimum of 6 months and probably for a lot longer than that. I am tempted to put a little bleach in them just to make them last longer. All I have to do to get rid of the bleach is open up the cap and let them sit for a day or two. And meanwhile I will have our 2 liter bottle stores while the bleach evaporates off.
I am really interested in learning to can meat, I had some canned whitefish at a friends the other day and it was fabulous, I would like to be able to make my own. I am still cruising Craig's List for a pressure canner, as well as an Avion tow behind camper. We are looking at ways to get out of this house and move to a real house with acreage, a place for a root cellar and possibly some chickens and a bigger garden. We are also looking at building a community because we have been alone and on our own for far too long.
The possibilities keep opening up and we are praying about it and keeping our eyes and hearts open for which way we need to go.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
The List
As we continue on in our prepping foray's we are slowly making a list of things that we have not done and need to address.
Our biggest vulnerability at this point is water. We have very little water storage, and no way to purify water if we need to other than boiling. So what we have decided to do it to save our empty gallon milk jugs each week - sterilize them with boiling water and fill them up with our filtered water to store for 4-5 months (after that the plastic in the milk jugs start to break down and leach into the water). We also have a couple of big water storage jugs that will we be filling with emergency water and I am currently researching long term water purification options (although we do have an R/O filter on our sink which runs without electricity that I may also figure out how to convert for water purification since we carry about 2 years worth of filters int he house because it is cheaper to buy them in bulk.
As much as it pains me I also need to learn to can food and spend some time throughout the summer canning and putting up some food for use each year. I want to learn how to can meat as well as fruit and vegetables. We need to step up the drying as well, shortage of cheaper produce through out the winter has kept that down other than jerky, which we eat faster than we can seem to store it.
Food wise we need more coconut flour and cream, and we could use another gallon or so of the oil as well. I want to find a recipe for some good energy bars that have no starch in them so that we all have an option for a high calorie food - maybe pemmican like made with coconut cream and oil. Being limited to no starch or wheat or corn products is a huge challenge, it basically means that we can buy little to no prepared food to store because EVERYTHING has wheat corn and starch in it that you can buy on the reg store shelves. It means a lot more making things ourselves and having single ingredients instead of easy prepared food to live off.
Back on the kitchen list of things to do are making homemade vegetable stocks and sauerkraut and have that on hand to store and eat continually for the health benefits. This is not a prepping thing so much as a personal health thing but I think we can incorporate it into our food stores as well. We also need to do an inventory of our freezer and probably buy another beef quarter in the next month or so.
On the personal protection front we are taking a CPL class next weekend and saving up our pennies to buy 2 hand guns and practice with them regularly at a shooting range. We have several ranges nearby, we just need to choose an affordable one or look at the cost of the range vs driving to some personal property we have been offered to use for target shooting.
That is just the beginning of our list of things we have not done, but int he interest of keeping this in nice small bite-sized packages to prevent burnout and getting discouraged it seems enough for today!
Our biggest vulnerability at this point is water. We have very little water storage, and no way to purify water if we need to other than boiling. So what we have decided to do it to save our empty gallon milk jugs each week - sterilize them with boiling water and fill them up with our filtered water to store for 4-5 months (after that the plastic in the milk jugs start to break down and leach into the water). We also have a couple of big water storage jugs that will we be filling with emergency water and I am currently researching long term water purification options (although we do have an R/O filter on our sink which runs without electricity that I may also figure out how to convert for water purification since we carry about 2 years worth of filters int he house because it is cheaper to buy them in bulk.
As much as it pains me I also need to learn to can food and spend some time throughout the summer canning and putting up some food for use each year. I want to learn how to can meat as well as fruit and vegetables. We need to step up the drying as well, shortage of cheaper produce through out the winter has kept that down other than jerky, which we eat faster than we can seem to store it.
Food wise we need more coconut flour and cream, and we could use another gallon or so of the oil as well. I want to find a recipe for some good energy bars that have no starch in them so that we all have an option for a high calorie food - maybe pemmican like made with coconut cream and oil. Being limited to no starch or wheat or corn products is a huge challenge, it basically means that we can buy little to no prepared food to store because EVERYTHING has wheat corn and starch in it that you can buy on the reg store shelves. It means a lot more making things ourselves and having single ingredients instead of easy prepared food to live off.
Back on the kitchen list of things to do are making homemade vegetable stocks and sauerkraut and have that on hand to store and eat continually for the health benefits. This is not a prepping thing so much as a personal health thing but I think we can incorporate it into our food stores as well. We also need to do an inventory of our freezer and probably buy another beef quarter in the next month or so.
On the personal protection front we are taking a CPL class next weekend and saving up our pennies to buy 2 hand guns and practice with them regularly at a shooting range. We have several ranges nearby, we just need to choose an affordable one or look at the cost of the range vs driving to some personal property we have been offered to use for target shooting.
That is just the beginning of our list of things we have not done, but int he interest of keeping this in nice small bite-sized packages to prevent burnout and getting discouraged it seems enough for today!
Thursday, May 10, 2012
The Financial Side of Preparedness
One of the things you do not see addressed very often is the financial aspect of being prepared. I have been working on learning financial self sufficiency for years using debtproofliving.com. The truth is that credit and living in debt is taken for granted in our society and used as actual income by many people, and but our government as well (trillions in debt anyone?).
The fact related to this truth is that as long as you are in debt it is very hard to be prepared for emergencies, because if something bad happens you could very well lose everything to your creditors. Not to mention being in debt reduces the amount you can spend on preparedness supplies because you have to spend that money to pay back your creditors. Mary Hunt has become my financial preparedness mentor and I am using her books, newsletter and daily emails to become better at managing our money and get us out of debt and into the realm of real self sufficiency.
Growing up I learned a little bit about money management from my grandmother and my mother but for the most part I was influenced by the credit companies and loan givers and stores that told me I deserved everything I wanted right now. I fell slowly and continually into debt. I got married in debt, and he had debt too. Then I quit to stay home and left behind half of our income and we got into more debt. Then I got sick and the idea of me being able to go back to work suddenly disappeared and we needed to get serious about learning to manage our money. Back then this website was called Cheapskate monthly and had a mailed out newsletter of tips along with her books.
Time has gone by and we are finally living on our income and not credit and slowly climbing out of the debt hole we are in. We are teaching our kids about budgeting for what you want and not living off credit, and I read the newsletter every month and still learn something new about being prepared. Check it out - it might help you in your quest for preparedness as well.
www.debtproofliving.com
The fact related to this truth is that as long as you are in debt it is very hard to be prepared for emergencies, because if something bad happens you could very well lose everything to your creditors. Not to mention being in debt reduces the amount you can spend on preparedness supplies because you have to spend that money to pay back your creditors. Mary Hunt has become my financial preparedness mentor and I am using her books, newsletter and daily emails to become better at managing our money and get us out of debt and into the realm of real self sufficiency.
Growing up I learned a little bit about money management from my grandmother and my mother but for the most part I was influenced by the credit companies and loan givers and stores that told me I deserved everything I wanted right now. I fell slowly and continually into debt. I got married in debt, and he had debt too. Then I quit to stay home and left behind half of our income and we got into more debt. Then I got sick and the idea of me being able to go back to work suddenly disappeared and we needed to get serious about learning to manage our money. Back then this website was called Cheapskate monthly and had a mailed out newsletter of tips along with her books.
Time has gone by and we are finally living on our income and not credit and slowly climbing out of the debt hole we are in. We are teaching our kids about budgeting for what you want and not living off credit, and I read the newsletter every month and still learn something new about being prepared. Check it out - it might help you in your quest for preparedness as well.
www.debtproofliving.com
Monday, April 30, 2012
The Gardening Dilemma... solved?
So one of the things we really want to do is to have a decent sized garden and grow some of our own food. This will help us preserve some food and also allow us to have fresh produce that we have grown ourselves. We have been prepping the soil in our backyard for a couple of years with compost and it is now very healthy. The problem is the sun exposure is blocked by trees and we do not own the land we live on so we have to get permission to make any changes.
There are two huge trees we figured they would never let us cut down, but I discovered today that is actually a possibility. Then we simply need to put in to practice a lot of the gardening tips for small areas we have been reading about this winter.
I did buy some seeds when we were out at Home Depot and a few little seed starter kits, I am going to get those going this week so I can have some plants for our soon to be revamped garden. This year we will need to buy plants to get a harvest on time, but for next year we might be able to make a temporary greenhouse in back and row all of our own seedlings.
Some of the books we are reading on gardening:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1882424581/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1602399840/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i02
We are going to look into heirloom seeds, because another thing we want is to use the seeds from year to year and save even more money. For now we bought mostly organic seeds since they don't seem to sell heirloom seeds at any stores around here, so we will probably have to order them online.
There are two huge trees we figured they would never let us cut down, but I discovered today that is actually a possibility. Then we simply need to put in to practice a lot of the gardening tips for small areas we have been reading about this winter.
I did buy some seeds when we were out at Home Depot and a few little seed starter kits, I am going to get those going this week so I can have some plants for our soon to be revamped garden. This year we will need to buy plants to get a harvest on time, but for next year we might be able to make a temporary greenhouse in back and row all of our own seedlings.
Some of the books we are reading on gardening:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1882424581/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1602399840/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i02
We are going to look into heirloom seeds, because another thing we want is to use the seeds from year to year and save even more money. For now we bought mostly organic seeds since they don't seem to sell heirloom seeds at any stores around here, so we will probably have to order them online.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Feeling very underprepared today...
Well it took me almost 4 days but I finally got all my photos synced to the web, I also backed up my eBook collection and put it on my survivor thumb drive and put it in my purse. Then I read a bunch of the entries on the preparedness pro contest, hoping for some more tidbits. The problem is, I feel like we are barely crawling along in our efforts, finding time, energy and money is not easy. I guess every little bit helps and I need to go in and look at my stockpile more often to feel a little better about our progress. I must remind myself that 2 months ago we did not even have a stockpile! Not to mention this is a way of life we are learning, and something we have to learn to improve daily.
My son got into making survival bracelets, which are pretty cool, they are made with paracord and its basically 8-10 feet of paracord you can wear as jewelry and take apart and use if you ever need some emergency rope. They actually look pretty cool too!
I am helping him out and I find they are fun to make. I prefer mine on my ankle though because I am not a big fan of thick bracelets or watches. Not to mention it clashes with my Pandora! Hee hee. Nice to have rope on hand for when it is needed in an emergency though. He also wants to make belts and necklaces which would give even more feet of rope. Its a good project for the kids and I to do together while we talk.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
On the home front of prepping
So this week I am taking the time to upload all of my digital pictures to Picasa, and I even spent the 5 bucks a year to get extra storage space. I figure this way is something happens to my house and computer I have a way to get my pictures back... assuming of course the Picasa servers aren't in my area hehe.
The upside of this is I can now share my pictures with my mom and anyone else I want to give access. And I can post to my Google+ account as well. For me this is a better solution than backing up to DVDs and hoping my fireproof mini-safe really is fire and water and whatever else proof. It's also easier than backing up my pictures to a flash drive, especially since I seem to need bigger and bigger flash drives all the time. My books I still back up to a flash drive but that takes a lot less space than pictures. I keep the flash drive in my purse too so hopefully I will always have time to grab it!
This may not be something that people see as prepping, but having had a house fire once, I tend to obsess over the irreplaceable things I lost the first time. My cat, my books and my pictures. I found there was nothing else that really made a big difference in the long run. So I want to be able to get my photos and have all my books and my pets safe and sound. Granted if technology fails all together my pictures are gone forever and my books will be useless once the batteries die on my laptop and reader - but I am betting in that scenario I will be too busy just surviving to worry about anything else!
The upside of this is I can now share my pictures with my mom and anyone else I want to give access. And I can post to my Google+ account as well. For me this is a better solution than backing up to DVDs and hoping my fireproof mini-safe really is fire and water and whatever else proof. It's also easier than backing up my pictures to a flash drive, especially since I seem to need bigger and bigger flash drives all the time. My books I still back up to a flash drive but that takes a lot less space than pictures. I keep the flash drive in my purse too so hopefully I will always have time to grab it!
This may not be something that people see as prepping, but having had a house fire once, I tend to obsess over the irreplaceable things I lost the first time. My cat, my books and my pictures. I found there was nothing else that really made a big difference in the long run. So I want to be able to get my photos and have all my books and my pets safe and sound. Granted if technology fails all together my pictures are gone forever and my books will be useless once the batteries die on my laptop and reader - but I am betting in that scenario I will be too busy just surviving to worry about anything else!
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Prepping on a budget
Probably the hardest part of prepping for us has been find the cash to get extra stuff to store and have for emergencies. Also some emergency preparedness stuff can be expensive. In fact a LOT of it has been going up in price as more people worry about the economy, natural disasters and weather changes and want to be prepared for the worst. So for those of us whose income has gone down and not up with the economic problems being prepared can be a real challenge.
On the the things we have done is to switch out the kids of things we buy for birthdays/Christmas etc. We ask for preparedness gear, or weapons, or _fill in the blank_. We then are able to make double use of the money we would spend on birthday gifts anyway. Sales and coupons are a big deal as well. I regularly check for sales on things we use a lot, for us it is some weird stuff like coconut flour and oil, but also regular things like beef for jerky, Ziploc baggies, and even a real steal we found at target on hand towels and wash cloths.
The other thing we do is to try and buy stuff with our regular grocery budget money and stretch it to include extra food for storage. Kroger has a really nice system of sending you coupons for things you buy regularly and I make sure to use these before they expire. Granted most coupons are useless to us for food anyway - with a gluten free household you find that almost everything they give coupons for contain gluten still I do check for the occasional sale and coupons for things like nuts and coffee, cheese and organic produce that we try and eat.
I also do a lot of research and we watch TV shows to find ways to be more self sufficient and prepared - all of which is free. Most importantly we are learning to be better stewards of our money which to me is probably the most important "prepping" for our family.
On the the things we have done is to switch out the kids of things we buy for birthdays/Christmas etc. We ask for preparedness gear, or weapons, or _fill in the blank_. We then are able to make double use of the money we would spend on birthday gifts anyway. Sales and coupons are a big deal as well. I regularly check for sales on things we use a lot, for us it is some weird stuff like coconut flour and oil, but also regular things like beef for jerky, Ziploc baggies, and even a real steal we found at target on hand towels and wash cloths.
The other thing we do is to try and buy stuff with our regular grocery budget money and stretch it to include extra food for storage. Kroger has a really nice system of sending you coupons for things you buy regularly and I make sure to use these before they expire. Granted most coupons are useless to us for food anyway - with a gluten free household you find that almost everything they give coupons for contain gluten still I do check for the occasional sale and coupons for things like nuts and coffee, cheese and organic produce that we try and eat.
I also do a lot of research and we watch TV shows to find ways to be more self sufficient and prepared - all of which is free. Most importantly we are learning to be better stewards of our money which to me is probably the most important "prepping" for our family.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Watching Doomsday Preppers with Brad today...
We even watch the ones that seem ridiculous or over the top. As Brad likes to say we can learn something from each of them. One recurring theme seems to be that these people have a ton of money to spend on prepping and lots of places to store it. Both of those are things we are unavailable to us right now but we are taking notes on the things we want to do now and in the future.
Our favorite from the show we watched today (on TiVo so its an older show LOL) is making bricks to burn from shredded paper and dead leaves. We have a fireplace, so it would be cool to have stuff like that to use in the winter and much easier to store than the wood outside. So our question is - if we burn them in an open fireplace will our house smells like burning leaves? Going to be something we have to try.
TV really tries their best to make preppers look a bit looney, and they seem to pick the ones who focus on highly unlikely scenarios. My question to the ones prepping for the extreme things is this... why not just prep for the things that we see happening all over the world regularly? Hurricanes, Tsunami's, earthquakes, and yes economic problems, because we would be fools to think that our economy and food supplies are stable at this point in our nation. We don't need the threat of all these weird scenarios when we have all kinds of stuff happening regularly all over the world.
Realistically we have no way to produce our own food in my house right now, we do not have any seeds stored up and our yard is so small and shaded we really can't grow much either. We have no basement, no garage, no root cellar. So I think our biggest prep at this time isto find a way to move to a real house, so that is our biggest goal and the reason we are not spending all kinds of money on prepping supplies.
Our focus at this time is to be able to get the heck out and to that end we need to be able to put everything in one vehicle. Some things we are going to invest in are seeds, guns, ammo, keeping the vehicles in good bug out shape and the gas tanks always half full or above, survival supplies, small amounts of food and reusable household items we would hate to live without. Once we are out of here and in our dream house we will take on the heavy duty prepping that we really want to do.
Our favorite from the show we watched today (on TiVo so its an older show LOL) is making bricks to burn from shredded paper and dead leaves. We have a fireplace, so it would be cool to have stuff like that to use in the winter and much easier to store than the wood outside. So our question is - if we burn them in an open fireplace will our house smells like burning leaves? Going to be something we have to try.
TV really tries their best to make preppers look a bit looney, and they seem to pick the ones who focus on highly unlikely scenarios. My question to the ones prepping for the extreme things is this... why not just prep for the things that we see happening all over the world regularly? Hurricanes, Tsunami's, earthquakes, and yes economic problems, because we would be fools to think that our economy and food supplies are stable at this point in our nation. We don't need the threat of all these weird scenarios when we have all kinds of stuff happening regularly all over the world.
Realistically we have no way to produce our own food in my house right now, we do not have any seeds stored up and our yard is so small and shaded we really can't grow much either. We have no basement, no garage, no root cellar. So I think our biggest prep at this time isto find a way to move to a real house, so that is our biggest goal and the reason we are not spending all kinds of money on prepping supplies.
Our focus at this time is to be able to get the heck out and to that end we need to be able to put everything in one vehicle. Some things we are going to invest in are seeds, guns, ammo, keeping the vehicles in good bug out shape and the gas tanks always half full or above, survival supplies, small amounts of food and reusable household items we would hate to live without. Once we are out of here and in our dream house we will take on the heavy duty prepping that we really want to do.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Been slacking this week...
Brad was gone all last week, so I really didn't get much food drying done. Ok, I didn't get any done LOL. But I am thawing out a bunch more beef to do my drying this week. We are having a problem keeping the jerky on the shelf because we keep eating it! It's a good snack and I really can't complain because with all the running around the kids need the protein and salt for sweating.
Also looking at how much food we have int he freezer and deciding how to organize it better. A deep freeze is nice but in a power outage we would lose a LOT of the cold if we had to open it once and get things out.
Its been really warm here, almost time to redo the 72 hour go bags with spring/summer clothing. a couple of months early, but what we have in there now will work either way!
Summer is fast approaching and we are trying to figure out how to raise a good garden. In years past we have planted in our back yard but 2 growing trees back there have now made it a shade garden and we haven't found too many vegetables that enjoy quite that much shade. We are thinking of barrel gardening to see how that works, or even buckets. I am hoping to grow a bunch more herbs again this year as well, we rain out of spaghetti seasoning and buying organic herbs at the store is expensive! Inever knew how much money I was saving with my nice little herb gardens.
Also looking at how much food we have int he freezer and deciding how to organize it better. A deep freeze is nice but in a power outage we would lose a LOT of the cold if we had to open it once and get things out.
Its been really warm here, almost time to redo the 72 hour go bags with spring/summer clothing. a couple of months early, but what we have in there now will work either way!
Summer is fast approaching and we are trying to figure out how to raise a good garden. In years past we have planted in our back yard but 2 growing trees back there have now made it a shade garden and we haven't found too many vegetables that enjoy quite that much shade. We are thinking of barrel gardening to see how that works, or even buckets. I am hoping to grow a bunch more herbs again this year as well, we rain out of spaghetti seasoning and buying organic herbs at the store is expensive! Inever knew how much money I was saving with my nice little herb gardens.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
This week in review
Well we managed not to eat all the jerky we made last week. I am still not sealing it though because we are steadily enjoying it. Have 5 lbs more in the dehydrator right now, I plan on sealing that up to start the stash and rotation. I think the time to dry fruits and such will be in the summer and when they are in saeson. Right now fruit is far to expensive in quantity.
We also got our medical supplies more organized into some jump kits and extras. It helps being a medic for the first aid stuff, we know exactly what we need and the best way to put it into bags and storage. We even are putting some basic medicines in our 72 hour kit, Aspirin, Motrin and Benadryl. We will have to see if anything else would help. Plus we are emergency medical trained already and we can start training the kids while they are young. Funny thing is Pierce doesn't do well with blood, so we need to figure out a way to work around that and get him more used to it.
As a side note we discovered raw honey is excellent for skin wounds, we used it on some of Pierce's scratches and they healed up in a matter of days and the scars are less than usual. There is even some special honey you can buy for it called Manuka honey but it is like 20 bucks a pound so for now we are sticking with our local raw honey. Plus honey is good for thousands of years so storage is not a problem! Mercola.com had a great write up on it last week.
I think the biggest thing I am learning is that couponing concepts work really well for storing up items, buy stuff when it is cheap and rotate it in when it is expensive. This may actually help our grocery budget as well as making us prepared for emergencies. The start-up costs are done, now it is just coming out of our regular grocery budget. Bonus for learning to be more self sufficient!
We also got our medical supplies more organized into some jump kits and extras. It helps being a medic for the first aid stuff, we know exactly what we need and the best way to put it into bags and storage. We even are putting some basic medicines in our 72 hour kit, Aspirin, Motrin and Benadryl. We will have to see if anything else would help. Plus we are emergency medical trained already and we can start training the kids while they are young. Funny thing is Pierce doesn't do well with blood, so we need to figure out a way to work around that and get him more used to it.
As a side note we discovered raw honey is excellent for skin wounds, we used it on some of Pierce's scratches and they healed up in a matter of days and the scars are less than usual. There is even some special honey you can buy for it called Manuka honey but it is like 20 bucks a pound so for now we are sticking with our local raw honey. Plus honey is good for thousands of years so storage is not a problem! Mercola.com had a great write up on it last week.
I think the biggest thing I am learning is that couponing concepts work really well for storing up items, buy stuff when it is cheap and rotate it in when it is expensive. This may actually help our grocery budget as well as making us prepared for emergencies. The start-up costs are done, now it is just coming out of our regular grocery budget. Bonus for learning to be more self sufficient!
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The drying begins
This past week we met our goals of using our food dehydrator twice to make some shelf stable food and snacks. I can see it is going to cost quite a bit to make any dehydrated food in enough quantity to actually have some for storage. The fruit leather we made was banana/strawberry and it was 3 ripe bananas and 2 lbs of strawberries and gone in less than 4 days. We also made beef jerky with Whole Foods London Broil but 2 huge cuts were barely enough to fill up half the dehydrator.
Even the beef jerky will get eaten very quickly and that will not provide any food to store. The ideal is to use organic, non-GMO, grass fed healthy food. In order to be able to afford this I am going to have to do some serious sale shopping and buy in bulk then dehydrate it ASAP. The fruit and vegetables will actually be easy once things start coming into season and the prices drop. The meat will be another issue. In the past we bought cheap stew meat and cut it into smaller chunks to cure and dehydrate. It made a good bite sized snack and would make a good staple to just toss in a soup to have protein in with the vegetables. Our natural foods coop sells beef in bulk and I can buy a few pounds a week (which I actually have already been doing) so we can make a big batch of the dried once we have about 6 lbs or so. Other than that I will buy the beef from Whole Foods meat counter when it is on sale. This also means I will need to stop buy weekly to check on their sales and see what I can get.
Our next stop is to make sure the dried stuff gets rotated and our 72 hour pack is always nice and fresh. I am using our foodsaver to vacuum seal the bags once they are done. Writing the dates on the bags is the easiest tracking tool we have right now. Of course we have such a small quantity right now rotation is not an issue. I hope to have a much bigger store as the weeks go on and we meet our "fill the dehydrator once weekly" goal.
Even the beef jerky will get eaten very quickly and that will not provide any food to store. The ideal is to use organic, non-GMO, grass fed healthy food. In order to be able to afford this I am going to have to do some serious sale shopping and buy in bulk then dehydrate it ASAP. The fruit and vegetables will actually be easy once things start coming into season and the prices drop. The meat will be another issue. In the past we bought cheap stew meat and cut it into smaller chunks to cure and dehydrate. It made a good bite sized snack and would make a good staple to just toss in a soup to have protein in with the vegetables. Our natural foods coop sells beef in bulk and I can buy a few pounds a week (which I actually have already been doing) so we can make a big batch of the dried once we have about 6 lbs or so. Other than that I will buy the beef from Whole Foods meat counter when it is on sale. This also means I will need to stop buy weekly to check on their sales and see what I can get.
Our next stop is to make sure the dried stuff gets rotated and our 72 hour pack is always nice and fresh. I am using our foodsaver to vacuum seal the bags once they are done. Writing the dates on the bags is the easiest tracking tool we have right now. Of course we have such a small quantity right now rotation is not an issue. I hope to have a much bigger store as the weeks go on and we meet our "fill the dehydrator once weekly" goal.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Baby Steps
So today I cleaned off a few shelves in the revamped "basement" room Brad overhauled yesterday. We still have a ton of junk to get rid of, some ebay, some freecycle and that will free up more space for some food storage. We also went to Sam's club and bought some extras to keep on hand. I got rid of a bunch more books, I find that I really prefer ebooks and if it is hardcover I am not really interested unless it is a reference book or recipe book etc. So the library is getting 6 bags of books as a donation.
Now it is time to look for sales on stuff we can store and use. We also need to look at water and power solutions. I am buying rechargeable batteries which is just a good household idea anyway. We also need to get some more non-perishable or shelf stable protein to have enough. So much of ours is in the freezer.
This is a process when you have to fit it into a normal household budget! But we are just trying to be smart, like the batteries we need anyway so this time I will just buy the rechargeable instead of spending money on alkaline. And it woudl be good to be prepared for at least 72 hours for the upcoming tornado season.
One goal we did not meet was drying anything last week. So that means we should probably do 2 batches this week. I am hoping for some good sales on grass fed beef that we can slice up and make a bunch of beef jerky, I will stop at Whole Foods on Wednesday and see what I can dig up.
All in all I am happy with what we have been able to do, I find myself making wishlists and looking at what everyday items we can move over to smarter items that work better for long term and for our budget.
Now it is time to look for sales on stuff we can store and use. We also need to look at water and power solutions. I am buying rechargeable batteries which is just a good household idea anyway. We also need to get some more non-perishable or shelf stable protein to have enough. So much of ours is in the freezer.
This is a process when you have to fit it into a normal household budget! But we are just trying to be smart, like the batteries we need anyway so this time I will just buy the rechargeable instead of spending money on alkaline. And it woudl be good to be prepared for at least 72 hours for the upcoming tornado season.
One goal we did not meet was drying anything last week. So that means we should probably do 2 batches this week. I am hoping for some good sales on grass fed beef that we can slice up and make a bunch of beef jerky, I will stop at Whole Foods on Wednesday and see what I can dig up.
All in all I am happy with what we have been able to do, I find myself making wishlists and looking at what everyday items we can move over to smarter items that work better for long term and for our budget.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Progress so far
This week was kitchen work and trying to fill in some of the more obvious gaps in our 72 hours bags. I found a bunch of really nice washcloths at Target for 1$ each on clearance so I bought all of those and washed them to add to our linen closet and 72 hour bags. Next was an inventory of our pantry for non-perishables. We have plenty of frozen food for 72 hours but are woefully short on non-perishables. Next step is organizing and finding some room to rotate and stock some more stuff like jerky, dried fruits, food powders and nuts. In addition we need to decide how we will pack and rotate our "go" food. First of all we actually have to have enough for 3 days and right now we do not, so food first, packing decisions after that.
It's a bit hard to not go out and just buy everything we need right now but we agreed that we would work this into our regular budget and use the preparedness food as part of our normal diet to keep it as fresh as possible. Our goal for this coming week is to make a trip to Sams club to stock up on some things (preparedness and our regular household items) and hopefully make some jerky this weekend to start off our once weekly planned food drying schedule.
Doing this really does make you look at things differently, sales become opportunities to stock up on essentials instead of just a way to save money on this weeks groceries. Buying in bulk becomes more appealing so that there is some to eat and some to store. Higher fat and protein foods are priority as well as some luxury stuff that we all love.
We are looking at transforming our "basement" aka junk room since we live in a mobile home LOL. into a preparedness room and making it a much more useful part of the house. Its daunting to go in there but when we all four get working on something it actually goes rather quickly. This is going to be a process, it seems almost more like a mind-set change than anything else, you keep doing the things you always do but you learn to do them differently with preparedness in mind.
Still on the agenda: water, power, fuel, home gardening, home defense and vehicle preparedness. Still a long way to go!
It's a bit hard to not go out and just buy everything we need right now but we agreed that we would work this into our regular budget and use the preparedness food as part of our normal diet to keep it as fresh as possible. Our goal for this coming week is to make a trip to Sams club to stock up on some things (preparedness and our regular household items) and hopefully make some jerky this weekend to start off our once weekly planned food drying schedule.
Doing this really does make you look at things differently, sales become opportunities to stock up on essentials instead of just a way to save money on this weeks groceries. Buying in bulk becomes more appealing so that there is some to eat and some to store. Higher fat and protein foods are priority as well as some luxury stuff that we all love.
We are looking at transforming our "basement" aka junk room since we live in a mobile home LOL. into a preparedness room and making it a much more useful part of the house. Its daunting to go in there but when we all four get working on something it actually goes rather quickly. This is going to be a process, it seems almost more like a mind-set change than anything else, you keep doing the things you always do but you learn to do them differently with preparedness in mind.
Still on the agenda: water, power, fuel, home gardening, home defense and vehicle preparedness. Still a long way to go!
Monday, February 13, 2012
72 hour bags packed...
So. We finished our personal bag packing, found a few things we were missing and discovered that our emergency supplies are pretty darn unorganized for what we do have. We have decided to repack our personal bags seasonally to make sure we have the proper clothing and avoid packing clothing for all temperatures in there.
We made a list of the things that need to be redone (our emergency medical kits, 72 hour food and water supplies, blankets and towels) and we are getting some good ideas for fixing things up at home. We dug out our Food Saver and decided that we can also clean up the boxes and bag in our pantry by moving the stuff to Tupperwear or to vacuum sealed wide mouth jars. Our Excalibur will be busy as we also decided to dry some food once a week to add to our snack and survival food stores.
Water is still a bit of a problem, I am going to look into rain water collection and filtering for long term possibilities. In the meantime we are looking for a way to store 12 gals of water (1 gal per person per day) for our 72 hour plan. Glass is heavy and bulky but plastic tends to deteriorate and leach into the water you are storing in it so that is not a great thing either. Twelve gallons is not really that much so the small amount should be relatively easy to store and rotate. Longer term water will be an ongoing research project.
Our emergency food supplies will need to be rotated so we will be using stuff we normally eat for the most part, beef jerky, coconut cream concentrate and dried coconut from Tropical Traditions, dried fruit and veges, etc. We will put in some beans and rice and probably some powered dairy or other protein rich powders, but we have to avoid pretty much all grains and corn because of the rampant food allergies in our family. We also are trying to stay non-GMO and pesticide free (aka organic) since the jury is out on whether that crap is actually what is causing all the food allergy and autoimmune garbage that is becoming a problem for so many people.
Overall we are doing this one step at a time and each step will bring us closer to the goal of being prepared for whatever may happen in terms of emergencies, power outages, food shortages and other such natural and man made disasters. We are budgeting a little bit each pay for emergency preparedness and trying to do as much as we can with what we have on hand already.
We made a list of the things that need to be redone (our emergency medical kits, 72 hour food and water supplies, blankets and towels) and we are getting some good ideas for fixing things up at home. We dug out our Food Saver and decided that we can also clean up the boxes and bag in our pantry by moving the stuff to Tupperwear or to vacuum sealed wide mouth jars. Our Excalibur will be busy as we also decided to dry some food once a week to add to our snack and survival food stores.
Water is still a bit of a problem, I am going to look into rain water collection and filtering for long term possibilities. In the meantime we are looking for a way to store 12 gals of water (1 gal per person per day) for our 72 hour plan. Glass is heavy and bulky but plastic tends to deteriorate and leach into the water you are storing in it so that is not a great thing either. Twelve gallons is not really that much so the small amount should be relatively easy to store and rotate. Longer term water will be an ongoing research project.
Our emergency food supplies will need to be rotated so we will be using stuff we normally eat for the most part, beef jerky, coconut cream concentrate and dried coconut from Tropical Traditions, dried fruit and veges, etc. We will put in some beans and rice and probably some powered dairy or other protein rich powders, but we have to avoid pretty much all grains and corn because of the rampant food allergies in our family. We also are trying to stay non-GMO and pesticide free (aka organic) since the jury is out on whether that crap is actually what is causing all the food allergy and autoimmune garbage that is becoming a problem for so many people.
Overall we are doing this one step at a time and each step will bring us closer to the goal of being prepared for whatever may happen in terms of emergencies, power outages, food shortages and other such natural and man made disasters. We are budgeting a little bit each pay for emergency preparedness and trying to do as much as we can with what we have on hand already.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Home preparedness begins!
So with a husband who is an Emergency Management Coordinator, and my own desire to provide for my family, I have finally stopped procrastinating and designated this week as home preparedness shape up and planning week!
Our first stop is planning and packing each of our 72 hour survival "go" bags. Sunday is our designated packing day so we each have until then to make our lists, pick our bag and pack it. The only stipulation we have for this project is that we may not buy anything new to go int he bags, they need to be packed with extras and stuff we already have in the house.
First I assigned the kids as part of their writing this week to make a list of what they think should go in their bags if we had to leave home for 3 days and be able to survive. I did tell them they did not need to worry about food, we will make a 72 hour food kit for the whole family.
It was interesting to see their lists, Willow was highly worried about making sure she had a cell phone so I had to point out "what if cell phones are down?" the last time we had a 3 day power outage we had no cell phones, she said "oh" and went back to thinking and writing. Pierce wants to take enough to fit in an army duffel, pillows, blankets etc. I simply said he had to be able to carry it all himself in one bag.
So on Sunday the packing will happen and then Brad and I will be onto the next project, organizing and prioritizing our survival plans and then funding the ones that will cost money. As a family project this actually has been fun for me and given me much to research and learn. It also brings up a lot of good ideas we can use to live better right now. I will have to keep track of all "the survival ideas that help our life now" projects we end up doing.
Our first stop is planning and packing each of our 72 hour survival "go" bags. Sunday is our designated packing day so we each have until then to make our lists, pick our bag and pack it. The only stipulation we have for this project is that we may not buy anything new to go int he bags, they need to be packed with extras and stuff we already have in the house.
First I assigned the kids as part of their writing this week to make a list of what they think should go in their bags if we had to leave home for 3 days and be able to survive. I did tell them they did not need to worry about food, we will make a 72 hour food kit for the whole family.
It was interesting to see their lists, Willow was highly worried about making sure she had a cell phone so I had to point out "what if cell phones are down?" the last time we had a 3 day power outage we had no cell phones, she said "oh" and went back to thinking and writing. Pierce wants to take enough to fit in an army duffel, pillows, blankets etc. I simply said he had to be able to carry it all himself in one bag.
So on Sunday the packing will happen and then Brad and I will be onto the next project, organizing and prioritizing our survival plans and then funding the ones that will cost money. As a family project this actually has been fun for me and given me much to research and learn. It also brings up a lot of good ideas we can use to live better right now. I will have to keep track of all "the survival ideas that help our life now" projects we end up doing.
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