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.