Wednesday, December 9, 2009
I have enough chickens....oh wait...maybe not
Just when I thought we were done with chickens other than the 12 layers, I got the call from the neighbor. After I took the fencing and posts a few months ago, he decided to keep his birds with a small 4x8 pen area and let them free range most of the time. Well....as I expected, he got tired of taking care of them, and his wife got even too ****ing lazy to get off the couch long enough to search for eggs. As we were rounding up the birds, we found 18 in a cooler that was laying on it's side, 11 in a truck cap, and 3 in the henhouse I made for him this spring. None had birds on or near them, none were warm telling us they were fresh laid, so......not having a clue how long any of these eggs had been out there, all of them went straight to his trash. 32 eggs, what a waste of time. As much as I was disgusted by that, it really didn't surprise me. This is the same guy who refuses to buy any kind of chicken feed and tosses them the same "Ole Roy" that he feeds his dogs. That stuff is absolute garbage, horrible food that I wouldn't feed our dogs if it was free. *SIGH* can you tell I have no patieice with this guy anymore? Geez. Anyway.....he decides to keep the three mixed breed game hens and the one rooster for some reason, so I came home with 8 more free laying hens. All of them are young birds born this year, so they're still laying strong even with the onset of cold weather. I put them in the smaller half of the chicken run where the roosters were before they went to the freezer, and took straight for the feed & waterer. I figured they may have been upset over being caught, wrestled into a cage, drug across a field, and tossed into a house and run they weren't familiar with, but they've given 4 eggs already today (sunday) and seem relaxed and at home. Yea....I imagine readily available food and water would be a nice thing to have, even to a chicken. Yanno...I like the guy but I really hope he doesn't get any other animals next year.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Continuing.....food stoarage how and why
Several times since I started writing in this blog, I have mentioned food storage. It's something that's discussed or checked here at home almost daily as we use things to make meals, snack, or get the occasional pantry raid from the kids. Storing food is very imporant to us, and we watch our stores carefully. In the comments here as well as online forums, and also day to day life, we get a lot of questions. Today I'll go over as much as I can.
As I've said several times, we store for emergencies and disasters, but we store for one main reason-we cook. We never buy any boxed, frozen,or pre-packaged n' ready foods; we cook from scratch. We rarely go out to dinner at a resturant, and I can't rememeber the last time we had dinner at a friends. Everything we store here, or for that matter grow here or raise here, we eat.Sure, we occasionally buy canned spaghetti sauce and some fruits, but most is made here when we have the produce. Our tomato crop didn't do well this year, so we're buying more tomato sauces and juices than we would if we had been able to can more on our own. It was the same with our corn. We did get a lot of ears, but they were all very small. We did freeze the majority of it, but we make up the difference with buying already canned. It's all very simple really, like I said in my last entry, we eat what we store and store what we eat. What be don't buy in cans or jars, we buy in bulk. Lisa does a lot of baking, so we buy flour, bread flour, sugar, and brown sugar in 25 or 50 lb bags. These bulk items are stored in 5 gallon food grade buckets, and we keep a smaller container in the kitchen, just so she isn't lugging around a heavy bucket every time she wants to make bread. Buying in bulk saves money as well. The price of a 50lb bag broken down by the pound is always a lot less expensive than buying the small 5lb bags. It's just a win-win situation. We save money, and it's always there when we need it. When the bucket gets to half-full, we get a fresh bag.
The other items are even easier. For example, I am a peanut butter addict, I generally eat some every day. So, every time we go to the grocery store, we get 2 or 3 jars and put them behind what we already have. There are a few other things we buy this way, but the majority of the others, we stock up when they are on sale. Getting a few items each week, or a few of each when there is a sale, will fill your pantry FAST. If you, for example, eat a lot of mayonnaise, when you go to the store, get 2. The next time you are out, get 2 more. It won't take long to have everything you need on hand, and it saves a lot of time. What I mean by time are those times when you have to run out to the store for something silly that you should have. As the perfect example, lets say toilet paper. It's 8pm, you're tired, and head to the thundermug (my new favorite word lol), you realize that you have 4 sheets on the roll, reach for another one, and ooooops, there isn't any. So, after the awkward 4 sheet potty dance, you head to the store to spend a dollar or two on toilet paper. You've wasted your time, wasted gasoline, and ventured out when you shouldn't have to, to spend 2 bucks. If you don't want to look at all of this from a preparadness standpoint, look at it as convienence. If the last time you went out to the store and they had a good sale on tp, you had bought a case, you wouldn't have to make that trip. Again, it's just common sense. Sure, we don't live out as far as some other people, and there is a store 5 minutes away, but it's just easier to open that case and have it right there. Even worse, you run to the local convienence store or gas station and pay $5 for a $2 roll of toilet paper. It's exactly the same for me. I don't want to run out of peanut butter, so I keep it stored. It's so simple to think about, but I know more people who will make that trip rather than keep things on hand.
Food is so simple to store. Keep it cool, keep it dry, it's that easy. I can sit here and spew off everything I have learned or read in books and online, but it's very easy. Don't store your flour in the room that gets really humid. Don't store your canned goods in a room that gets warmer than the rest of the house. It's just common sense. I shouldn't have to tell anyone reading this where and how to store food.
Now to go on to the "other" foodstuffs that most people don't store, including us. I mean freeze dried, dehydrated, or MRE style foods. There are some dehydrated foods that we plan to get from one of the usual websites, but we just haven't had the money. I have no plans at all on storing MRE's. I know most of the people in the preparadness/survival world keep cases of these things around, but thats not me. They're somewhat sensative to temperature change, and quite frankly, they are, for the most part, awful. Maybe they've changed since the last I tried swallowing one, but at that time I had to mix the meal with the enclosed hot sauce, salt and pepper to even get it to my nose. Yes, I know, it's for emergencies and our troops eat them all the time, but i'm no soldier, and I have plenty of other things to eat. Those things are at the very bottom of my list.
There are a lot of websites and catalogs that sell a years worth of dehydrated food out there; prepackaged and delivered to your house on a pallet. I won't toally discourage these things, but anyone looking at them has to carefully examine what is in those big packages. Are there things you or your family don't or won't eat? Do you really have a use for 5 pounds of dehydrated sour cream or pea soup? Would you want to rely on just these items to get you through an emergency? I will say they are very convienent and easy to buy with just the click of a mouse and your credit card, but look at them carefully. Lisa and I know someone who purchased one of these one year supply packages. The items consist of a lot of things he doesn't like at all, but he insists he can eat them if/when he does. He's just happy to have them there. Oh...where is "there"? In the basement of his father's business 15-20 minutes away from where he lives. He bought this giant $3000 package knowing full well that he didn't have room to store it at home. Sure, it's a nice building with a very dry basement, but it's not where he is. Will he be able to get there during an emergency situation? What if that situation is a storm that hits the area of the business before it hits his place? The building is flooded or inacessable. He may as well have taken that $3000 and flushed it down the thundermug. (see, I used it again!!) Think long and hard before you make any purchase like that. Will you and your family eat it? Do you have space for it? In my opinion, that $3000 will buy a helluva lot of groceries that I can store just as easily, and it will all be things that we normally eat.
Last week, I printed off a really good book on food storage, actually put out by the Morman church. It breaks things down very easily, and even includes a shopping guide for each month to get you to a years supply quickly. Use this book as a guideline, not a guidebook. There are things in thier list that we simply don't eat. Those items are easily substituted with things that we do eat. There is a lot of religion in the beginning, which was much expeceted, but the book makes sense overall. While they make comments about storing for the end of times, they also talk about many of the things I have mentioned....job loss, layoff, weather related, etc. The church even talks about preparadness and food storage in the church! What a concept. The book can be found here: http://www.abysmal.com/LDS/Preparedness/Preparedness.pdf
To a lot of my regular readers that have stuck around since i started this blog, I promise I won't be staying on this subject for long, lol. I'll get back to canning and chicken-killin' really soon,LOL.
As I've said several times, we store for emergencies and disasters, but we store for one main reason-we cook. We never buy any boxed, frozen,or pre-packaged n' ready foods; we cook from scratch. We rarely go out to dinner at a resturant, and I can't rememeber the last time we had dinner at a friends. Everything we store here, or for that matter grow here or raise here, we eat.Sure, we occasionally buy canned spaghetti sauce and some fruits, but most is made here when we have the produce. Our tomato crop didn't do well this year, so we're buying more tomato sauces and juices than we would if we had been able to can more on our own. It was the same with our corn. We did get a lot of ears, but they were all very small. We did freeze the majority of it, but we make up the difference with buying already canned. It's all very simple really, like I said in my last entry, we eat what we store and store what we eat. What be don't buy in cans or jars, we buy in bulk. Lisa does a lot of baking, so we buy flour, bread flour, sugar, and brown sugar in 25 or 50 lb bags. These bulk items are stored in 5 gallon food grade buckets, and we keep a smaller container in the kitchen, just so she isn't lugging around a heavy bucket every time she wants to make bread. Buying in bulk saves money as well. The price of a 50lb bag broken down by the pound is always a lot less expensive than buying the small 5lb bags. It's just a win-win situation. We save money, and it's always there when we need it. When the bucket gets to half-full, we get a fresh bag.
The other items are even easier. For example, I am a peanut butter addict, I generally eat some every day. So, every time we go to the grocery store, we get 2 or 3 jars and put them behind what we already have. There are a few other things we buy this way, but the majority of the others, we stock up when they are on sale. Getting a few items each week, or a few of each when there is a sale, will fill your pantry FAST. If you, for example, eat a lot of mayonnaise, when you go to the store, get 2. The next time you are out, get 2 more. It won't take long to have everything you need on hand, and it saves a lot of time. What I mean by time are those times when you have to run out to the store for something silly that you should have. As the perfect example, lets say toilet paper. It's 8pm, you're tired, and head to the thundermug (my new favorite word lol), you realize that you have 4 sheets on the roll, reach for another one, and ooooops, there isn't any. So, after the awkward 4 sheet potty dance, you head to the store to spend a dollar or two on toilet paper. You've wasted your time, wasted gasoline, and ventured out when you shouldn't have to, to spend 2 bucks. If you don't want to look at all of this from a preparadness standpoint, look at it as convienence. If the last time you went out to the store and they had a good sale on tp, you had bought a case, you wouldn't have to make that trip. Again, it's just common sense. Sure, we don't live out as far as some other people, and there is a store 5 minutes away, but it's just easier to open that case and have it right there. Even worse, you run to the local convienence store or gas station and pay $5 for a $2 roll of toilet paper. It's exactly the same for me. I don't want to run out of peanut butter, so I keep it stored. It's so simple to think about, but I know more people who will make that trip rather than keep things on hand.
Food is so simple to store. Keep it cool, keep it dry, it's that easy. I can sit here and spew off everything I have learned or read in books and online, but it's very easy. Don't store your flour in the room that gets really humid. Don't store your canned goods in a room that gets warmer than the rest of the house. It's just common sense. I shouldn't have to tell anyone reading this where and how to store food.
Now to go on to the "other" foodstuffs that most people don't store, including us. I mean freeze dried, dehydrated, or MRE style foods. There are some dehydrated foods that we plan to get from one of the usual websites, but we just haven't had the money. I have no plans at all on storing MRE's. I know most of the people in the preparadness/survival world keep cases of these things around, but thats not me. They're somewhat sensative to temperature change, and quite frankly, they are, for the most part, awful. Maybe they've changed since the last I tried swallowing one, but at that time I had to mix the meal with the enclosed hot sauce, salt and pepper to even get it to my nose. Yes, I know, it's for emergencies and our troops eat them all the time, but i'm no soldier, and I have plenty of other things to eat. Those things are at the very bottom of my list.
There are a lot of websites and catalogs that sell a years worth of dehydrated food out there; prepackaged and delivered to your house on a pallet. I won't toally discourage these things, but anyone looking at them has to carefully examine what is in those big packages. Are there things you or your family don't or won't eat? Do you really have a use for 5 pounds of dehydrated sour cream or pea soup? Would you want to rely on just these items to get you through an emergency? I will say they are very convienent and easy to buy with just the click of a mouse and your credit card, but look at them carefully. Lisa and I know someone who purchased one of these one year supply packages. The items consist of a lot of things he doesn't like at all, but he insists he can eat them if/when he does. He's just happy to have them there. Oh...where is "there"? In the basement of his father's business 15-20 minutes away from where he lives. He bought this giant $3000 package knowing full well that he didn't have room to store it at home. Sure, it's a nice building with a very dry basement, but it's not where he is. Will he be able to get there during an emergency situation? What if that situation is a storm that hits the area of the business before it hits his place? The building is flooded or inacessable. He may as well have taken that $3000 and flushed it down the thundermug. (see, I used it again!!) Think long and hard before you make any purchase like that. Will you and your family eat it? Do you have space for it? In my opinion, that $3000 will buy a helluva lot of groceries that I can store just as easily, and it will all be things that we normally eat.
Last week, I printed off a really good book on food storage, actually put out by the Morman church. It breaks things down very easily, and even includes a shopping guide for each month to get you to a years supply quickly. Use this book as a guideline, not a guidebook. There are things in thier list that we simply don't eat. Those items are easily substituted with things that we do eat. There is a lot of religion in the beginning, which was much expeceted, but the book makes sense overall. While they make comments about storing for the end of times, they also talk about many of the things I have mentioned....job loss, layoff, weather related, etc. The church even talks about preparadness and food storage in the church! What a concept. The book can be found here: http://www.abysmal.com/LDS/Preparedness/Preparedness.pdf
To a lot of my regular readers that have stuck around since i started this blog, I promise I won't be staying on this subject for long, lol. I'll get back to canning and chicken-killin' really soon,LOL.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thanksgiving adventures
Early this morning I kept up a long family tradition of hunting for our annual Thanksgiving turkey. It's a long held tradition that goes back 3 generations in my family, and I hold that same tradition very near to my heart and will continue it as long as I am able to get out.
I woke early today, several hours before the sun. I sat down with a cup of coffee before I left, thinking about the hunt and thinking about the meal that will follow. I checked my boot laces, my knife, ammo, swallowed the last sip of coffee, and headed out the door in full camoflage from head to toe.
I soon got to the regular spot, and scanned the area before getting out of the car. "not too bad", I thought to myself, "I've only seen a few other vehicles, I should do just fine." I reached behind the seat, quietly loaded the 12 guage, and walked off in the darkness, walking carefully so I wouldn't be detected. Walking slowly, I looked around my surroundings, seeing familiar landmarks to mark my way in my head...I know exactly where I am going this morning....I know where they are.
I soon found a spot to sit, and hunkered down quietly, waiting to hear something off in the distance. After about 10 minutes or so, I hit the trusty slate call, hoping to hear that big tom off in the distance and call him toward me.....squak...squak....squak....nothing...dead silence. I waited another 10 minutes or so and tried it again...nothing. I was getting pretty frustrated when I saw something out of the corner of my eye....turkeys! There must be 50 of them over there to my right! Oooooo, out front! Look! That one's gotta be 20 pounds! I hit the slate call again and got no response at all, not even so much as a movement from them. I decided they were close enough, and slowly raised the shotgun to my shoulder, putting the bright orange front sight bead in the center of the larger one out front. I was pretty excited about the size of this bird, and had to take several deep breaths to steady my aim. Ever so quietly, I clicked off the safety and put my finger in the trigger....easy now....steady........ I squeezed the trigger and the roar of the 3" 12 guage magnum filled the air, rolling off into the distance like a mid-summer thunder.............................
I've never seen to many people in the meat department scatter before.
Haha, Happy Thanksgiving to one and all, I hope it's a great one for everyone, and thanks to Riverwalker over at Stealth Survival...I kinda borrowed your Thanksgiving post and ran with it, lol.
Chris
I woke early today, several hours before the sun. I sat down with a cup of coffee before I left, thinking about the hunt and thinking about the meal that will follow. I checked my boot laces, my knife, ammo, swallowed the last sip of coffee, and headed out the door in full camoflage from head to toe.
I soon got to the regular spot, and scanned the area before getting out of the car. "not too bad", I thought to myself, "I've only seen a few other vehicles, I should do just fine." I reached behind the seat, quietly loaded the 12 guage, and walked off in the darkness, walking carefully so I wouldn't be detected. Walking slowly, I looked around my surroundings, seeing familiar landmarks to mark my way in my head...I know exactly where I am going this morning....I know where they are.
I soon found a spot to sit, and hunkered down quietly, waiting to hear something off in the distance. After about 10 minutes or so, I hit the trusty slate call, hoping to hear that big tom off in the distance and call him toward me.....squak...squak....squak....nothing...dead silence. I waited another 10 minutes or so and tried it again...nothing. I was getting pretty frustrated when I saw something out of the corner of my eye....turkeys! There must be 50 of them over there to my right! Oooooo, out front! Look! That one's gotta be 20 pounds! I hit the slate call again and got no response at all, not even so much as a movement from them. I decided they were close enough, and slowly raised the shotgun to my shoulder, putting the bright orange front sight bead in the center of the larger one out front. I was pretty excited about the size of this bird, and had to take several deep breaths to steady my aim. Ever so quietly, I clicked off the safety and put my finger in the trigger....easy now....steady........ I squeezed the trigger and the roar of the 3" 12 guage magnum filled the air, rolling off into the distance like a mid-summer thunder.............................
I've never seen to many people in the meat department scatter before.
Haha, Happy Thanksgiving to one and all, I hope it's a great one for everyone, and thanks to Riverwalker over at Stealth Survival...I kinda borrowed your Thanksgiving post and ran with it, lol.
Chris
Monday, November 23, 2009
Thinking...
In the past few weeks, I have spent more and more time thinking about our preps. (I still despise that term but nothing else really fits) Why? I can't name just one reason.
Our current economy scares me. While I know and hear of more and more people losing their jobs or being layed off, I hear our government tell us that employment is on the rise. Unfortunately, these figures are highly exaddurated or even totally made up. It's hard to believe them at all when the give you employment figures for areas or districts that don't even exist. They know how bad it is, they just won't admit it.
I get scared to death when I think about how long I have been layed off. I have NEVER seen or heard of it being this bad in my lifetime. What if I'm not back to work in the middle of January, my unemployment runs out, and I don't qualify for another extension? Sure, there are jobs out there somewhere, but the payscale is rediculous. I often wonder how anyone survives on $10 an hour. I've seen warehouse jobs or physical labor that pays $8. In my eyes, thats slavery. Taking a $10 an hour job would leave me with LESS than I currently bring home in unemployment benefits by roughly $60 a week, how could we survive on that? Will I have to work two jobs and give up everything we do here just to get by? Yes folks, I'm scared.
What if we can't pay the electric bill and it gets shut off? What about the gas? Phone? ...all possible. Sure, no one wants to live without the slightest minimal electric gadget or without ready hot water or heat at the touch of a thermostat, but I want to be sure we can make it IF one of these things were to happen with little to no interruption in our daily lives.
Now I've said many, many times in this blog that I an not one to worry about any of the "SHTF" scenerio's that many people talk about, but that doesn't mean it doesn't cross my mind from time to time. Am I worried about an outright attack on our town? Of course not. But taking out power plants has been a threat since the cold war era, and it's no different now with our threats of terrorism. With everyone in this nation being so reliant on electricity, losing it for an extended period of time would cause panic everywhere affected. Not just no tv or video games, but your food would spoil, you would have no heat, no lights, no a/c, no communication, nothing. Imagine NYC or L.A. without power for a month, it would be total chaos. (Yes I know, none of us live there, but it was just an example.) There's also always been a threat of nuclear attack, but I don't think about that at all, there really is no point. If one would ever hit nearby, we're gone, plain and simple. No matter how much you prep, no matter how many iodine capsules you swallow, it's not gonna be Mad Max, and I'm not going to run Bartertown. (though the car would be pretty fun to have lol)
I'm sure that what I am about to say, I have said many times over and over since I started this little blog. I think more of acts of nature far more than I think about all the things others do. This is Ohio. We aren't in earthquake flood, or tornado/hurricane territory, but once again, thats not saying it can't ever happen. I remember a few VERY small earthquakes, and a handfull of tornado touchdowns here in my life., though they are very very rare. Flooding isn't a big issue from any nearby rivers, not to mention our county is a higher elevation. (it was named SUMMIT for a reason!) But it is possible that our basement can flood with heavy rain. We are 100 yards downhill from the main road, and with the way the road falls, we get more water down our drive than the ditch beside our house. (gotta love county engineers) Twice since we have been here, our basement has flooded. Granted, it was only an inch or 2 of water, but still enough to cause damage. A stronger than normal storm could easily do more. Also, our septic system is behind the house where the yard levels out. It would be easy for a heavy storm to send water down the drive, past the house, and flood out the system, backing it up into the house.
These are the kinds of things I think of when I look at our preps. Rainstorms, lightning,ice, snow, wind, and ice. We've had 3+ foot snowdrifts across the driveway. We've had ice storms that take down tree's and powerlines. We've had strong winds to the same. (see post sept16th 2008) We had a 2 day outage and never skipped a beat thanks to things we had on hand.
Once again, as I always stress, I don't "prep" for WW3. I have no plans on living in a basement bunker eating MRE's and clutching an AR15 waiting for the "enemy" to come. We try to use a little more common sense, and base it all on things we know. We stock nothing we don't use on a daily basis other than camping, fishing, and hunting gear. We use what we store, and we store what we use. It's pretty simple, just the things we need to get by.
For anyone reading this who has no idea what I am talking about, think about this: You are awakened by a loud storm and turn around to check your clock, the screen is black, your power is out. There are trees down across your drive and/or the road. Your phone is out too. You can't get out, no one can get in. What are you going to do? What if this turns from a simple hour or two that we've all dealt with to a tri-state outage like NY, Pa, and NE Ohio had several years ago? What if it lasts a few days? A few weeks?
I've asked this question to many people, and though general answers vary, most say that they would find a way to leave and head to a friend or family member that wasn't affected. OK....How far away are these people? You have 1/4 tank of gas. Your ATM card is worthless, and since gas pumps are all electric and digital, you can't GET gas. Yes, you're stuck. Are you going to be able to survive?
This is the part that sometimes makes me shake my head, and other times want to laugh. I know people that barely have enough food to last them two days. I know people that don't have such simple things as a flashlight or small first aid kit. Some of the people that HAVE some food have nothing but frozen meals or canned soup. Well, you dont have an oven or microwave, and you never thought of a hand crank canopener,oops. It amazes me sometimes how so many people have so little, if not nothing, to get them through even the smallest emergency situation.
Many of the people we talk to about all of this think we're crazy, stupid, or just plain paranoid. Let them think what they want. I've made it through things in the past just fine. Ice storms, power outages, snowstorms, been there-done that. I can in no way compare myself to someone who has dealt with tornado's, earthquakes, flooding, or hurricanes. I commend those who live in the areas prone to such things and prepare for them in the same way I prepare for things I am fimilar with. I can't imagine boarding up my house for a pending hurricane any more than those people can imagine shoveling snow for 2 hours just to get out of the driveway. We all prepare for things we know and have dealt with.
I'm writing this long post today for a few reasong. One is being able to express my view and opinions on preparadness. ( it IS my blog lol), and two being to hopefully make even just one person reading this to think and prepare themselves. I don't want anyone to think they immediately need to run out and buy a years worth of groceries, buy out the local army surplus store, and get a generator and 100 gallons of gas, but I want people to at least think about what they would do in an emergency BEFORE it happens, not during or after.
I'll end this much-longer-than-I-intended post with just a few simple questions:
Are you prepared?
Why not?
What's stopping you?
Chris has left the building...err bunker lol
Our current economy scares me. While I know and hear of more and more people losing their jobs or being layed off, I hear our government tell us that employment is on the rise. Unfortunately, these figures are highly exaddurated or even totally made up. It's hard to believe them at all when the give you employment figures for areas or districts that don't even exist. They know how bad it is, they just won't admit it.
I get scared to death when I think about how long I have been layed off. I have NEVER seen or heard of it being this bad in my lifetime. What if I'm not back to work in the middle of January, my unemployment runs out, and I don't qualify for another extension? Sure, there are jobs out there somewhere, but the payscale is rediculous. I often wonder how anyone survives on $10 an hour. I've seen warehouse jobs or physical labor that pays $8. In my eyes, thats slavery. Taking a $10 an hour job would leave me with LESS than I currently bring home in unemployment benefits by roughly $60 a week, how could we survive on that? Will I have to work two jobs and give up everything we do here just to get by? Yes folks, I'm scared.
What if we can't pay the electric bill and it gets shut off? What about the gas? Phone? ...all possible. Sure, no one wants to live without the slightest minimal electric gadget or without ready hot water or heat at the touch of a thermostat, but I want to be sure we can make it IF one of these things were to happen with little to no interruption in our daily lives.
Now I've said many, many times in this blog that I an not one to worry about any of the "SHTF" scenerio's that many people talk about, but that doesn't mean it doesn't cross my mind from time to time. Am I worried about an outright attack on our town? Of course not. But taking out power plants has been a threat since the cold war era, and it's no different now with our threats of terrorism. With everyone in this nation being so reliant on electricity, losing it for an extended period of time would cause panic everywhere affected. Not just no tv or video games, but your food would spoil, you would have no heat, no lights, no a/c, no communication, nothing. Imagine NYC or L.A. without power for a month, it would be total chaos. (Yes I know, none of us live there, but it was just an example.) There's also always been a threat of nuclear attack, but I don't think about that at all, there really is no point. If one would ever hit nearby, we're gone, plain and simple. No matter how much you prep, no matter how many iodine capsules you swallow, it's not gonna be Mad Max, and I'm not going to run Bartertown. (though the car would be pretty fun to have lol)
I'm sure that what I am about to say, I have said many times over and over since I started this little blog. I think more of acts of nature far more than I think about all the things others do. This is Ohio. We aren't in earthquake flood, or tornado/hurricane territory, but once again, thats not saying it can't ever happen. I remember a few VERY small earthquakes, and a handfull of tornado touchdowns here in my life., though they are very very rare. Flooding isn't a big issue from any nearby rivers, not to mention our county is a higher elevation. (it was named SUMMIT for a reason!) But it is possible that our basement can flood with heavy rain. We are 100 yards downhill from the main road, and with the way the road falls, we get more water down our drive than the ditch beside our house. (gotta love county engineers) Twice since we have been here, our basement has flooded. Granted, it was only an inch or 2 of water, but still enough to cause damage. A stronger than normal storm could easily do more. Also, our septic system is behind the house where the yard levels out. It would be easy for a heavy storm to send water down the drive, past the house, and flood out the system, backing it up into the house.
These are the kinds of things I think of when I look at our preps. Rainstorms, lightning,ice, snow, wind, and ice. We've had 3+ foot snowdrifts across the driveway. We've had ice storms that take down tree's and powerlines. We've had strong winds to the same. (see post sept16th 2008) We had a 2 day outage and never skipped a beat thanks to things we had on hand.
Once again, as I always stress, I don't "prep" for WW3. I have no plans on living in a basement bunker eating MRE's and clutching an AR15 waiting for the "enemy" to come. We try to use a little more common sense, and base it all on things we know. We stock nothing we don't use on a daily basis other than camping, fishing, and hunting gear. We use what we store, and we store what we use. It's pretty simple, just the things we need to get by.
For anyone reading this who has no idea what I am talking about, think about this: You are awakened by a loud storm and turn around to check your clock, the screen is black, your power is out. There are trees down across your drive and/or the road. Your phone is out too. You can't get out, no one can get in. What are you going to do? What if this turns from a simple hour or two that we've all dealt with to a tri-state outage like NY, Pa, and NE Ohio had several years ago? What if it lasts a few days? A few weeks?
I've asked this question to many people, and though general answers vary, most say that they would find a way to leave and head to a friend or family member that wasn't affected. OK....How far away are these people? You have 1/4 tank of gas. Your ATM card is worthless, and since gas pumps are all electric and digital, you can't GET gas. Yes, you're stuck. Are you going to be able to survive?
This is the part that sometimes makes me shake my head, and other times want to laugh. I know people that barely have enough food to last them two days. I know people that don't have such simple things as a flashlight or small first aid kit. Some of the people that HAVE some food have nothing but frozen meals or canned soup. Well, you dont have an oven or microwave, and you never thought of a hand crank canopener,oops. It amazes me sometimes how so many people have so little, if not nothing, to get them through even the smallest emergency situation.
Many of the people we talk to about all of this think we're crazy, stupid, or just plain paranoid. Let them think what they want. I've made it through things in the past just fine. Ice storms, power outages, snowstorms, been there-done that. I can in no way compare myself to someone who has dealt with tornado's, earthquakes, flooding, or hurricanes. I commend those who live in the areas prone to such things and prepare for them in the same way I prepare for things I am fimilar with. I can't imagine boarding up my house for a pending hurricane any more than those people can imagine shoveling snow for 2 hours just to get out of the driveway. We all prepare for things we know and have dealt with.
I'm writing this long post today for a few reasong. One is being able to express my view and opinions on preparadness. ( it IS my blog lol), and two being to hopefully make even just one person reading this to think and prepare themselves. I don't want anyone to think they immediately need to run out and buy a years worth of groceries, buy out the local army surplus store, and get a generator and 100 gallons of gas, but I want people to at least think about what they would do in an emergency BEFORE it happens, not during or after.
I'll end this much-longer-than-I-intended post with just a few simple questions:
Are you prepared?
Why not?
What's stopping you?
Chris has left the building...err bunker lol
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Ode to stuffed pantries and a freezer
As I'm sitting here,I was thinking about doing some squirrel hunting this week or weekend, then realized I have no idea where I am going to put them if I make it out. Our freezer is VERY full. Last week I butchered the last 3 rabbits and 4 of the roosters, then finished the other 3 on Sunday when Farmergeek brought over his flock of chickens and ducks to butcher. He offered a full duck, which I gladly accepted and is now in the freezer as well.
We have two turkeys in there that we got over the weekend. We origionally planned to order and buy a "free range organic" turkey from a local market, but changed our mind after we ordered it and thought about it. At first, the $2.30lb didn't seem bad until we realized that a 20+ pound bird would end up costing us somewhere in the vacinity of $50. I'm all for buying local and organic when we can, but neither of us could wrap our heads around paying 50 bucks for a bird, it just didn't register. We ended up seeing birds at the grocery store we went to for .59lb, and got 2. They aren't "organic free range", but damn, I can get 4-5 birds for the price of the one we would have gotten at the market. If I can make room by shifting around a few things, later this week we'll head back for a third. Just like most of the chicken, we'll make 1 or 2 into soup and can it. Lisa made a batch of soup on Sunday while Farmergeek and I were outside, and I canned it yesterday. It was only 5 quarts, but still, its 5 quarts we didn't have. Later this week I plan to make more, which will open up room in the freezer by using the broth we have frozen in containers and one of the birds.
The rest of the freezer is full of various things. Strawberries and blackberries are waiting for one big batch of jam, which Lisa will do soon so we can put them in our usualy Christmas goody baskets for friends and family. The door is full of bags of chopped peppers and whole corn on the cob. There is quite a bit of pork in there, thanks to a generous friend that was clearing out some room in his freezer. Everything else is mainly things we buy when it's on sale. When we see sausage or kielbasa buy1/get1, we usually buy 3-4 so we're freezing 6-8. We've saved a lot of money this way, and it always ensures a full freezer for us. We plan to start saving money soon to buy bulk beef from a local farm/butcher. The prices are a bit more than grocery store beef, but the quality is worth the money. I'd like to have a 2nd freezer to buy basically a half steer, but as with everything else, the budget won't allow it.
Just the same as the freezer, we're out of pantry space. We have two large closets converted to pantry space, as well as a 3x6 foot freestanding cabinet....all 3 are stuffed. Eventually I want to make more shelves downstairs for some of the bulk items, and for a lot of canned goods, but again, that budget thing gets in the way. For now I'll just keep my eyes open at Goodwill, freecycle, cheapcycle, and craigslist for another freestanding unit and/or shelf units. Neither of us have plans to stop our food storage just because we don't have a clear space. We have the room, just not the shelves. I can always resort to 5 gallon buckets or boxes until we can get shelves or a cabinet. Our goal is for a one years supply, so needless to say, we won't stop.
We have two turkeys in there that we got over the weekend. We origionally planned to order and buy a "free range organic" turkey from a local market, but changed our mind after we ordered it and thought about it. At first, the $2.30lb didn't seem bad until we realized that a 20+ pound bird would end up costing us somewhere in the vacinity of $50. I'm all for buying local and organic when we can, but neither of us could wrap our heads around paying 50 bucks for a bird, it just didn't register. We ended up seeing birds at the grocery store we went to for .59lb, and got 2. They aren't "organic free range", but damn, I can get 4-5 birds for the price of the one we would have gotten at the market. If I can make room by shifting around a few things, later this week we'll head back for a third. Just like most of the chicken, we'll make 1 or 2 into soup and can it. Lisa made a batch of soup on Sunday while Farmergeek and I were outside, and I canned it yesterday. It was only 5 quarts, but still, its 5 quarts we didn't have. Later this week I plan to make more, which will open up room in the freezer by using the broth we have frozen in containers and one of the birds.
The rest of the freezer is full of various things. Strawberries and blackberries are waiting for one big batch of jam, which Lisa will do soon so we can put them in our usualy Christmas goody baskets for friends and family. The door is full of bags of chopped peppers and whole corn on the cob. There is quite a bit of pork in there, thanks to a generous friend that was clearing out some room in his freezer. Everything else is mainly things we buy when it's on sale. When we see sausage or kielbasa buy1/get1, we usually buy 3-4 so we're freezing 6-8. We've saved a lot of money this way, and it always ensures a full freezer for us. We plan to start saving money soon to buy bulk beef from a local farm/butcher. The prices are a bit more than grocery store beef, but the quality is worth the money. I'd like to have a 2nd freezer to buy basically a half steer, but as with everything else, the budget won't allow it.
Just the same as the freezer, we're out of pantry space. We have two large closets converted to pantry space, as well as a 3x6 foot freestanding cabinet....all 3 are stuffed. Eventually I want to make more shelves downstairs for some of the bulk items, and for a lot of canned goods, but again, that budget thing gets in the way. For now I'll just keep my eyes open at Goodwill, freecycle, cheapcycle, and craigslist for another freestanding unit and/or shelf units. Neither of us have plans to stop our food storage just because we don't have a clear space. We have the room, just not the shelves. I can always resort to 5 gallon buckets or boxes until we can get shelves or a cabinet. Our goal is for a one years supply, so needless to say, we won't stop.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Two post Thursday
Since Debbie over at HappyDays asked about our storage and prep areas, I decided to make this a two-entry day.
Our basement is divided up rather strange. Origionally in the 1930's, our house was built as a basement home, not so different from what I grew up in, but a LOT smaller. The larger 16x22 foot room was the kitchen/dining/eating area and I can only assume also where they slept. The room next to it was laundry and storage, and the full bathroom was always there.(haf bath now since the tub wasn't re-plumbed with the rest of the house, I removed it in 2000) Sometime in the 40's, they added on another area, what is now the furnace room and our prep room. Neither of these rooms had doors on them when we moved in, and the prep room didn't even have a dividing wall, it was just open. I added a wall, built in desk & shelves, and put doors on both. For a short while it was Lisa's sewing room till she outgrew it, then it was our bedroom till the kids moved back home, then it was Adams room, and now its for prep and my own little space. I cut a door from inside that room into the rear of the furnace room and added another door and wall, this is more storage for prep items. The old living area is now Lisa's sewing & craft room.
The room is not really as organized as I would like it, but it does it's job. I have all my hunting and fishing gear in there, as well as camping gear and supplies. (I dont like taking chances of mice in the garage tearing at my tents or sleeping bags) My large 12 man tent is in an old navy footlocker, safe from critters or anything else. My 2 smaller dome tents are in sacks stored above it. Sleeping bags, pillows, and misc bedding items are in a large plastic tote right beside them. Inside the closet area are my lanterns, camp cookware, campstoves, heaters, white fuel, propane, oil lamps & lanterns, and lamp oil. In the same room, under the stairs are footlockers of misc camping/emergency gear and a closet bar of hunting and other camo clothing. This area stays dark and cool, so we also store our potatos and onions there.
Four desk shelves are lined with all of our books on survival, self sufficiency, gardening, hunting, fishing, map books, and almost every subject imaginable. The others are full of misc hunting and fishing gear. I have a tall metal cabinet along one wall that contains all of my knives, 1 good camp hatchet, knife sharpening tools/stones, batteries, rope, and larger first aid items that dont fit in my jammed-full industrial kit that hangs on the wall. Beside that is a simple 4 drawer filing cabinet full of notes, things copied from online, instruction manuals, and copies of magazines we get or have gotten in the past. Grit, Small Farm Journal, Mother Earth News, Backyard Poultry, Shooting Times, Countryside, and others that I can't remember at the moment, all full of great information that I refuse to throw away. I have a metal office desk in there too. It used to be where I had the old desktop computer, but now it's for me to sit and read or draw up plans for something or another.
In the center along one wall is a small fold up table. Its where I sit to clean guns or work on things too big for the desk, but it's also our wintertime hangout. We've spent many an evening there reading, talking, playing board games, planning next years garden, looking through wishbooks, or just enjoying the peace and quiet. Above this table is an oil cottage lamp hanging from the ceiling in case of power outage. We keep the house temp as low as possible to save on the gas bill, so we turn on a small electric heater, close the door, and enjoy a nice toasty warm place to get away. I keep the 2 camp cots open along the other wall for the dogs to have somewhere to lay, and also for me to crash on if I happen to stay up too late when I get into something.
I spend a lot of time in my little room, more so soon when the weather keeps me from doing things outside. I'll be re-organizing a lot of it soon, trying to utilize what little space I have left. My prep list and wish list never seem to end, so I have to do the best I can with what space I have and as our budget allows. Though the thought of it makes me feel somewhat silly, I want to have a BOB ready and hanging for each of us. Again, if I need it, it's there, and if I never do, it's not a big deal at all. Better safe than sorry, right??
The general plan for this room is actually beyond just my own space and a place for storage. I'm having this room together in case of emergency as a place to go. No, it's not one of the cold war era bomb shelters by far, or a "safe room" by any means, but merely a place to go. If we have a power outage in winter, I can fire up the generator, run a cord to the small heater, and have a place to keep warm. OR with use of well kept CO2 detectors, a camp heater. Even with using oil lamps or cookstoves in enclosed spaces, CO2 detectors are a must, as is a good fire extinquisher.
A few people we know think we're insane to prep for such things, some think it's laughable and look at us like "crazy survivalists", but we're far from it. Like I've said many times, neither of us are those SHTF scenerio kind of people, we're not preparing for WW3 or for the Cubans to drop in like Red Dawn, we're just preparing ourselves for emergencies. I like being prepared for the occasional storm or power outage, and going another direction, this economy scares me at times. IS it possible to see us in another depression? It's very possible. But...rather than dwell on that, I'll just say I like being prepared for a power outage or other emergency. (at least thats what I tell them) lol
I almost closed this entry at that, but decided to add just a little more. (if its possible for me to write a little)
Everything I store in that basement room is on a list. It took a lot of thinking and research to make my list, but I feel that it's fairly complete. At each area of storage, whether its at each food pantry or each prep storage area, I have a clipboard of graph paper. Each item is listed individually on a single line, and quantities are marked in the graph boxes with a /. As an item is used, the / is turned to a X.
Example:
10 packs of AA batteries would list like this-
aa batteries 4 pack //////////
Using 2 packs would show
aa batteries 4 pack ////////XX
If I use an entire line, (all of the squares across), I cross off the item and line with a highlighter and start a new line for it on another page or line. This method makes inventory and shopping lists extremely easy. I know I wrote about this method before, but it's been quite a while, and seemed fitting to add to this post.
OK I'm done now......maybe......I think so........I'm pretty sure.........yea........I am.....finally
Our basement is divided up rather strange. Origionally in the 1930's, our house was built as a basement home, not so different from what I grew up in, but a LOT smaller. The larger 16x22 foot room was the kitchen/dining/eating area and I can only assume also where they slept. The room next to it was laundry and storage, and the full bathroom was always there.(haf bath now since the tub wasn't re-plumbed with the rest of the house, I removed it in 2000) Sometime in the 40's, they added on another area, what is now the furnace room and our prep room. Neither of these rooms had doors on them when we moved in, and the prep room didn't even have a dividing wall, it was just open. I added a wall, built in desk & shelves, and put doors on both. For a short while it was Lisa's sewing room till she outgrew it, then it was our bedroom till the kids moved back home, then it was Adams room, and now its for prep and my own little space. I cut a door from inside that room into the rear of the furnace room and added another door and wall, this is more storage for prep items. The old living area is now Lisa's sewing & craft room.
The room is not really as organized as I would like it, but it does it's job. I have all my hunting and fishing gear in there, as well as camping gear and supplies. (I dont like taking chances of mice in the garage tearing at my tents or sleeping bags) My large 12 man tent is in an old navy footlocker, safe from critters or anything else. My 2 smaller dome tents are in sacks stored above it. Sleeping bags, pillows, and misc bedding items are in a large plastic tote right beside them. Inside the closet area are my lanterns, camp cookware, campstoves, heaters, white fuel, propane, oil lamps & lanterns, and lamp oil. In the same room, under the stairs are footlockers of misc camping/emergency gear and a closet bar of hunting and other camo clothing. This area stays dark and cool, so we also store our potatos and onions there.
Four desk shelves are lined with all of our books on survival, self sufficiency, gardening, hunting, fishing, map books, and almost every subject imaginable. The others are full of misc hunting and fishing gear. I have a tall metal cabinet along one wall that contains all of my knives, 1 good camp hatchet, knife sharpening tools/stones, batteries, rope, and larger first aid items that dont fit in my jammed-full industrial kit that hangs on the wall. Beside that is a simple 4 drawer filing cabinet full of notes, things copied from online, instruction manuals, and copies of magazines we get or have gotten in the past. Grit, Small Farm Journal, Mother Earth News, Backyard Poultry, Shooting Times, Countryside, and others that I can't remember at the moment, all full of great information that I refuse to throw away. I have a metal office desk in there too. It used to be where I had the old desktop computer, but now it's for me to sit and read or draw up plans for something or another.
In the center along one wall is a small fold up table. Its where I sit to clean guns or work on things too big for the desk, but it's also our wintertime hangout. We've spent many an evening there reading, talking, playing board games, planning next years garden, looking through wishbooks, or just enjoying the peace and quiet. Above this table is an oil cottage lamp hanging from the ceiling in case of power outage. We keep the house temp as low as possible to save on the gas bill, so we turn on a small electric heater, close the door, and enjoy a nice toasty warm place to get away. I keep the 2 camp cots open along the other wall for the dogs to have somewhere to lay, and also for me to crash on if I happen to stay up too late when I get into something.
I spend a lot of time in my little room, more so soon when the weather keeps me from doing things outside. I'll be re-organizing a lot of it soon, trying to utilize what little space I have left. My prep list and wish list never seem to end, so I have to do the best I can with what space I have and as our budget allows. Though the thought of it makes me feel somewhat silly, I want to have a BOB ready and hanging for each of us. Again, if I need it, it's there, and if I never do, it's not a big deal at all. Better safe than sorry, right??
The general plan for this room is actually beyond just my own space and a place for storage. I'm having this room together in case of emergency as a place to go. No, it's not one of the cold war era bomb shelters by far, or a "safe room" by any means, but merely a place to go. If we have a power outage in winter, I can fire up the generator, run a cord to the small heater, and have a place to keep warm. OR with use of well kept CO2 detectors, a camp heater. Even with using oil lamps or cookstoves in enclosed spaces, CO2 detectors are a must, as is a good fire extinquisher.
A few people we know think we're insane to prep for such things, some think it's laughable and look at us like "crazy survivalists", but we're far from it. Like I've said many times, neither of us are those SHTF scenerio kind of people, we're not preparing for WW3 or for the Cubans to drop in like Red Dawn, we're just preparing ourselves for emergencies. I like being prepared for the occasional storm or power outage, and going another direction, this economy scares me at times. IS it possible to see us in another depression? It's very possible. But...rather than dwell on that, I'll just say I like being prepared for a power outage or other emergency. (at least thats what I tell them) lol
I almost closed this entry at that, but decided to add just a little more. (if its possible for me to write a little)
Everything I store in that basement room is on a list. It took a lot of thinking and research to make my list, but I feel that it's fairly complete. At each area of storage, whether its at each food pantry or each prep storage area, I have a clipboard of graph paper. Each item is listed individually on a single line, and quantities are marked in the graph boxes with a /. As an item is used, the / is turned to a X.
Example:
10 packs of AA batteries would list like this-
aa batteries 4 pack //////////
Using 2 packs would show
aa batteries 4 pack ////////XX
If I use an entire line, (all of the squares across), I cross off the item and line with a highlighter and start a new line for it on another page or line. This method makes inventory and shopping lists extremely easy. I know I wrote about this method before, but it's been quite a while, and seemed fitting to add to this post.
OK I'm done now......maybe......I think so........I'm pretty sure.........yea........I am.....finally
Things around here have been a little dull lately. Lisa came down with a nasty cold last Sunday after the party, and of course I ended up with it. I fully admit it, I'm a big baby when I get a bad cold. I just want to sit around. I've kept up with what needed done and caught up on a bunch of reading, but thats been about it. Finally 2 days ago, I started feeling good enough to get some things done.
I finally decided to get out of the rabbit business until next year. While my buck fathered a few litters for my friend tammie, my does have had ONE litter in the year I've had them. With winter just around the corner, and the thought of frozen water bottles and feeding something that wasn't paying back, I figured it was time. All three are now in the freezer, along with 4 of the 7 roosters I got a few months ago. I planned to get to all 7, but I made my cleaning station a bit too low, and after 3 rabbits and 4 birds, my back was killing me from stooping over. I'll get to the other 3 either today or tomorrow, depending on weather. (yesterday was just too cold and horribly windy) The plan for all of them is 2-3 giant batches of chicken soup in the canner, though it's all pieced and in the freezer for now.
Tomorrow we are going out for groceries. Some will be for stock/storage, and others will be to make meals and things to freeze and can. A while back we tried canning meatloaf. Neither of us had ever canned meatloaf before, let alone ate any home-canned. It was delicious! So, we plan to make a good sized batch to can this weekend as well. Other plans are for casseroles to put together and freeze, along with some meatballs. It's nice having some things pre-prepared and ready for those days when neither of us really feel like cooking.
Already we're working on plans for next years garden. Since we grew so many onions and potato's, we've been eating more of each. Well.....thanks to that, we won't have enough to get us through till spring, which was the plan the whole time. Next year, I'll double each so this won't happen again. The same will go for carrots. I planted some just for the hell of it, we don't eat many carrots, but now that we've decided to can more soup to store, yea, we need more carrots, lol. Ah well, live and learn right?? We'll work on more of next years list this weekend while we're in the kitchen, then start picking through the seed catalogs soon after.
Every year our garden gets bigger, and next year will be no exception. Every year we make mistakes, major and minor, but we learn from them and re-plan for the following season. Again, next year will be no exception. We'll base more planting on more than just the basic things we usually can. (peppers, tomatos, beans, etc) and plan more on things for soups and such. (celery, carrots, etc) Each year as our garden and knowledge grows, so does our list of things we make for ourselves. As a perfect example, I'm EXTREMELY happy to say that we haven't had any store-bought canned soup in a very very long time. Between Lisa's chicken soup and my chili, we haven't had to. Yep, the garden '10 notebook will be chock full of new things and new items. (we also seriously plan on more meat birds next year, though where they will be is still up in the air)
Later today, I'll be working on cleaning and re-organizing my room downstairs. I need to rearrange all of my camping gear, and go through my checklist of things to keep on hand. More and more as I hear and read of things to come, I think about the things I keep there and want to make sure I have all that I need. No, I'm not one to prepare for WW3/SHTF or some other things that so many conspiracy people continuiosuly think about, but I do think of other things. Snowstorms, power outages, etc are my main concerns. A few days ago we had electrical problems at the main pole connection. The power was off not quite an hour while the worker re-wired and changed the connections. Some people I know would have been in a tissy, but we lit a couple oil lamps and grabbed a book. No big deal at all. We've dealt with an hour, we've dealt with a few hours, and a year ago we made it through a few days without a worry. I want to make sure we STAY that way.
There are a few things I want to work on in this small preparadness list though, mainly things we didn't think about before. We need water storage for sure. In case of emergency, we'll need water for cooking and for toilet flushing. (unless I get the camp toilet that I want) I'd love to have some 55 gallon drums of drinking water on hand, but we simply can't afford any right now. I think what I will end up doing is cutting the power line to the well pump and putting plugs at either end. This way in case of power outage, I can run a cord from the generator to the pump and we'll have water. I'll still want some sort of storage on hand though, maybe just 5 gallon "camp" containers for now. Hmm....I see my xmas list being mostly "survival" stuff, lol.
Other things I need to concentrate on checking stock are basic items I should be checking more regularly-first aid, meds, TP, batteries, lamp oil, gasoline, propane, spare flashlight bulbs, generator plugs, etc. My plan is to at first base the entire storage on a possible month-long power outage, then continue from there. Crazy? maybe. But I'll tell ya, I'd rather have these things and never use them, then need them and not have it. I know people that don't have something as simple as a basic flashlight in their homes. I don't want to be them.
As I've said, I don't sit around and worry about what *might* happen. I don't think of many things that I see on the internet. I don't want to be one of these people that constantly talk of the government taking over and forcing martial law. I don't want to be one of these people that talk about invasions and possible wars. And I'm surely not one of those guys with a basement full of guns and ammo waiting patiently for WW3 to break out or the police to knock on my door to take everything I own. (where do the get this stuff???) I just want to be prepared. I think about storms, power outages, and everything else I have said over and over. I refuse to be one of those people who packs up and leaves just because they can't watch television or turn on a light. I'll start the generator, light a few oil lamps, make some coffee on the campstove, and watch the people run like ants.
I finally decided to get out of the rabbit business until next year. While my buck fathered a few litters for my friend tammie, my does have had ONE litter in the year I've had them. With winter just around the corner, and the thought of frozen water bottles and feeding something that wasn't paying back, I figured it was time. All three are now in the freezer, along with 4 of the 7 roosters I got a few months ago. I planned to get to all 7, but I made my cleaning station a bit too low, and after 3 rabbits and 4 birds, my back was killing me from stooping over. I'll get to the other 3 either today or tomorrow, depending on weather. (yesterday was just too cold and horribly windy) The plan for all of them is 2-3 giant batches of chicken soup in the canner, though it's all pieced and in the freezer for now.
Tomorrow we are going out for groceries. Some will be for stock/storage, and others will be to make meals and things to freeze and can. A while back we tried canning meatloaf. Neither of us had ever canned meatloaf before, let alone ate any home-canned. It was delicious! So, we plan to make a good sized batch to can this weekend as well. Other plans are for casseroles to put together and freeze, along with some meatballs. It's nice having some things pre-prepared and ready for those days when neither of us really feel like cooking.
Already we're working on plans for next years garden. Since we grew so many onions and potato's, we've been eating more of each. Well.....thanks to that, we won't have enough to get us through till spring, which was the plan the whole time. Next year, I'll double each so this won't happen again. The same will go for carrots. I planted some just for the hell of it, we don't eat many carrots, but now that we've decided to can more soup to store, yea, we need more carrots, lol. Ah well, live and learn right?? We'll work on more of next years list this weekend while we're in the kitchen, then start picking through the seed catalogs soon after.
Every year our garden gets bigger, and next year will be no exception. Every year we make mistakes, major and minor, but we learn from them and re-plan for the following season. Again, next year will be no exception. We'll base more planting on more than just the basic things we usually can. (peppers, tomatos, beans, etc) and plan more on things for soups and such. (celery, carrots, etc) Each year as our garden and knowledge grows, so does our list of things we make for ourselves. As a perfect example, I'm EXTREMELY happy to say that we haven't had any store-bought canned soup in a very very long time. Between Lisa's chicken soup and my chili, we haven't had to. Yep, the garden '10 notebook will be chock full of new things and new items. (we also seriously plan on more meat birds next year, though where they will be is still up in the air)
Later today, I'll be working on cleaning and re-organizing my room downstairs. I need to rearrange all of my camping gear, and go through my checklist of things to keep on hand. More and more as I hear and read of things to come, I think about the things I keep there and want to make sure I have all that I need. No, I'm not one to prepare for WW3/SHTF or some other things that so many conspiracy people continuiosuly think about, but I do think of other things. Snowstorms, power outages, etc are my main concerns. A few days ago we had electrical problems at the main pole connection. The power was off not quite an hour while the worker re-wired and changed the connections. Some people I know would have been in a tissy, but we lit a couple oil lamps and grabbed a book. No big deal at all. We've dealt with an hour, we've dealt with a few hours, and a year ago we made it through a few days without a worry. I want to make sure we STAY that way.
There are a few things I want to work on in this small preparadness list though, mainly things we didn't think about before. We need water storage for sure. In case of emergency, we'll need water for cooking and for toilet flushing. (unless I get the camp toilet that I want) I'd love to have some 55 gallon drums of drinking water on hand, but we simply can't afford any right now. I think what I will end up doing is cutting the power line to the well pump and putting plugs at either end. This way in case of power outage, I can run a cord from the generator to the pump and we'll have water. I'll still want some sort of storage on hand though, maybe just 5 gallon "camp" containers for now. Hmm....I see my xmas list being mostly "survival" stuff, lol.
Other things I need to concentrate on checking stock are basic items I should be checking more regularly-first aid, meds, TP, batteries, lamp oil, gasoline, propane, spare flashlight bulbs, generator plugs, etc. My plan is to at first base the entire storage on a possible month-long power outage, then continue from there. Crazy? maybe. But I'll tell ya, I'd rather have these things and never use them, then need them and not have it. I know people that don't have something as simple as a basic flashlight in their homes. I don't want to be them.
As I've said, I don't sit around and worry about what *might* happen. I don't think of many things that I see on the internet. I don't want to be one of these people that constantly talk of the government taking over and forcing martial law. I don't want to be one of these people that talk about invasions and possible wars. And I'm surely not one of those guys with a basement full of guns and ammo waiting patiently for WW3 to break out or the police to knock on my door to take everything I own. (where do the get this stuff???) I just want to be prepared. I think about storms, power outages, and everything else I have said over and over. I refuse to be one of those people who packs up and leaves just because they can't watch television or turn on a light. I'll start the generator, light a few oil lamps, make some coffee on the campstove, and watch the people run like ants.
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