Preparedness Challenge: First Aid

As I sit here typing this, my husband is lying in bed, very sick.  Fever, sore throat and body aches are his main complaints.  So, for my preparedness topic today, I'm going to write about first aid a little.  It is times like these that I either realize that I am well prepared in the medicine area, or not ready at all.  It seems like the only time children need a fever reducer is late at night, when getting to a store is either difficult or impossible.  While I don't feel that it is necessary to treat every little thing with tylenol, it's gives me peace of mind to know that I have it here when I need it. 

First aid goes beyond medicine though.  There are lots of lists available for first aid kits and many complete kits ready to buy.  My goal for this week is to go through the little kits that we already have in the cars and replenish them.  With three small children, the band-aids are the first to disappear.  There is a long list of items that you might consider for your -at home- first aid kit but I'll try to limit my list for a more mobile kit.  One that could go in a 72 hour bag.

First and foremost, are bandages and ointment for all those little scrapes that children can't seem to help getting.  Those little alcohol swabs are also handy to clean up wounds in a hurry.  Just thinking about my kids and being out of doors, I need to remember the sunburn cream and the "itchy" cream - the one that makes those mosquito bites livable.   For times when a band-aid just won't cover it, sterile gauze and athletic tape are very useful and an elastic ace-bandage comes in handy.  Don't forget the asprin, as well as a non-asprin type pain/fever reducer.  Those with small children might want to include a package of children's medicines. 

There are some items that can be re-purposed to work in the first aid kit.  Free paint stirring sticks work well for a splint and a maxi pad can work as an absorbent bandage.  You can make your own sterile wraps by ripping an old sheet in to strips, rolling the strips up and then baking them in the oven for 30 minutes at 220 degrees.  Placed into a zip-lock baggie, these strips will stay sterile until you need them.  Also, did you know that cayenne pepper can be used to stop bleeding?  Shake some onto a bleeding wound, and it will cauterize the bleeding vessels. 

Don't forget hand sanitizer!  How I wished I had packed some on my last cowboying trip.  Also, small scissors and tweezers can make life much more pleasant when trying to get slivers out and cut gauze and tape.  I will also include an instant cold pack, q-tips and a first aid instruction booklet.  Don't forget to grab any prescription drugs on your way out the door with your 72 hour kit! 

I'm linking up with Homestead Revival's Preparedness Challenge!

Preparedness Challenge: Water Storage

The new valve

This morning, as I was leaving the house with the kids to head to the local farmer's market, I noticed some water spraying from the irrigation pipes.  I walked closer to investigate, put my hand on the valve, and BOOM!  the pipe broke and water sprayed 20 feet in the air, as well as in my face.    Today was the day that "they" turned on the irrigation water.  I'm not sure exactly who the water turning on people are, so I had no idea who to call about this geyser in the back yard.  People around here water their lawns with this water, rather than the treated city water.  It's cheaper, I guess.  I stood there for a while, not sure what to do about this turn of events.  I wish I had taken a picture of it. 

The broken valve

I called the landlady who was sure I just needed to turn the valve.  I couldn't get her to understand that the valve was not attached to the water pipe anymore.  It was dancing around in the geyser water.  Thankfully, a neighbor heard the gusher and perhaps saw the new little river coursing through his yard and came over to offer some help.  He called Carlos, whoever that is, and got the water turned off until a plumber could fix the pipes.  We went to the market and when we came back, the geyser was no more and there is a new and improved valve on the pipe.

It occurred to me that maybe this was a sign that I should talk about water as it relates to emergency preparedness.  If that had been a main water line that broke, and we were without water for a day or more, would we be prepared?  I have been focusing on preparedness as it relates to a 72 hour kit, but I'm going to talk about general water preparedness as well.

Did you know that a person needs about 1 gallon of water per day?  That is two quarts of drinking water, plus water for cooking and hygiene.  Children may need even more, so for my family of five, I would need 15 gallons of water, at least.  That's pretty hard to carry in a 72 hour kit.  We do have enough water pouches for one person to last (supposedly) for three days and we have a canteen that can be easily carried, as well as water bottle holders on our backpacks, but we just won't be able to carry 15 gallons of water on our backs.  Instead, I plan to purchase some water purification tablets.  They are much easier to carry and will allow us to safely use whatever water we can find.




At home, it a bit easier to store water.  There are big barrels designed especially for water.  Just be sure you have them where you want them before you fill them because they are much too heavy to move once filled.  Another option for ensuring clean water is a good filter system such as this Berkey water system or this British Berefeld system.  As far as I can tell, they are basically the same thing.

If you are like me though, and don't have the money for a fancy filtration system and don't have the room for large barrels of water, there are other options.  Many people rinse out and refill used juice or soda bottles.  This is a cheap way to store water.  My mother used to fill old vinegar bottles and store them under our beds so they didn't take up too much room.

I still don't have much storage room to do that, so to store water, I use my empty canning jars.  I wash it, fill it with hot water and put it on the shelf where it would be sitting anyway.  Usually, the old lid still has enough power to seal if you use hot water.  You are supposed to rotate your stored water every six months and this method ensures that I do just that, since I will be using those jars soon.  The only big drawback of this is that there is a period of time where I don't have much water stored at all.  I do plan on filling old pop bottles to store under my bed and I should probably get to it before canning season gets underway.

Also, in instances of no water, remember that you can drain the hot water heater and use that water, as well as the water in the tank of the toilet. Keep in mind with this preparation that the one gallon/day is a bare minimum estimate.  In actuality, a normal household uses 50 gallons of water per day for drinking, bathing, laundry, dishes, toilet flushing, etc. 

What do you do to store water?

I'm linking up with Homestead Revival's preparedness challenge!

Preparedness Challenge: fire starters

Okay, technically I covered this one already in the warmth and shelter section, but I want to talk a little more about this subject.  Specifically fire starters, but also shelter.

It is wise to carry a few fire starting options in the 72 hour kit.  I know personally that waterproof matches can be kind of temperamental when you try to strike them and it could take a few to actually get anything lit.  We have a few inexpensive cigarette lighters in there too and my husband wants to buy a nice zippo to have around.  While we were shopping the other day, we decided to pick up a flint and steel from the camping department.  It's the kind that comes with some magnesium stuff that you carve off and it's supposed to ignite easily.  We want to try it out, but we have to wait till things dry out a bit to light a campfire in the pit.

Also important to remember is something that catches fire easily.  You can't just hold a match to a log and expect it to burst into a roaring fire and sometimes things are a bit too damp to use what is around you.  Some old newspaper is easy to pack or toilet paper can work too, although it doesn't always burn great.  Make sure it's held in something that will keep it dry.  There are also other options such as these fire starters made from dryer lint and egg cartons.

During our last shopping trip, we had some fun in the camping area.  If I could find the camera, I would take a picture for you, but it has disappeared along with one of the baby's shoes.  I'll link up to pictures instead.   In addition to the flint and steel, we bought a little camp stove.  Very little, but for emergencies and little pack trips that I send the boys on, it will work great.  It can also serve as a heat source in a small area, if it is so needed, although you should probably have good ventilation.  We also bought a little mess kit.  We figured a stove wouldn't do much good without a little pot to sit on it.

To top off the week of shelter and warmth, we bought a tent.  We have been watching the online classifieds for a good deal and we found one this week.  It's not huge, but I didn't want it to be.  We need to be able to carry it on our backs if needed.  Like when I send the boys on that pack trip next month. 

All in all, it was a pretty good week for us, in the preparedness area.  I'm linking up to Homestead Revival for the Preparedness Challenge.

Other topics on the 72 hour kit:

Overview and extra clothes

Warmth and Shelter

Communication

Light Sources

Canning dry beans in the pressure canner

This week for the preparedness challenge, I thought I'd share a skill I'm working on instead of the next step of the 72 hour kit.  We were traveling this week, so I didn't have a chance to work on the 72 hour kit much.  Besides, canning is an important skill plus,  I'm a bit lazy, so this is what you get.

We spent a few days this week visiting my mom.  The weather wasn't great, but we got outside a bit anyway.  Spring is just barely peeking out there.  Her tulips were blooming and the grass is turning green under the snow they got during the night, but that's about the only color you see other than the brown mud everywhere, but that doesn't really count.

We did not use this old stove

My mom took full advantage of my presence and started canning beans.  Canning dry beans takes a pressure canner.  Pressure canners are just scary enough to stop us both from doing much with them when we're alone.  Together, we have just enough courage to do it.  For Christmas, I bought two new pressure gauges for her two twin canners.  (She has several, I don't know where they all come from)  This was the maiden voyage for those gauges.  *Get your gauges checked every year to be safe.  We took ours (hers) to the county extension office and they took them to a neighboring county since their tester thinger was broken.*

At the last minute, mom decided to use her antique canner that has been handed down from mother to daughter since my grandma's grandma.  It's pretty cool looking and the gauge was actually accurate.  (she tested it too)  She chose to use it because it is tall and she wanted to try canning some half gallon jars of beans for those times that we are feeding a multitude.  There is surprisingly little information online about this particular canner.  I looked because I was nervous.  (I did learn that half gallon jars aren't really well tested with the pressure canner.  So keep that in mind...)  The valve things on this baby are complicated and a little scary.  Mom cranked up the heat and then decided to go see if my sister had any potatoes she could borrow.  Sneaky lady left me there wringing my hands, not knowing exactly how to run the thing.  It does look scary with steam pouring out the copper valve... kind of bomb-like.

It was a funny turn of events for me to be standing on the balcony calling for the neighboring house to send mom home.  How many times had she stood there and called for me when I was a girl...?

We survived with no mishaps, thank goodness.  I know I make a big deal out of a not so big thing, but I'm a coward, I guess.  Maybe it's the gauge and valves that make the pressure canner look so scary.  It's really not that complicated, if you read the directions and keep them handy because you will forget exactly when you are supposed to turn the heat down.

Why can dry beans, you ask?  They store perfectly and almost forever in their dry state.  Seems like a bit of work just to get beans in a jar.  But, for a person like me that only remembers that I was supposed to soak beans about five minutes before I need them for the meal, beans in a jar are a valuable commodity.  The funny thing about this process is... you have to soak the beans.  I'm a dork, I know, but it makes sense to my silly brain.  Better to soak a bunch of beans and get them all cooked at once so I don't have to remember in the future.

Here's the process we went through, just in case you want to know...

-Soak the beans.  I know a lady that says you don't really need to do this step.  You can measure out the dry beans and soak them right in the jars if you want.
-Put beans into the jars.  Dry bean measurements are: pints 1/2 cup beans  quarts 3/4 cup beans.  I know that doesn't make sense. Two pints to a quart,  but 1 cup of beans in a quart jar is just too much.  I know, I tried.  We soaked all the beans together and then divided them into the jars.  The jars will be just over half way full with soaked beans.  I've heard that people cook the beans first, but I don't.  They cook a bunch in the canner.
-Top off jars with water, leaving 1 inch head space, then wipe the rim of the jar.
-Put lids on.  I've read to warm the lids in a pot of almost boiling water, but I forgot.
-Our canner said to put two quarts of hot water into the canner... follow the directions with your canner as far as venting, etc.  We vented for 10 minutes and then put the doo-jobby on.  My mom calls it a stop-cock.  I prefer doo-jobby.
-For our elevation, we brought the pressure to 14.  To find the correct pressure, look in a canning book or in the instructions that came with your canner.   I would go with the canning book if it's up to date.
-Let cook for 75 minutes for pints, or 90 minutes for quarts.

Happy pressure canning!

I'm linking up with Homestead Revival's preparedness challenge!

Preparedness Challenge: communications

Today for my preparedness point, I'm talking about the communication area of our 72 hour kit.  In times of crisis, it is nice to be able to turn on a radio to hear the news.  Unfortunately, in a crisis, there probably won't be electricity, so battery powered or a crank style radio are best.  Also good to have, is a whistle.  The sound of a whistle carries a lot farther than a voice can, something that can be helpful if you are lost.

These are what we have in the way of communications.  A crank radio that has a battery compartment if you would rather, and a radio that is attached to our lantern emergency light.  It takes a lot of cranking to keep the radio going, but I know I can get it to work if I need it.  There is also an attachment that charges cell phones, but I haven't looked into that yet.  It would be handy to be able to charge your phone with a hand crank when there is no power. 

 I'm linking up with Homestead Revival for the preparedness challenge!

Preparedness Challenge: light sources

It's Saturday again... actually Saturday is almost over and I'm just getting to writing this.  It's the day to look over one of those areas of a 72 hour kit.  Last week, I wrote about warmth and shelter and I'm still looking at a few things there, but I wanted to move along.  Today, I'm inventorying our light sources.  The list I have recommends a flashlight with batteries, candles and lightsticks. 











Flashlights seem to always be the thing we forget about... until we need them.  Every camping trip or power outage seems to catch me off guard.  Then when I do find a flashlight, the batteries are dead.  It's just a hard thing to store with the battery thing.  That's why I'm loving the flashlights with a crank.  You wind it up, and it lights up.  We even have one that also has a radio and compass.  We keep the lantern type one in my bedroom and we have used it on more than one occasion as a nightlight for the kids when the power goes out at night.  (You wouldn't think you would need light after bed time, would you?)


Along with the wind-up flashlights, we have also accumulated some emergency candles, and I had no idea that I had light sticks until I was digging through our car emergency kit.  I think we're pretty well set as far as lighting goes.  How about you?

I'm linking up with Homestead Revival's preparedness challenge.

Preparedness Challenge: warmth and shelter

A few weeks ago, I posted about the 72 hour kit, or bug out bag, that I am working on.  Since the list of needed items is so long and overwhelming, I am breaking it down section by section.  Last time I looked at the "extra clothing" section and I think we'll be okay as far as that goes.  The next section I want to tackle, is warmth and shelter.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that after 7 years of marriage, we do not own one bit of camping equipment.  Not even sleeping bags.  We do go camping, we just have to borrow things from friends and family when we go.  I've just been too cheap to invest in that stuff.  In my mind, it was not a necessity, so I didn't want to spend money on it.  As I've been thinking from a preparedness standpoint however, these expenses don't seem so frivolous. 

The suggested list of items includes:
waterproof matches and another method of starting a fire
tent/shelter
wool-blend blanket or sleeping bag
emergency reflective blanket
lightweight stove and fuel
hand and body warm packs
poncho

I have a small pack of matches and a lighter, some emergency blankets, warm packs and ponchos.  If I did  need to leave my home, I don't think I'll really enjoy snuggling down under those emergency blankets for the night, huddled around a lighter and clutching a hand warmer.  I finally decided that it was time to invest in some camping gear.  The plan is to get a good hiking type backpack and fit our camping equipment inside.  We want to buy a small propane camp stove and a small tent that can be easily carried and fit our little family if we all needed to get out of the weather.  In un-emergency times, this tent will be just for the kids to camp in.  At first I thought those tiny hiking sleeping bags would be the way to go, but I changed my mind.  We are going for actual use as well as emergency preparation here.  We bought two sleeping bags that can be zipped together to make a big sleeping bag.  I wanted that so that we could squish the whole family into one sleeping bag if we really need to.  They were delivered this past week and I haven't had any buyers regret.

As money allows, we will add the tent, stove and backpack, but this is a start.  At least we'll be able to keep each other warm at night.  I have to say that this was a great way to get my husband excited about emergency preparedness.  He has been the one researching and finding deals on the web.  Poor guy has been waiting 7 years for the go-ahead to buy camping gear.  I'm finally there.

I'm linking up to Homestead Revival's preparedness challenge.

Preparedness Challenge: 72 hour kit

Amy, at Homestead Revival has been hosting a weekly preparedness challenge at her blog each Saturday.  Since preparedness is a topic near and dear to my heart, I was very excited to take part.  Then life happened and suddenly it's week 5 of the challenge.  Back before my life got hectic, I had planned to go through what is needed for a 72 hour kit.  I feel pretty confident in being prepared for emergencies as long as I can stay in my home, but if I had to evacuate for some reason?  No idea what to take.  That's what a 72 hour kit, or Bug out bag is for. 

The list I have is slightly overwhelming. The items listed include; water, food, warmth and shelter, light sources, tools, first aid, communications, personal sanitation, extra clothing, money, important papers and something to put it all in. It lists all these things, but then tells you not to overload your bag... Prepare for everyone in the family, including pets, but keep it to a minimum.  Honestly, this is why I have avoided this project for so long.  I'm frozen by all the requirements.  So, I think I'll take it one section at a time. 

I'll start with the extra clothes.  It's really not feasible for me to keep winter clothes in the 72 hour kit for the duration of the winter, because we are using those clothes throughout the winter.  We would have to grab all our winter gear on our way out the door.  Now that winter is over, it's time to think about preparing for the hot months.  Hats would probably be a good idea to have on hand, or stuffed into the bag.  However, nights here still get cold, so sweatshirts or jackets need to have a place as well.

As part of our preparedness to leave in a hurry, I decided to let my kids practice packing their own backpacks.  We make weekend trips to Grandmas house often and each child gets their own backpack.  They are responsible for packing their clothing for the weekend.  Since they are already "trained" to pack quickly (some of these trips are spur of the moment things) I think they will be able to quickly pack the needed extra clothing if we were to need to leave in a hurry.  Except for the baby, of course.  I would be in charge of stuffing another bag full of diapers and wipes.  :)  Finish off with a few water bottles and granola bars, sunscreen and mosquito repellent, and I think they'll be packed.

Food Storage: How to use canned chicken

I was wary of canned chicken for a long time.  It just looks awful.  Really awful.  I didn't see the value of taking something I was perfectly comfortable with -frozen chicken- and turning it into something so scary and unusable.  Then, my freezer became full.  And I found a great deal on chicken.  A big box of chicken.  So, my mother and I pulled out the pressure canners and went to work.  When we were done, we had a bunch of nasty looking jars.  Usually, a bunch of full jars is a source of joy for me, but not this time.  I thought the money spent on that chicken was a waste.  I could never bring myself to use it and my husband would not be able to swallow it.  He's a texture guy, you know. 

Then I tried thinking of recipes that could use the chicken, since I hate to waste so much food.  I came up with chicken enchiladas.  I figured the chicken is so covered up in there, it might just work.  So, while my husband wasn't watching, I opened a can and chopped up the chicken inside, which is very similar to tuna in feel and texture.  I made the enchiladas and watched to see if he would spit it out on the first bite. 

He didn't.  He ate a few helpings and then complimented me on how good the enchiladas were that night.  Hmmm.  Not what I expected at all.  I was amazed actually at how good they were too. 

So that gave me courage to try more recipes.  Chicken chili is good, as well as a chicken tortilla soup that we like.  I'm going to try a chicken salad soon and see how that works out, but I don't often make that, so we won't have much to compare against.  Really, anything that takes cooked, cut up chicken would probably work great with canned chicken. 

I never thought I would admit that I like canned chicken, and you certainly won't see me eating it straight out of the jar. (shudder)  But, I like that it is already cooked and ready to go, and I love that it isn't taking up valuable freezer space.

Hopefully tomorrow I can type out a few of these recipes, but not tonight.  I have to go put away that chicken chili we ate for dinner.

Living off of food storage: One week challenge

Some scoff at the idea of storing large amounts of food, but really, having just a little extra is always a good idea.  I remember once as a younger girl, we had a huge blizzard.  The roads were closed for several days.  The grocery stores were an amazing sight to me.  Empty shelves everywhere.  In just a few days, those well stocked shelves were completely empty.  No milk, no bread.  I remember it very vividly.  Luckily, my mother has a basement full of food, so we weren't too affected, aside from the convenience factor.  But how many people weren't so prepared? 

I realize winter blizzards aren't a concern for everyone, but there are plenty of other natural disasters to pick from.  How can you know if you are really prepared?  Something kind of fun to do is to take the week-long challenge.  To do it, you pretend that you cannot get to the grocery store, or that there is nothing there.  Look in your pantry and feed your family from there for a week.  No preparing before hand.  Starting right now, could you do it?  Would it be absolutely miserable? 

Living off of food storage: Meal planning, part 2

I talked a bit about not wanting to go back to the meals we had as newlyweds. I also do not want to go back to our meals from the few years after that. I graduated, we moved, we added two children. Every day, I seemed to forget that dinner doesn't cook itself. Suddenly, it was 4 o'clock and I had nothing planned, nothing defrosted, no energy left to come up with something brilliant. I would call hubby and have him pick up Taco Bell on his way home. Or Burger King, or Quiznos, or... you get the picture.

Then one night, I realized that I was causing myself undue stress. I like to cook, I know how to cook, all I need to do is prepare a little. Back then it was just hubby and I buying value meals, but it was still between 15-20 dollars for a meal. Now, there are four of us, so our fast food bills are closer to $30. When I have a plan, we don't do the desperation fast food meals so often. I love the feeling of having dinner ready to cook, or already cooking. When we are driving around town and hubby asks, do you have something planned for dinner, or should we stop and grab something, I can triumphantly say, "Dinner is in the crockpot!" We save so much money by simply cooking at home. Plus, I'm a little less fat. Win, win.

Knowing how much it helps me, I dove into my new meal plan. As I started working through it, however, I noticed that every once in a while, I found myself dreading the coming week. I felt completely uninspired to cook, something I truly enjoy doing. In trying to figure this out, I noticed that there would be one or two meals planned for the week that were very complicated or time consuming, or just not that great. We didn't want to eat them, or prepare them that often. For example, lasagna is not my forte. I don't have a great recipe, so I don't love the product. I just couldn't get motivated to make it. Maybe if I have tons of spare time one day, I'll make five pans of it and put them in the freezer. On the other end of the spectrum, I love schnitzel, but it takes time and work. That meal is more suited to special occasions, not a monthly making.

For my improved meal plan, I took another look at that list of meals. I made smaller lists, one for things that I like to make and we don't mind eating every month or more, and one for things we like, but may not want that often. Then there is another list- actually a pile of papers in my notebook- of things I would like to try or maybe improve on.

Now, I have a four week rotation of meals. Each week has 4-5 meals planned out. The remaining days, I choose from the other lists, or have a leftover extravaganza. This gives me a great start on the weekly plan, but still allows some freedom for variety. So far, I like it, but I am still tweaking things and adding new things. I had fun trying out summer harvest recipes, but now we're transitioning more into soups.

Figuring out how much I need of what has gotten interesting. I had already stored up most of the food for my first meal plan. I figure I'll still use the basics no matter what I make though, so instead of figuring all that out again, I'm keeping track of what I use from what I had stored. Hopefully this time next year, I'll have it a little more scientific-like. For now, I'm doing old fashioned subtraction.

Here's my meal plan, for now. I'll probably keep playing with it, and I need to add a few things, but this will give you an idea.

Week 1

Meatloaf

Pizza

Roast

Chicken

Stroganoff/ chops & sauce

Sometimes list

Week 2

Burgers

Spaghetti

Chops

baked potato bar

Chick enchiladas/

Sometimes list

Week 3

Tacos /Navajo taco

Stir-fry /Orange chicken

Steak

Meatball/ roll-ups

Chicken

List

Week 4

Sloppy Joes

Soup

Roast/ribs

Fry/grilled chicken

Crock-pot chicken

List

Sometimes List

German noodles

Crepes

Runzas

Brats

Schnitzel

Hamburger Pie

Shepherd’s Pie

Fajitas

Lasagna

Pasta Griffa

Chicken Parmesan

Alfredo Chicken

Cobb salad

Risotto

Stuffed Chicken

Chicken Dumplings

Rotisserie chicken

Soups

Calico beans

Spicy beef

Chili

White Chili

Cabbage

Onion

Stew

Baked Potato Soup

Chicken Tortilla

Tomato

To Try

Tamales

Gyro...

Living off of food storage: Meal planning, part 1

Okay, I talked last time about why I stockpiled food. Now I want to talk about what food to store. There are generally two ways to look at it. You can store things that will last a lifetime - an "in case of emergency" food supply, like my mother's fake meat. Or, there's the store what you eat mindset, where you buy a few extra items that you usually buy while at the grocery store. That one never works for me because I forget to easily, or I don't restock as I use it.

My plan was inspired by a woman from the Everything Under the Sun blog, although I didn't find her blog until after I had heard her plan. What she suggests is selecting 7 breakfasts and 7 dinners that you like and then figuring out how much of each ingredient you need for each meal and then multiply that by 52. Just like that, you know how much food to store for the entire year.

A nice idea in concept, but I don't want to eat the same food every week of the entire year. I've done that with frozen pot pies and it gets really old. I decided to write down every dinner that we like. It came out to be well over a month's worth of meals. It just seemed like a good idea to implement the weekly food idea as a 6 week meal idea.

I went to work scrawling out amounts. Had I followed her advice about writing each of those meals down on a note card, my life would have been easier. However, I seem to need to do things the hard way first. That's just the way I am. I wrote on my recipes, multiplying everything by 13 (threw that extra month in, just in case). Then I had to try to pull all those amounts together.
This is what I ended up with...

This is just one page. The scanner is so smart, it automatically crops the ugly edges off, so you can't see the other 5 pages stacked behind this one. This page is amazingly neat. Did I mention, I did this the hard way?

Finally, I got everything tallied and since we had a good 8 months till we would leave for school, I decided to start doing the meal rotation right away, and I'm glad I did because I found a flaw in my reasoning. This is where those note cards would have come in especially handy.

In the planning, I figured on using each meal about once a month. It seemed simple enough that way, but I found that some meals just don't want to be made that often. Like lasagna, or crepes. I ended up re-evaluating my meals and I came up with a system that I am pretty happy with. I'll let you in on it in my next food storage post, so you can hopefully learn from my mistakes.

Living off of food storage: Why a year supply?

Why a full year supply of food?

In my experience, people either understand storing lots of food or they don't. My mom has a large storage room, so I'm quite used to the idea of having extra food on hand. No need to drive to town if we run out of anything, just go downstairs and get more. I like that feeling of preparedness, plus, it cuts down on impulse purchases if you can stay out of the grocery store.

But, why so much food? People are starting to see the wisdom in having some extras on hand, but a full year? Many people stock piled food in fear of some huge catastrophe, such as the Y2K scare. But it seems to me that having enough food on hand would ease much of the burden for families struggling through this recession. Just having oats, pasta and beans on hand would insure healthy eating, even if it's not delicious. I know many families have been grateful for their storage while they are going through job changes, or unemployment. For us, heading off to school without much income, it seems like the best plan. With so many unknowns in the coming year... will we be moving again? Staying here? Finding summer work elsewhere? Staying for summer classes? Will we run out of money? ...I want to be sure I can feed my kiddos and feed them well.

I don't want a repeat of the first two years of my marriage. I was still attending college and my husband was working and taking evening classes. I was way too busy to plan meals, and our tiny apartment barely had room for our dishes, let alone any food storage. We ate frozen pot pies (the cheap ones) and pasta roni almost exclusively for those two years. Sometimes we shook it up with hamburger helper. While these meals were very cheap, they were also lacking. I can honestly say that I have not had a frozen pot pie since then. I want to be able to eat real, quality food.

Moderation, however. It seems that in my mother's day, storing for the long term was the thing. She has enough hard red wheat to feed an army, as well as can after can of pretend meat -textured vegetable protein- which will store forever. Good thing, because it will never be eaten.

I want to be somewhere in the middle. Enough for a year, but things we will use. But, how do I know how much of what? If I can figure out my scanner, I'll show you my crazy tally sheets next time.

Living off of food storage: addicted to canning

Have you ever felt addicted to canning?

Two years ago, I had the sudden urge to fill the shelves. We -my mother, two sisters and I- canned over 700 jars of everything. Jams, currant syrup, beets, tomatoes, soup, salsa, chili sauce, apples, applesauce, spaghetti sauce, peaches, pears, raspberries, apricots. We kept finding new recipes to try. Green tomatoes were used in relish, taco sauce and jam. We filled everyone's shelves, passing the goods between my brother, my four sisters, my mother and even my grandma.

Last year was the same. We did over 900 jars. People in the area started bringing us all their old, unused jars because we were begging for them. I felt kind of silly overstocking like that. It's not like we needed 50 jars of spaghetti sauce. I couldn't explain it though, I just had to fill those jars. Then I started to get an idea of why I felt so inspired to can.

Around this time last year, it became apparent to us that we were going to have to move in order for my husband to finish his degree at a university. That meant leaving the cheap rent of my parent's place and finding an apartment that could fit our family. It also meant that our income would be very small, if anything. We tried to save up money, but hubby's hours were unreliable and we were expecting our third child. Seeing that money was going to be short, I decided to store up as much food as possible and live off of that storage for the coming school year.

This year, with the move and getting settled, I didn't really can anything. I just didn't have the time or the tools. My shelves are still full though. There were still plenty of canned goods for us to bring with us as part of our year supply. I don't know if those years of canning will get us all the way through school, but they should get us through this year at least.

Now we've started living off of that supply, and the experiment has begun. The canned goods are just a part of our storage, but I think I've written enough to bore you for one post.
I'll write more about our preparations for surviving college tomorrow... or maybe Monday. There's no school tomorrow, so my schedule will be shot.