Oct 2011 Personal Preps

[Watchman]

Let's do it!

[fern]

Last month, I posted that I found an Amish community in the northern end of the southwest part of our state. Their community has between 500 and 600 families now and they have built an open air produce auction house. Their auctions are Monday evenings, Wed and Fri mornings. I went the first time with my refractometer to identify the best grower's produce. I purchased almost $600 worth of a large variety of fruits and produce and spent the next ten days canning, dehydrating and making pie fillings, jams and jellies. The entire process went so well (and tasted so good) that I went back and purchased another $467 worth of other types of produce and proceeded to spend the next ten days canning and drying that load along with eating as much as we could stuff in our mouths. Tonight we finished canning the roasted garlic and our work is done but we have filled an entire freezer with corn on the cob and 5 colors of sweet peppers among other goodies. Tonight, I counted the canning jars and have 1288 jars...mostly quarts since we have a large family...completed. We have several cases of dehydrated foods too. As of now, we are averaging basically $1 per jar of veggies and that does not count what is in our freezers, jams/jellies/pie fillings, any of the dehydrated foods or what we ate and shared with our friends, neighbors, and extended family. I am truly amazed and quite relieved that we were able to accomplish putting away this much high brix yummy food so inexpensively.

The only negative that I can share in this process is that the food is sold in bulk lots. For example, I had to buy 80 dozen of corn on the cob and 54 head of cabbage and 200 onions. That created a lot of work in a short period of time. I was lucky that our kids and my Mom was able to help. It meant a lot and we truly enjoyed ourselves and the experience.

[side_job]

Well here is an update from my September post. Got the stove installed today, Im tuckered now.
If you'd like to see a couple pics, click the links. I still have to screw the wall protector boards up, but Im done today.

http://www.ccgs-arms.com/images/stove1.jpg
http://www.ccgs-arms.com/images/stove2.jpg

[Watchman]

Oh, you went straight up - thought you were going to elbow it? Looks like a great job!

Did you have any trouble with cutting the holes?

And, have you fired it up yet (even though it might be hot outside)?

[side_job]

Well when I went to get the chimney pipe, the through the wall kit was a couple hundred higher than the straight up, plus the comments about difficulties getting draught (draft - not sure how to spell that), as for the holes, it went pretty good. set the stove, plum bob to the ceiling, cut that framed it, then plum bob to the roof, drilled holes from underneath through the roof, then sawzall from the top side. The hardest part was getting the single wall to fit with the heavy stove in place. Smoke tested some packing paper to make sure I got the starter piece goo'd in good. Needs to set for 24 hrs it says. I plan to test it out tomorrow night. Might later tonight, it is supposed to hit 39 over night.

[Toepopper]

Very professional looking instalation job. The shingles look great and match perfectly. Having a woodstove is a major plus in the preparedness dept.

[side_job]

well two more rank of wood delivered today (I know I should have cut my own but I don't have a vehicle that will haul wood, nor the time before this winter from Hades gets here), mostly stacked, still lack a little. Working on my dogs pen (they have had the run of the back yard for a while, no more, in the pen they go), and working on our chicken coup. My son has mentioned he wants rabbits again, and I found an ad for some local. So after the dogs, the chicken, the firewood, we will tackle rabbits. Did I mention the wife and I both are full time students and both full time employed and both have an hour each way commute... I sure could use some grid down doom just to get some rest!

[acet7]

Ordered some quickclot http://www.drugstore.com/quikclot-traum ... =quickclot today for my get home bags and bug out bags.