Oct 2012 Personal Preps

[Watchman]

Start the new month with some enhancements to your personal preparedness. What day will you devote to your pantry?

[Toepopper]

We have been filling the pantry with what we have canned from this years garden and still have lots to can and put up. The freezer is full of frozen berries, green beans and tomato's and yesterday I began digging up the rest of the potato's for winter storage. I grew some non GMO popping corn again this year and its almost ready to be picked and hung up to dry before being removed from the cob and put away. So the pantry is filling up and will be topped off with store bought canned goods. I also bought a 3 pack of large strike anywhere kitchen matches that were wrapped in a celophane wrapper so they should store well. Found them at the hardware store in town. Today I am going to get a spare pair of bootlaces for each pair of boots I have waiting as backup foot wear. Deer season started on Saturday and many sporting goods stores are having sales on deer and elk caliber ammunition at this time.

[Watchman]

Took a 250-mile (round trip) roadie to Sam's Club yesterday. Stocked up on supplements, MORE extra-virgin olive oil and regular olive oil, lemon juice in large quantity for washing vegetables, cider vinegar and bought two quartz heaters for supplemental heat in a couple of our rooms. Son brought us 20 more pallets to disassemble for fire wood. Speaking of fire wood, I use a reciprocating saw to cut up pallets. Each blade costs about $4.95 at China Mart and lasts me about 25 or 30 pallets before it breaks and I have to replace it. I figured there must be a cheaper way. Amazon sells Bosch Swiss-made blades in a 5-pack for about $3.00 and $2.00 each, free shipping. I bought two types: a tougher wood-cutting blade and another called a "demolition" blade that is even tougher. We'll see how they work. My son (love him, but he's dense sometimes) said 'Dad, why don't you use the chain saw?' I could easily use up $10 bucks worth of gasoline, two-cycle oil and bar oil in an hour if I used the chain saw. I try to save it for thick logs. The recip saw works fine.

[Watchman]

This is sort of a prep day, but not our 'monthly official'. We just figured we had things to do that should not be put off. Our son brought us 22 pallets. Yesterday we cut up 11 and I was using a new blade on my recip - a Bosch 'demolition' blade. It goes through hardwood like a knife through soft butter. In the time it normally takes us to cut up 5 pallets, we cut up eleven. We have two separate wood supplies - one is our household supply and one is our "emergency-come-hell-or-high-water" supply that we don't touch. Our emergency supply is done and we are about a third through our winter household supply. Got to get our young butts moving as colder than normal weather is forecast for the upper plains.

Second story is that wife is making some beef stew in the slow cooker today. She used four quarts of home-canned beef ribs that we canned 15 years ago! I trust my nose and they are good, but she took all the fat off that had congealed at the top of the jar and dumped them in a stainless steel stock pot and will boil them for 20 minutes to make double-damn sure there are no botulism spores. Then we peel the meat off the bones and put it in the slow cooker to cook all day. Included are the last potatoes and onions from our garden.

We're soaking the labels off of 15 instant coffee jars to use for honey from our five-gallon pail. You don't have to water-bath them so therm with their plastic lids are fine.

The pantry has been completely re-set - a benefit of the re-set is we found two jars without proper seals and 6 cans of food; 4 of which were grapefruit. Apparently the acid in the grapefruit caused the can to swell or leak. I would advise that if you keep canned citrus fruit that you use it regularly and rotate.

Hallelujah! Our son [who we thought was the most hardheaded working stiff-not-worried-about-anything] told us last night [he and his girl;friend both agreeing] that they thought 911 and WTC 7 were a staged event. They ARE beginning to think of things under the radar. Our youngest son told us by phone that he was building garden beds for use in the spring. He hasn't given a damn thought heretofore about doing anything for themselves.

There is hope yet folks!


P.S. A guy who also burns pallets and has done so for several years said to leave the nails in the wood. When the wood has been reduced to burning embers, the nails retain the heat for a while.

[Watchman]

We got our wood cut just in time! Yesterday the northern plains got their first snow, about 4 inches. [Wash My Mouth]!

[Watchman]

I know how much 308 (and others, including myself) hate the word 'sustainable' but I think used in the proper context it means other than what the evil UN wants it to be. There is no use letting them hijack our language. Don't want it to end up like the word 'gay' which, at one time, meant happy or 'government', which at one time meant trust. At any rate we try to utilize every little thing that is on our property - I think this is part of God's overall plan. After we cut up pallets for firewood, its time to gather the kindling. Our plan is to use everything and not gripe about what we don't have. Here is what we gather up for kindling, as well as branches from bushes and trees that we trim. Works pretty darned good.

[Watchman]

Probably final tally on homemade jams and jelly this year - all done within the last month or two:

6 jars apricot jam
8 jars Nanking cherry jam
12 jars raspberry jam
8 jars crabapple jelly

In the spring we're going to try making dandelion jelly and home-canning (pressure) dandelion greens. It is done but is very labor-intensive. We like to try odd jams and jellies - among those we are thinking about is corncob jelly. If enough clover blossoms were around here we would make clover jam too.

[Watchman]

Got a case of pinto beans at .69 a can - cheap by today's standards when they normally sell for $1.39.

Hoses are drained, rolled up and stored for the winter.

Looking at possibilities about food, wife made a pot of green chili using rabbit meat. Tasty!

We have a young guy that lives two doors from us who is always bringing us elk, deer, and antelope meat and we trade outdated Little Debbie products.

We're re-evaluating our medicine storage based on the article yesterday about expiration dates. Am adopting the premise that a weakened product is better than none at all. Still in a quandary about how to store inasulin supplies.

I'm going to purchase a 64GB flash drive to store all our photos and documents on. It will be easier to protect a small flash drive from EMP - I think.