Jan 2010 Personal Preps

[Watchman]

A new month, a new year. What are you doing to prepare?

[side_job]

Well I'll start the list off...

I picked up a couple more bottle of lamp oil, but my main focus has been on securing ammo. I found some 380, finally... and I have a new shoulder holster on order for winter CCW.

All the best in 2010!

[Toepopper]

Decided to convert my one car attatched garage into a storage/utility room to store food and water drums, since my P.U. truck is too large to fit in the garage. This room is 20' long by 16' wide. I ripped some 2x4s down to a width of 2 inches and screwed them onto the existing 2x4s to make the walls a full 6" thick. Now I can put R-21 insulation in the walls for maximum heat retention during the winter and it will stay cool in the hot summer months. So far I have done this to one wall and have covered it with sheetrock. After tape and texture I will install shelves and bins for storage and install a steel security door to keep out any potential burglers/undesireables.

[SS5R]

I found a nursery in town that carries organic, Seeds of Change brand seeds. These seeds come in a zip-lock type plastic pouch instead of paper. I am going to get rid of all my old seeds and start over with organic Seeds of Change. These seeds should have a very long shelf life so I am buying two of everything we grow and will store half in an airtight container and keep it in the basement for future use. After all they have sprouted seeds found in ancient Egyptian tombs.

[Watchman]

I've been trying to make some sense of the weather happenings right now and I believe that [overall] our food supply in the nation is going to take a hit - big time. I read an article that they expect a 6% wholesale rise, which may equate to about 15% retail. Though we are planning a nice garden, we take every opportunity to stock up on basics (vegetables, flour, and other necessities). Our local Smith's supermarket has case-lot sales about 3 or 4 times a year and we just finished replenishing our basic vegetable stock. We are also busily appending the storehouse with medical and personal needs (medical items, first-aid, hygiene) etc. This is a prediction - the SWHTF this spring and summer and winter will be miserable for all. GO FOR THAT ONE-YEAR FOOD AND PROVISIONS SUPPLY - DO IT NOW! Plan all your first-aid, personal, pet needs, along with ammo and other dire necessities. It ain't ever going to get better until and if we take the nation back from the communists.

[Watchman]

Missus and I just finished canning 16 pints of petite beef tenderloin steaks. Thursday we're canning about 30 pints of rhubarb and next week sausage is scheduled. We've decided to explore the full potential of the pressure canner and are going to be experimenting with ground beef, liver, chicken-a-la-king, hot dogs, bacon.

[Toepopper]

I purchased 7 semi dwarf fruit trees and have started digging holes to plant them on the hillside. Mixed varieties of apple, pear and plum that ripen at different time intervals throughout the season.

[fern]

I found an old hardware store...you know the kind where the price tags are so old and covered in years worth of dust and dirt that they are hard to read and impossible to remove and the very old owners have all the inventory in their heads if you have the time to dig where they last saw it? Besides needing a box of Kleenex to handle my reaction to the dust, I came up with lots of little treasures! Two of the old granite coffee percolators for over the open fire, a cast iron coffee grinder, hand potato mashers (just like my gram's), heavy duty hand beaters, lots of cast iron cookware, two sizes of cast iron hand meat grinders, and cases of cheap brand new jars and more boxes of 99 cent lids and wax than I could ask for. Most of the smaller items were a few bucks and the larger items were all $10 and under. They also had the old heavy duty post hole digger and large chunks of the bees wax I used to have to use at my grams on rope and laces and thread, etc. I am going back for another session of digging in the near future. I only worked my way down one half of the front room so far!