Sep 2010 Personal Preps

[Watchman]

Personal preps during national preparedness month.

[WillyPete]

Today I purchased a 16 qt. pressure canner/cooker and did my first foray into the world of canning.
My daughter has several very prolific grapevines at her house producing both muscadine and scuppernong grapes. I was over there yesterday fixing her A/C system and I picked 2.5 gallons of those grapes to turn into jelly once I was done with that. I just finished my first batch about 15 minutes ago and watched the jar tops pop down with the vacuum. I imagine I will have some good wild grape jelly and I have 1.5 gallons of grapes left to make another batch, I just need to buy another flat of jars, bands and lids.

[Toepopper]

If you get tired of making jelly you can always hang those grape bunches up on a string or wire and turn them into raisins. I can't eat sugared preserves so I have to produce raisins instead.

[WillyPete]

Good idea, hadn't considered that, I like raisins too. I'll just have to figure a way to get those pesky seeds out of them before I dry them. Well, maybe not, the seeds are tiny so it may not be that big of a problem. Then again, with the rather thick hulls on those grapes would they even dry enough to go raisin or would they do something else? The hulls on muscadine and scuppernong are maybe three to four times as thick as a concord or similar grape, pretty tough skins.

[Toepopper]

Don't know about those varieties. I make raisins out of Perlette and Thompson grapes plus I tried red Malaga which is a great big seeded table grape. They all came out fine, but there is low humidity here where I live so I don't know how well it will work in a humid climate. They might just get moldy unless you use an electric dehydrator. Shame to waste the fruit when you have a bumper crop and hanging bunches of grapes is less time consuming than making jam and jellies.

[fern]

The month is young but I was heading to where I have been working this weekend and there was a yard sale with rows and rows of used food grade buckets piled 6' high. They were a quarter a piece and used to contain marshmallow and vanilla. I bought them all for $.25 each without lids. I have a ton of lids so that worked out for me. Today I have been filling them but I am now out of the liners. Has anyone found a place to purchase the liners in bulk rather than the expensive individual price??

They discontinued those Bryon ham cans at dollar general so I bought those out too. They are all dated for the end of 2012 so if I don't need them by then..well we are going to have a lot of ham to eat. Dollar General also had Wolf brand Chili without beans!! I have never found it here in the east and my family loves it on hot dogs. I usually have to pack it in my suitcase when we are in the west. Heading that way again next month so now I only have to bring back Ranch Beans!

Made another trip to the restaurant supply place and bought more TP (122 2ply rolls to a box for $22), paper plates, aluminum foil in 1,000 length, plastic wrap in the same length, more spices, etc. I think I may have a couple years of this kind of supplies put up now. I only wish food were as inexpensive and easy to get! Now I need to buy more storage tubs to put it all in. Even though we have that hunting cat...I don't want to risk rodents getting into any of this.

[Watchman]

Although it didn't start as a prep thing, something providential happened to us today. We give away outdated Little Debbie, Pepperridge Farm, and Mission foods items to the local food bank. When wifey took them in today there was a pile from floor to ceiling of cases, upon cases, of powdered milk that they were giving away to anyone who wanted them. Though we don't need food assistance we were offered as much as we wanted. Each case had 12 bags each that would make five quarts each. We're taking a trunk full of tortillas Thursday and will trade for another case.

[Watchman]

Update on the powdered milk caper. We just traded about 5 boxes of outdated products for another 40 pounds of powdered milk. We now have our planned stock of milk.

[fern]

How much milk is supposed to be stocked per person? And how much extra if you have little ones?

[WillyPete]

Went by one of my haunts(stores) to get some dog treats for my mutt and found they have canning jar lids on sale at $1.00 a 12 pack and Bands and Lids for $2.00 a 12 pack.
I picked up several of each so I don't have to do the mad scramble when I find I need more lids or bands.

[Watchman]

The Mormons are the experts at this - we have stored about 100 pounds for the two of us. Here is a handy calculator for the basics:

http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm

[WillyPete]

Went by my favorite hardware store that is closing down again today. While they have p[retty much completely sold out of items that will be useful to me, I still found a few bonuses there. I cleaned out their stock of lamp wicks that have bee sitting on the shelves for who knows how many years, so long that personnel did not even know they were there.
I purchased 235 5/8"x8" lamp wicks and 107 1"x8" wicks. These are heavy cotton wicking material and tightly woven, should work perfectly for oil or kerosene.
Since I will never in my life utilize that many wicks, and I only really need some of the 5/8" wide ones, if anyone would like to add to, or begin their holdings of, their stock of lamp wicks, I would be happy to assist.
PM or e-mail me if interested.
I also picked up their remaining stock of Coleman lantern parts, fuel caps and bail nuts with a couple of filter funnels.
There ain't much left except for copious quantities of paint and hardware of the nut and bolt, nail and screw variety.
Thursday is their last sale day and Friday will be their final celebration where the owners award prizes for purchasing to the highest dollar amount/point number earning customers. I've been told I am second place but, I have no idea what the prize is. Wasn't really concerned about it either but, I'll find out Friday.