September prepping

What is everybody working on this month? I am going to focus on food preps again. Last night I went shopping and got 15 jars/cans of Ragu and other spaghetti type sauces, 8 lbs. of pasta, 10 of the individual containers of mac & cheese, 4 brownie mixes. I picked up another 4 lbs of sugar, but I think I will pick up some more because after I got home and was watching the hurricane news they were saying the price of sugar will be going up because of the hurricane.

I'm focusing on basics for any emergency.  I want to get some people together to buy solar equip as a group and firgure out how to set it up...ie. a few roof panels.  It may be less daunting if done as a group, everyone will have something different to add.  Labor is such a killer $$$.  So that's one problem eliminated :)

Tadeo we aren't so lucky to have Smith's Food king. We are in the boonies with just one local grocery store...I have to drive a bit to get to a Wal-Mart, Super K or an Aldi's...but that is all we have here. Topps closed around here so we are left with few choices.  I like the idea of buying by the case for less. Great idea.

I am coming over the pond to see you on the Norwegian Jewel so I will not be doing much more than my packing this month

Which port(s) are you heading for, Diane?

Thought I'd share a neat idea on prepping for cheap---for this time of year anyway.  For those of you who live rural, this is a great time of the year for gleaning.  I ask field owners who own tomato, peach etc if after their workers are through if I can glean their fields for a few leftovers (and there are literally tons of food that goes to waste rotting in the fields every year).  For example, this last weekend I gleaned a tomato field which only ships their green tomatoes to market and leaves all of their ripe ones.  I put up 3 bushels of dried tomatos like I did last year.  I dehydrate them and then vacuum seal them in canning jars.  They keep beautifully for well over two years in a cool dark area.  I make anything that you can use tomatoes for from catsup to soups for almost free.  Last year I planted one of my dried tomato slices and the seeds from it sprouted--even though these were hybrids, I got several very passable plants and fruit.  So dehydrating doesn't kill the seeds, it,simply dries them out and vacuum sealing them keeps them nice and dry.  This year I will put up my best heirlooms the same way so as to have nice seeds for next year.    

It's also really just good sense regardless of what you are prepping for--Of course it has the added plus of teaching young ones the values of not wasting resources--that we should not ever subscribe to the "disposable, throw away society" that so many have been taught.  "Waste not want not" as they say. .

FluMom...  I had no idea what a Royal Berkey is.  :)

arsenic?  be careful...

It's their regular price, although I did get the last one today.   

    Post by Albert
Here's a prep item that I purchased today at Home Depot. It's a 750 Watt Power Inverter for only $79.99.   It hooks up to your car battery and it can power up to 750 watts of household appliances, such as tv's,dvd players, computers, lights, and yes, even a refrigerator, which I believe takes around 720 watts.


Thanks Albert! Good idea! I think that I'm going to go right down and get one! Good to have it in my truck anyway, since I do occasional construction work.. Why didn't I think of this before?? O well. thanks again! Great Idea!

I am finding with the higher cost of groceries that I have been using more of my preps and I had used most of the sugar I had stocked up on, so today I purchased 20 more pounds of sugar, more pasta, more sauce. I have really been stocked back up on pasta and sauces this month.

With close to 50% of my husbands' business lost due to people panicking and holding onto their money tightly in our small town and with my part time teaching position only bringing us a minimun salary, I would say that we are now using our preps at a faster rate than I can replace them.  Thank God that I put them aside when all were thinking that I had lost my mind two years ago.  I have gone to a very minimum --kind of rationing approach.  Everything is from scratch and there are no extras except from what I can make or grow from our dry stocks.  It's a bit like when I was young and my mother had to get us by on way less than a poverty level salary.  We  also qualified for what was called "commodities" --pretty much what one might be using for preps (this was before food stamps and the like) you stood in long lines in the cold and took off a day from your glorious job to do it-canned chicken or ham, powdered eggs, canned butter and peanutbutter, tinned jelly, flour and meal, maybe rice, cheese (well maybe) and some sort of powdered gravy. We learned not to ever complain.  I figured it was some sort of army ration without the cigarretts and chocolate. We learned the value of a dollar the hard way.  If you went to bed with a full stomach and a reason to get up the next day then it was a good day.  Thankfulness was something we learned  way before Thanksgiving  and Santa Clause was a good guy that left us one nice something  that my mother had saved many months of "green stamps" to give us.  Our entertainment was playing football or some other game we had invented with the other children in the neighborhood.  Somehow we were OK and that was all that we needed--well we told ourselves that anyway.  We will be Ok again  but it will take a resiliant and strong people to see us all through--that would be us.  Our administration has abandonded us and we stand at the precipace--don't ask the same embiciles that got us here to tell us where to go from here.  History has a nasty way of repeating itself--mainly by those who will have their own personal chef,  unlimited gas, will not worry as to what school their children will go to  and are not that concerned if they have to change their choice of islands that they will be vacationing to this summer.---Just a thought  

Is anyone experiencing hoarding in their area. Some other preppers noted an upswing in bulk buying and was not sure if it was due to economy gas etc.

It seems as though "Prepping" is in the air once again. Not sure why that is.  I'm doing some fine tuning on getting some extra supplies myself.   Perhaps our subconscious-sniffers are sensing that something is coming. 

Well Coyote, did you get your 50# sack of potatoes and onions? I saw your post today and I'm making a list to hit the stores to restock early for the winter. The election is nearly upon us and October 7th is at our backdoor. I want to be ready for any problems so I can stay home and out of the commotions.

That is a neat item Albert. I had not seen it before you posting it here.

Inverter...its a good idea.

Hi Coyote, what method will you use to store your 50lbs of potatoes and onions?  Or will you eat them befor they go bad.

A rootrootroot cellar is a structure which is designed to keep vegetables and some fruits at a stable, cool temperature which will prevent them from rotting or otherwise going bad. RootRootRoot cellarscellarscellars were once a necessary fixture in any home where people wanted to be able to eat vegetables and fruits during the winter, and they are often present in older homes built through the early 20th century. In addition to being used to store fruit and vegetables, a rootrootroot cellar can also be a useful place to store dairy products, grains, and a variety of other foodstuffs.

RootRootRoot cellarscellarscellars take advantage of the earth as a natural source of insulation and coolness. A typical rootrootroot cellar can either be dug as a pit independent of a house or another structure, or it may be built under a home, barn, or similar structure. Since deep holes are naturally cooler than the area around the surface of the earth, a rootrootroot cellar will be cooler than the ambient air temperature by design, and several features can make a rootrootroot cellar even colder.

Classically, a rootrootroot cellar is installed in an area which is already cold, such as a north-facing hill in the Northern Hemisphere, and it may be shaded by trees and buildings. Thick insulation such as stone, brick, and straw may be used to keep a rootrootroot cellar's temperature stable, while ventilation shafts pull cold air up, keeping a constant flow of cool air going through the rootrootroot cellar.

Before the advent of refrigeration, the rootrootroot cellar would have been the place to find everything from potatoes to bacon. Preserved foods like cured meats and pickled vegetables were often stored in the rootrootroot cellar to ensure that their temperatures stayed stable during storage, while potatoes, turnips, carrots, cabbage, apples, and so forth were put into the rootrootroot cellar as is and carefully packed to prevent sprouting or rotting.

RootRootRoot cellarscellarscellars have also historically been used to age cheese, store dairy products, and so forth. On farms, rootrootroot cellarscellarscellars ensured that people had steady access to a balanced diet throughout the year, even in areas where snow covered the ground during the winter, making farming impossible. The rootrootroot cellar could also be used to store animal feed. In urban areas, people stored excess food in their rootrootroot cellarscellarscellars so that they could eat well even during lean periods without paying stratospheric grocery bills for out of season foods.

Modern day rootrootroot cellarscellarscellars continue to be used for the storage of fruits and vegetables, and a growing interest in natural preservation techniques and small scale farming in the early 21st century led to a revival of the rootrootroot cellar in some communities. A well designed rootrootroot cellar can entirely replace a refrigerator for the storage of food, saving a substantial amount of money in utility bills.




Hi everyone! We don't have a basement but we do have a small barn, so we are doing this..I found this article on another website.


We fashioned a quickie, straw bale root cellar in one of our un-used tie stalls in our barn. The R-value of straw bale construction is said to be between 35 and 50 depending on what size of bale. The temperature and humidity are ideal for storing the potatoes, all we have to do is provide frost protection and keep them in total darkness. When I need potatoes for the house, I just remove a bale, and take out what I need. These are just now starting to break dormancy. We have no real need for a root cellar, since our climate is ideal for storing our other root crops right in the row where they grew.
http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/what-were-eating-the-transitio...






We may also try this method:



How to Make a Deep-Freeze Root Cellar

By eHow Home & Garden Editor


No way to store some of your extra vegetables for winter? Then turn an old refrigerator or deep freeze into a root cellar.

   

Instructions
Difficulty: Moderate
Things You’ll Need:

    * Straws Bales
    * Clear Plastic Sheeting
    * Plastic Sheeting
    * Shovels
    * Old Deep-freeze Or Refrigerator

Step1
Remove motor, shelves and lock from door (so no child can get locked inside).
Step2
Dig a hole large enough to hold the deep freeze where the top of the freezer is ground level or slightly below ground level.
Step3
Place some rocks in bottom of the hole for drainage.
Step4
Place the freezer into hole on its back. The door will open like a lid.
Step5
Fill around freezer with soil.
Step6
Place vegetables in freezer. Follow storage guidelines for vegetables just as if you were using a cellar.
Step7
Cover freezer with a sheet of plastic to keep water from freezing the lid shut.
Step8
Place bags of leaves or bales of hay or straw on top of the freezer to help with cold weather.


Hope all this answers your questions.



Penhams post   
For some reason this month I have felt a new urgency to get things done and increase the amount of preps being purchased. I'm am not sure if it's the economy or some other reason, something just has me feeling uneasy.


I HEAR YOU PENHAM... I FEEL THE SAME WAY!

thank you... very good info.  A freezer came with this house, never have used it.  Imagine me trying to find someone to dig a hole for it ... :)