April prepping

Hachi, can you keep us updated on your security prepping/issues also?

I definitely would like to get a food dehydrator this year, so I can dry peaches. I always get loads off the one tree.

Penham be aware that items like peaches dry but be sure they are VERY dry. I dry my tomatoes and after vacuum packing them I put in the freezer they are great years later. I would put dry peaches in the freezer also.   Just my caution.

In our new house that we are currently building, we have a tiny laundry room behind our wood fired range, and so on the other side of the party wall between the two, we've mounted a ladder style radiator that works on convection, so that every time the wood stove is alight, the radiator will warm up. The ceiling height is 9ft, and this radiator is about 4 ft tall, and is mounted on the wall above the counter top. 

Arirish, the fan is a great idea. I'll look into that. I suppose I could drill holes in the top of the cabinet and then also holes in the bottom, and as the hot air goes out the top, it would draw in air from the bottom. As we live completely off grid, I'm always looking for the electricity free alternative, hence the convection heat in the radiator. 

Hi All, I'm going to be following up with the complex this week to see if they have done anything. If they act deniant about it, I am going to follow up with a police report. I made them give me a copy of the complaint statement just in case. My prep plans took a slight snag as I've screwed up my knee with a supposed case of bursitis and possible torn ligament, but they aren't sure so I am going to follow up with and orthopedic dr. Otherwise, just been looking into various pepper sprays and maybe a stun gun online. Supposedly it's legal without permit in California. Thanks for asking about me, Penham.

We're similar, KiwiMum, heh, I sleep with a knife under my pillow, have since I was a freshman in college. Gives me a sort of piece of mind.

Apparently my grandmother kept a sugar shaker filled with black pepper in her apron pocket whenever she had to answer the front door. She used a sugar shaker because it has larger holes. I'm not sure if it would work but it made her feel secure.

How do you can butter in a pressure cooker? I'd love to know. What does it taste like? Have you every tried any? How long does it keep?

It says butter lasts up to 3 years.

Thank you Penham! Ive had both butter and cheese canned by my grandmother and mother. They also canned goats milk and cows milk. My grandmother also canned rattlesnake and alligator but that's another story. She also used to dip her hard cheeses in wax and cheese cloth and keep it long term. It always got sharper but she could bring the taste down with cream and what not. She was an amazing wealth of knowledge that I only remember bits and pieces of. She made baskets from long needle pine and bark and swamp reeds. She raised her family with no doctors- only the stuff she dug up, found or grew. Perhaps some of the last of the hands-on ethnobotanists maybe. My father's people are American Indian and lived off the Southern American Piedmont and coastal areas and some lived on up into the Appalachian hills. So now I have a keen interest in all things learned from scratch.😊

Yesterday a neighbour allowed me to dig up some Damson (plum) saplings, which I have planted near some other plum trees.

One clump looked good, but the tallest sapling's roots went down less than an inch and then sideways* so the main root was damaged and I would be surprised it it survives. 

As with all trees this is a long term project and it will be several years before I get any worthwhile crop. The fruit is not as nice as the plums I have, but this is part of an attempt to get more diversity in part of the garden that is not suitable for vegetable growing.


* there are a lot of granite outcrops near or above the surface of the ground here which gives a whole new meaning to "rock garden".

Well, it appears that I may try a small raised bed garden, very small. This was NOT something I was planning on doing, however, I recently had my main bathroom remodeled and the contractors had about 20 left over concrete blocks and they asked me if I wanted them. So of course I said yes, not knowing what I was going to do with them, but they were free. Then I went to some training and was giving a bunch of free seeds, ok well maybe some container gardening? Then today, my son-in-law who remodels houses said he had a whole pile of really good dirt for a garden if I wanted it at one of the houses he was remodeling I could have. So free concrete blocks, free seeds, free dirt. I think it might be a sign?

My friend has moved into a garden with exactly that sort of raised bed, although they are bigger, maybe 3ft by about 9ft. She has 3 such beds, and they do have herbs and flowers planted in the small spaces within the concrete blocks. They look lovely.