Posted on 01/24/2010 7:51:38 AM PST by Kartographer
THX THX.
Thank you for the ping DelaWhere.
Thank you for the ping DelaWhere.
mr. mm saw the video and wants one. That battle is over....
Ahhh, coupons and sales......
It’s better than winning the lottery, especially when you get so much in savings that it locks the cash register up cause they took so much off, and they have to get the manager to come over with the key and reset it.
:)
That’s why I said most.
Like I said, I wouldn’t want to take that chance with something that was critical.
And one can never post a link to this site too often.
Lehman’s Non-Electric Catalog
Good advice. Thanks!
Lehman’s...couupons.....
Yup, we’re kindred spirits, alright.
I keep Clavamox, Cipro, and doxycycline. Do you suggest others? Most will keep way past their expiration date.
It’s important to store. But unless you’re in a rare rare situation, few can store for more than a few years or have a varied enough diet to keep themselves from being deficient, or from going crazy from simply eating the same stuff all the time.
If the collapse lasts for a long period, you are going to learn how to homestead and renew your food supply. You need to buy seed and lots of it and learn how to save it. I’ve been gardening that way for about 10 years, here’s what I’ve learned on buying seed:
1. Heirlooms/open pollinated. Forget hybrids, don’t buy anything that can’t breed true. Heirlooms taste better anyway. Saving seed is a must.
2. Buy & store enough seed for each variety for at least 4 years. Crop failures happen.
3. Keep more than one variety of each vegetable. I can say plant out 4 varieties of melons a year, but have 12 more in the freezer and rotate on a 4 year cycle. That way if you do lose a variety for some reason you aren’t denied that vegetable.
4. Calories AND nutrition are key. Calories are good but it’s the nutrients that help convert it to energy efficiently so you are up to doing the chores of surviving. It’s easy to do in the summertime when the garden is green and abundant. Where it gets critical is early spring where stocks are low but no food can be taken from the garden. I read years ago that many pioneers got sick and died in the spring and not the winter, during the in-between time of little, no, or very poor quality food.
5. Buy vegetables for storage. Freeze, can, dry, root cellar - make sure you have stuff that will hold up to those. Root cellar storage is huge, the freshest food has the most nutrition. There are many, many heirlooms that were bred to be put in a root cellar and if taken care of last for a long time. I have had carrots in my fridge that lasted over a year and were still good to eat.
6. Raise plenty of dry goods and things that can be ground to flour. Beans, corn, grains, rice are obvious. Other things like buckwheat, cowpeas, grain sorghum, sesame, soup peas and chufas that aren’t so obvious.
7. Grow things to flavor the food. Sorghum, sugarbeets, stevia for sweetener, herbs for seasoning, onions and garlic, apples for vinegar, etc.
8. Grow perennials and overwinter. Fruit especially. Also things like multiplier onions, horseradish, Good King Henry, jerusalem artichokes. Thing that can be put in a bed and left there and will come up year after year and provide food. Leeks, spinach, carrots, brassicas, etc will overwinter with cover, can be harvest during any winter warm spell.
9. Grow things with multiple uses. Pumpkins with good roasting seeds. Eggplant with edible leaves, topset onions that have a bulb and tops and green onions too. Strawberry spinach - fruit and berries, beets - roots and greens, etc. Things that can be eaten in various stages, like flint corn, beans or winter squash.
10. Extend the perennial idea to planting things in the wild, give yourself forage material.
11. Cut and come again things like spinach, lettuce, other greens, tomatoes, peppers, melons that will keep producing. Things like favas and certain varieties of beans that will go dormant in heat and drought and come back when conditions are better.
That’s just a fraction of it, but it’s a start. My favorite catalogs:
http://www.fedcoseeds.com/
http://www.gourmetseed.com/
http://www.rareseeds.com
http://www.landrethseeds.com/
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/
http://www.southernexposure.com
http://www.seedsavers.org
That is where mylar and canning comes into play. Regardless of humidity or heat it will stay for 5-7 years. You can purchase huge quantities at Sam’s or even the dollar store. Then find out when your local LDS church will have the canner/mylar machine available and go and can/seal it.
They have all of the supplies that you need to use such as the oxygen removal packets.
I bought my supplies when I knew they would have the mylar sealer available. Depending on where you live, many times it is available as often as once a month.
The only thing I would do differently is to not use the oxygen removal packet on sugar. The sugar tends to become hard as a brick.
It is so nice when you are baking and cooking to not have to worry about whether you have the staples necessary to cook with.
We bought plastic storage bins on sale at walmart.
Remember that the food such as sugar and flour is very heavy so it is better to store items by mixing them. Part pasta, part flour and sugar. We put what we thought we would use in one month in one storage container. We found that we go through more sugar and less flour than we thought but if we had to make everything from scratch it would have been about right.
1. Do not spend money sealing anything your family would not ordinarily eat. I packaged the soup starter which had all the dry seasonings and macaroni shaped like alphabet letters. We just don’t use those things. I suppose if we were starving...... I also packaged powdered milk. Another thing we would have to really starve before we would use (except for cooking). We didn’t need nearly the amount we bought.
2. Do keep a small quantity of those things such as dehydrated eggs and milk on hand just in case. You could can those or put them in mylar and just replace them if you haven’t used them within 5-7 years. There are certain dry milk products that taste better than others. I keep dried buttermilk on hand. When I run across a recipe that calls for buttermilk, I don’t have to go to the store to get a quart to use a cup and throw the rest away.
3. Pasta products last much longer than the sealer has you put on the mylar sticker. The average “Use on or before date” recommended is 5-7 years.
4. Once you have your initial food storage - start rotating it. when your supplies get down to 3-4 months on an item start looking for sales and use the sealer when you buy the product.
5. Remember your family and neighbors. We have enough food storage to share with our two daughters and their families. They are young and do not see the perils of not having food storage. We are their insurance until then. We have helped neighbors who have financial emergencies by taking them a month of food storage. They are always grateful and it helps rotate our supply.
bump for a great post!
It looks like it varies between cities. I had to work hard to get sponsor and an invite and then it was a one time thing. Some don’t let any non-Mormon’s come at all and others seem open as long as you are willing to work. All you can do is try.
Two more!
12. Emphasize things that produce lots of food in little space. More space to them, less to less efficient things. Pick prolific varieties. Grow things that can do well on bad soil.
13. Use beans, peas, and legumes as cover crops. I plant them all in one plot, pick them, turn them under. That way I don’t need a cover crop plot for soil building that’s not producing anything to eat.
Jeez, Neoliberalnot, I strongly suggest that you reconsider using old antibiotics. For one thing, old tetracyclines (like doxycycline) and aminoglycosides (like gentamycin, for example), can cause Fanconi syndrome. Fanconi syndrome is a renal dysfunction that can cause metabolic abnormalities.
Just something to consider.
I can a lot of veggies—we have a pretty big garden. Have hens, so eggs are not a prob. My guys hunt and fish. Have tried the dried buttermilk and really like it, but it gets harder than a brick about 2 days after you open it. LOL
Not sure if we have any LDS churches around here. Mostly Southern Baptist, Pentacostal, and Methodist.
Thanks for the tips!
Bottom line is I've got a 7 day course of treatment for every member of the family.
L
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