Posted on 08/22/2011 6:50:37 PM PDT by Kartographer
You need to start stocking food. You can do a lot if you start early. Unfortunately, early might have been yesterday. Now were way past early, and you need a reasonable plan to get food supplies that will store well and dont cost too much.
Buy extra, use FIFO. Go ahead and buy more food than normal when youre out shopping, and set it aside as preparedness. Use the first in, first out rule to eat your older supplies first. Keep rotating your supplies so you never abandon food way in the back.
(Excerpt) Read more at modernsurvivalblog.com ...
You make a good point. I'm with ya when it comes to having some ready to eat (or easily made editable) foods on hand. I keep those in totes incase they need to go with me in a bug-out.
On the other hand, I think it's far cheaper, healthier, tastier and offers serious variety to have basic foods in bulk in your food storage (e.g. flour, cornmeal, sugar, spices, flavorings, oil, beans, canned meats, powdered milk, powdered eggs, canned butter, canned & dried vegetables & fruits).
Just my thoughts and what I've done...
Wow, your garden looks like a science project! Great job... Did you purchase the raised beds or is that a design of yours?? Looks great.
brick rocket stove
IMPT BTTT
please add me to the ping list? thanks!
Works for me!
I have vinyl rail fence and it might be possible to build boxes based on those components.
Regards,
Google “pedal pump” or “treadle pump” and you’ll find hundreds of blueprints for non-electric water pumps.
Just in case you no one answered you yet, Simple Pump puts together pumps for deeper wells and one can purchase options such as solar. We did a quote and it’s just too high for us, at least $1700. But affordable for some people. Hub has a plan to make his own solar pump set up. One of these days...
Simple Pump Company
877-492-8711 (toll free)
775-265-4908 (ph)
888.826.1444 (fax)
www.simplepump.com
The best system is to have large holding tanks or you have to run the pump many times a day to fill a household pressure tank. We got a couple at farm supply places (water tanks). If you set the water tanks a bit high, you can easily have gravity feed at least to the first floor.
You don’t want to count on a generator IMO. Loud - eveyrone knows you have it. You constantly need fuel - may not be available or even affordable in a long term outage. You can store food for a couple of years but you need a steady water supply.
If your well is shallow (say under 50 feet?) Lehman’s and other outfits sell hand pumps that are much cheaper than Simple Pump. If you live in an area with a lot of wind, you can use a windmill, and it could fill holding tanks since the wind doesn’t always blow.
The quake yesterday woke a few folks around here up and they are talking about stocking up. I hope they follow through.
My biggest worry is the infighting that will occur in my little enclave. Once it starts, we will be flooded with refugees who are unprepared and panicked.
I like the rocket stove. Thanks!!!
Well drillers use a "well bucket" which is a long slender pipe-like tube with a valve in the bottom. You tie a piece of rope to it, drop it down the well casing and haul it up. The only depth limit is the length of the rope.
Even if you have a back up generator or a solar power supply a well bucket is the ultimate back up because it requires no electrical power at all.
There are various ways to make your own but they are commercially available at moderate cost. You can usually find them locally at well driller suppliers. Here is a source on the net:
Galvanized Well Bucket from Lehmans
PS
Here is a video showing how to make your own “well bucket” or “bailer bucket” out of PVC pipe for about $10 or so.
Even if you end up buying one prebuilt, the video is worth watching because it explains some things about how a bucket works and how it is used.
Ramen noodle prepping pings to you:
1 - Store bought rotisserie chicken $5 or so (not available in TEOTWAWKI) but provided as an idea toward frugality cooking.
Eat it, with sides... like rice and canned green beans = one meal for about 8 bucks for family.
2 - Boil it down with spices (Better Homes and Gardens has great recipe in book) to make about 16 cups of broth.
Pull out all bits of chicken (already paid for) to make chicken pot pie.
3 - use broth to boil with Ramen Noodles (tossing the packets), boil in eggs first for some extra.
4 - use broth to make split pea soup - also cheap, and delicious
5 - compost bones and stuff
One bird => base for 4 meals.
I actually like egg drop ramen soup made this way, or stir fried ramen with whatever is around to toss in. But it is still not on my eat it all the time list.
On your post about conserving fuel during cooking - I also try to think of ways to conserve water - for example, beans are big water users, in general. We have aimed for a mix of ready foods and made from scratch items.
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