All Things Prepping, Simple Living, Back to the Basics [Survival Today, an on going thread]

vanity | 2/26/18 | CottonBall

[CottonBall]

I’ve been missing the vast amount of information on prepping, survival, camping, simple cooking, the old ways of doing just about everything – all the things nw_arizona_granny knew so much about and shared with us, along with numerous other posters with a vast array of skills and knowledge.

We have our various related-threads here, a recipe thread, a gardening thread, and even a prepper thread. They are all great and I don’t mean to take anything away from those and the hard work their owners put in.

But I was missing a place to talk about ALL those things, to get the camaraderie that we used to have on granny’s thread.

I learned how to can on those threads! The pressure canner was not my friend, I thought, but I bought one and stared at it for a month, intimidated. Then I read the directions for another month. But with the help and encouragement of posters on granny’s threads, I jumped in and now have my very own food storage room in the basement with lovely jars of shelf-stable meats, vegetables, and fruit. When we moved, I fashioned my food storage room – and insisted upon having a basement – from what I learned on her threads. Getting started gardening was from her threads. Making my own cleaning products….the list is endless.

So I thought I would take the chance and start another comprehensive prepper thread and see how it goes. I used to have granny’s ping list since I made one of the threads for her, but alas, with numerous computer changes, I cannot find it. So please pass this onto any posters you think might be interested.

We’ll just keep it running until..whenever. Granny created a new thread at 10,000 posts or so. I do like the idea of having ONE thread to go to – because often I cannot find or keep track of the weekly threads. I won’t be posting lots of recipes or tidbits myself – to any mods concerned about the size of this thread. I’d just like a place to chat, post questions, post ideas, make new prepping friends.

Here are granny’s threads, if anyone wants to peruse them:

nw_arizona_granny’s Thread #1

nw_arizona_granny’s Thread #2

nw_arizona_granny’s Thread #3

[Ellendra]

If you don’t inoculate the charcoal first, then it’ll take about a year to be beneficial. If you do inoculate it (which can be as simple as mixing it with some manure and letting it sit for a few days) then it will start benefiting the soil right away. Either way, the long-term benefits will last for years to come.

Mixing it with the animal’s bedding or feeding it to them, accomplishes that at the same time it deodorizes.

Sorry for the confusion, I hope I was clearer this time :)

And cows will eat anything if you mix it in their food.

[CottonBall]

OK now I get it. I thought I would have to wait a year no matter what. thanks!

[CottonBall]

ive spent all this morning processing my hazelnuts :-) picked four quarts from the new trees, they are just three years old and gave me quite a few hazelnuts this year. I’m thinking about planting more because it’s the only produce that wasn’t attacked by bugs, birds, or surprisingly squirrels. I think since they don’t grow naturally here the squirrels are confused. I imagine they’ll catch on in a year or two.

I’m having lots of troubles making hazelnut flour. I keep making hazelnut butter, accidentally. I have a little spice grinder that works great, maybe too good. And I can’t remember what I used the year before, maybe last year. So if anybody has suggestions let me know. I have a food processor or blender that I could use also

[V K Lee]

Hazelnut butter and chocolate. Love me some Nutella.

Know nothing about making flour, but you might find some suggestions here:
https://hazelnuthill.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-hazelnut-flour/

[CottonBall]

yum, I love Nutella too. I never thought about trying to make my own! That would be great for a survival food :-)

[CottonBall]

“Start off with two cups of raw hazelnuts and place them in a blender or food processor. For a deeper hazelnut flavor, you can roast them before blending in a 325°F oven for 10 minutes.
Blend on high for about 12 seconds, just until the hazelnuts are broken up into a coarsely-ground meal, about the consistency of cornmeal. Make sure not to blend too long that it turns into a buttery consistency.”

Looks like a food processor or blender will be better. My spice grinder works too good, pulverize it right into hazelnut butter before I could stop it. I must’ve used something else last year.

Great website, thank you! How about that recipe for hazelnut pancakes with chocolate coconut syrup? Yum! That’ll go into my survival recipes :-)

[V K Lee]

A new IHOP item on their menu? Vote YES for that!
We love chocolate :-)

[CottonBall]

And they can touted as gluten-free! Apparently as long as something is gluten-free none of the other ingredients matter and it is health food.

[V K Lee]

Healthy, wealthy, and wise. Old age may not be for sissies (Bette Davis) but at this time old age does have some advantages when looking to the future.

It’s really tough imagining what if. Calgon has no possibility of taking us away.

The term ‘Throwback Thursday” is much more sunny than my term: ‘Morbid Monday’. :-)Longing for Springtime...and COLOR!

[CottonBall]

lol Calgon, Now that does bring me back!

[CottonBall]

In most prepping scenarios, refrigeration will be a thing of the past. Refrigerators might be kept running for a while, when electrical power is on even if intermittent, or off of generators. Eventually, fuel for those generators won’t be available nor will reliable electricity.

So how do we keep our food cold?

If we have a cow and milk it, we have to do something with that milk. If we hunt or slaughter livestock, we have to be able to do something with the meat that isn’t eaten. As soon as we pick a vegetable from the garden, we need to either eat it or find a way to keep it chilled so it won’t deteriorate. These foods will either need to be canned, dehydrated, or otherwise processed right away without refrigeration. Not having Refrigeration is going to make dealing with the food supply even more difficult.

Do you have a plan you’d share with us??

[CottonBall]

This is your ping to the All Things Prepping, Simple Living, Back to the Basics Thread

This week's topic is Keeping Food Cold at Post 1111

If you want off/on this list, just let me know.

[metmom]

In these parts, for about half the year, keeping things cold is not the problem.

It’s keeping warm that’s the problem.

[CottonBall]

Keeping food cool

Post 821 & 822 has directions on making a small refrigerator

Thanks to bgill for the posts.

Here in East Tennessee we have lots of hills., being in the Appalachians. The pioneers here made good use of that feature by digging “dairies”. That's what they call them, presumably because they kept dairy products in them. They are a cave-like structure dug into the side of a hill, with wood or rock added to keep the thing from falling in. And a door is attached to those reinforcements. They look quite adorable, IMO. There are 5 of them in our little holler, so each dwelling had their own. We didn't get one so I can't attest to the summer temperature inside them. But my neighbors all talk about when their parents used the dairies. (They didn't get electricity here until after World War II). I hope to have a dairy dug here eventually. And I’d like red door on it, to match the red door on the hog pen.

Another innovation to make use of the natural features around is a spring house. It a building constructed over a Spring, and the water of the spring maintains a constant cool temperature inside the spring house throughout the year. Food that would otherwise spoil, such as meat, fruit, or dairy products, could be kept there, safe from animals as well. The ones I’ve seen here have a basket that goes into the water as well.

[CottonBall]

That sounds like a good topic for next week!!

[little jeremiah]

Sorry I didn’t get back to you with how I know canning lids are okay to re-use. Here is my non-professional method, and I only water bath can; pressure canning may require brand new lids but I never did that kind.

When taking the lid off, I generally pry off very gently with a manual can opener; most have a little hook thingie, maybe for taking off bottle lids? DH uses the blunt side of a knife. However it can be done without deforming the lid.

Even a teeny ding on the end of the lid, if it doesn’t deform the flatness, doesn’t stop it from sealing again.

Then I check to make sure there’s enough sealang rubber stuff on it.

Then I check for any scratches, corrosion etc.

If all is okay, I wash carefully and store in an old canning lid box or other safe place and use again. Some lids I’ve used many times. Really saves money.

And since I use canning jars for storing things like pasta, herbs, tea and tons of other stuff, the old junky lids I save to use for food storage, usually quart or half gallon mason jars.

[null and void]

Downloadable pdf here

[greeneyes]

I can tell you something that works for short periods—first a little background:

On my grand parents dairy farm, they milked the cows by hand, took out what they needed for that day, and put the rest in the old fashioned metal milk cans. They got around 2 cans full with each milking.

They had a homemade cart a little longer than a typical wheel-barrel and a bit narrower—sort of the same design really. Now they had no faucet or water to the house—so we pumped water by hand for the cows and our own use.

So when the milking was done, and the lids secured on the cans, we pumped water onto several burlap sacks—till they were soaked and dripping wet. Then you wrap the dripping bags all around the cans and on top of the cans.

Then the cart was moved up the driveway to the road for the dairy company to pick up and process. This cooled the milk and kept it good till the truck came to pick up the cans and leave two clean empty cans for the next batch.

When I have been stuck unexpectedly somewhere, I have used this process using towels and a dish pan in the sink to keep milk good overnight for next morning's breakfast. If you have extra bathroom-you could set something up in the tub or shower —If you put a fan on it, but keep re-wetting, it will increase the coolness factor.

If you have a creek, you can put stuff in a water proof container, tied up to a tree or something and that's another cooling method. Sometimes people used to build a small stone house over a moving stream, and that was cooler area.

Beyond that -— there are several books on preserving without refrigeration or electricity. Involves stuff like fermentation, smoking, salting, sugaring, solar dehydration. I have a couple of different ones on hand.

I also plan to can outdoors -if no electric-using rocket stove or gas BBQ.

Another thing is, if you have a little meat left over from lunch or something, you can make a good soup, and if you get it to boiling for a certain length of time, it'll kill off some of the germs and make it safer—I don't remember the exact temp and time though—so do a search on that maybe.

Popcorn was used on the pioneer trail as a breakfast cereal-popped night before or that morning, added milk and sugar or whatever.

Solar beef or other meat jerky and pemmican—don't need refrigeration.

[NTHockey]

A zeer is a pot in a pot evaporative refrigerator.

https://www.survivalsullivan.com/how-to-make-a-zeer-pot/

[metmom]

Which works best in DRY climates.

In humid ones, there’s not enough evaporation to make them be very effective.