PREPPER FRIDAY - Zucchini!

 

Courtesy of Pixabay

Good morning, friends!

While the above picture did come from Pixabay, those could have easily come from my garden. I've been picking an average of six zucchini about every other day. 

One of my favorite ways to enjoy zucchini is sliced thin, tossed in seasoned flour and fried in butter Crisco. I do my green tomatoes the same way... nice and thin so they come out of the oil like a veggie chip. YUM!!!

I can only eat so many fried zucchini. I also love shredded zucchini in Morning Glory muffins. I didn't want to take up freezer room so I went in search of whether or not they could be dehydrated.

Yes!  Those thin slices will dehydrate nicely. Not sure how they'd reconstitute and fry but I'm going to try.  I'll keep you posted.

However, the ones that have become quite large, I'm going to shred and dehydrate. From there I can either reconstitute the shredded for those muffins or grind up to a flour for all sorts of fabulousness!  Might even be able to sneak some in to things so Bob will get more green veggies. :-D

Here's the video I found. I'll also link Victoria at A Modern Homestead blog. Mind you, this is not her video.

Now if the tomatoes would just start coming in. 

Do you have a favorite zucchini recipe. Please let me  know in the comments below.

Enjoy the Journey!

~Kelly

PREPPER FRIDAY RETURNS! Making A Plan

 Good morning!

I dropped the ball on this last fall. For some reason, the fall season just ceased to exist for me. I couldn't seem to get footing. I just wanted to sit and veg.

Not so this year. 

As I approach 60 and Bob's retirement only a couple of years away, I've decided I need a two-year plan to lay in as much supply of non-perishables and paper products as possible. I'm also gradually adding home-canned/ preserved/ dehydrated to the pantry.

Courtesy of Pixabay User

With parts of I-70 still under clean-up as well as other natural disasters and a shortage of quality drivers, there is still the issue of getting product. I don't think this is something that is going to resolve any time soon. I don't like to be a fear-monger, but this has to make us think about supply and demand down the line. They are still touting variant strains of the virus as well as the potential for non-vaccinated people allowed in some public places. Seriously? This has to stop somewhere.

In the mean time, we have to take control of our own well-being.  That means taking stock of three areas:

1 - What we use on a regular basis

2 - How much of those items we have on hand

3 - How to break our purchases down into financially manageable chunks.

Take a note pad and pen and go through each room in your home. For me, that would be:

Bathroom

Kitchen

Laundry room

Living room

Dining room

Bedroom

Office

Basemement

I recommend at least one sheet per room.

List what you have on hand that you USE

Pitch everything that is out-dated or that you no longer use

Next, go back through your USE list and determine how many you have on hand AND how many you need to sustain you for 1 year. For now, I'm talking dry goods/ non-perishables. We'll get to the actual FOOD items in a future post. 

I'm working on a PDF that I can offer as a Beta test for a book. You're input would be invaluable.

For now, get reacquainted with your home and as always...

Enjoy the Journey!

~Kelly 

PREPPING - Dry Canning

 Good morning, friends!

Hard to believe a new month has begun. As I write this, it is Sunday afternoon. We have sun but a cold wind. We've barely crossed the 55* mark. 

Inside, I have the heat all turned off since I have the oven on and we are at a comfortable 70*. Quite comfy for working around the house.

Since I've been canning for over forty-five years, keeping canning supplies on hand is nothing to me. When everyone was going nuts and clearing the shelves of jars and lids, I had a pretty decent supply. Mind you, I still picked up a few boxes of what I thought I might be short on. But honestly, I did not understand the purpose of people buying EVERY BOX ON THE SHELF! One lady on YouTube admitted to doing just that. Why? In my opinion, those are the true HOARDERS... and the folks who give the rest of us preppers a bad name. 

I bought four boxes of pint jars since I wasn't sure what I had on hand for lids. I knew I had the jars but if I didn't have enough lids, those jars weren't going to do my any good. Buying jars insured I had enough lids.  When ACE Hardware had the jars in their ad (but not on the shelf), the manager of a local store allowed me to rain-check five boxes. I ordered three boxes of the half-gallon since I knew at most I only had six of those not already in use, as well as two boxes of wide -mouth pints. Wide mouth are great for when you want to dip into the jar for measuring. That was it. No clearing off a shelf- even if I could have found them. I bought only what I knew I needed and would use.

I spent all day Sunday writing/ scheduling blog posts and dry-canning sugar and flour.

I put up 40 pints of all-purpose flour. I chose pints because most recipes call for two cups of flour... exactly one pint. As I type this (Sunday) I am not sure how many pints I'll have of self-rising, 7-grain or corn meal.

Sugar is one of those items you really can't pre-measure for recipes. With that in mind, I put all of the white sugar in half-gallon jars and the Stevia in Nestea Tea jars. Sugar doesn't have to be sealed or heated like grains so packaging these up were easy. With the amount of sugar I had already purchased, I wound up with 10 jars and 9 jars of Stevia. I have both on my grocery stock up for Tuesday to finish filling out the jars I have on hand. The Truvia brown sugar will be packaged in wide mouth pints and regular brown sugar in wide-mouth quarts. 

While I'll keep a flour and sugar canister on the baking counter, my goal is to eliminate items like the brown sugar and Stevia that I don't need to keep handy in quantity. Easy enough to grab a smaller jar from the pantry as needed.

They say baking items could be our 'new' shortage as we head into the holidays. I do a lot of baking so am glad I won't have to disappoint the business folks I know look forward to their holiday cookie box every year. 

What are shortage are you anticipating? Is there anything you usually buy this time of year that you are already having problems finding? Please share in the comments below.

Be Safe! Be Prepared!

~Kelly

PREPPER FRIDAY - Where to Begin - Replay

 

Since the onset of Covid-19, there have been a lot of people joining the prepper forces. 2020 will go down in history as the Great Toilet Paper Shortage... except for those of us who've been stocking up on necessities for years. 

I purchase stock-up supplies on a rotation, many of the items I buy from Dollar General. They are closest to me and while they are a chain store, they put money back into my small community of around 650 people.  Every penny counts. 

We often have a $5 off $25 coupon to be used on Saturdays and I take advantage of that extra $5 to buy a couple extra things. While not in any particular order, one week is all paper supplies, another week, personal hygeine, the next week might be canned good items and the final week fills in the gaps or holiday items. We can't be totally practical, after all. :-)

Many of the newbies on this journey began buying willy  nilly and panic buying bulk items they'll probably never use because someone on YouTube said that's what they should stock-pile. 

I thought for this week, we'd go back to another post from February 2014.

* * * * * *

Anytime someone wants to start something new, their first question is usually something to the effect of 'how do I start?' or 'where do I begin?'  My Mom always said any project is best started at the beginning. So I'm going to start this whole Prepping series at the beginning.

Start with DECLUTTERING a space to use as your new storage area. For us, that is in our utility room. Even with the wood burner cranking in the middle of winter, our utility room is the coolest room in the basement with two exterior (while well ground-insulated) concrete walls. One West and one North.

Aside from shelves on the West wall, we turned a wall separating the Man Cave from the shower room into a rotating can storage similar to this one on My Family Essentials. The link will take you to the page where she talks about food storage and the picture of her can rotation system. For a quick look, I have a pic on my Pinterest Board - Emergency Preparedness -   CAN STORAGE  I really like this and wish I could turn more of the walls into this system. 

We use this cabinet to store our bath necessities as there is a shower in this room as well. But we also store the overstock of personal, beauty and paper products here.

A storage area can be one location in your home (ideal) or have zones throughout your house. Under the bed for instance, is a great place to store cases of bottled water. Think about repurposing various pieces of furniture such as an entertainment center (most people don't even need these now with the flat screen now a common household item.  Can you put shelves on the wall above the toilet area for extra rolls of toilet paper or personal products. While having them in plain view may not be the prettiest, how important is pretty when you need to have those items on hand?  A wooden chest doubling as a coffee table, end of the bed seat or even a hassock that has an opening top can be used to store canned goods.  

If you have a garage, how much can you declutter this area and add shelves for bulk items such as toilet paper, paper towels, detergent, etc.

Your assignment this week if you choose to accept it is to take a tour of your home. What can you get rid of and what necessary emergency supplies could you store there instead.

Start a blog about your Prepper journey and link me. Sharing ideas could save numerous lives!

Kelly

PREPPER FRIDAY - What's It All About, Alfie? - Replay Post

 Wow!

That was a rough ten days. Right after posting on the 14th, I got hit with a serious sinus infection and did a lot of nothing and very little of anything else. 

Friday's will continue to be Prepper Posts - but more regimented than in the past.  As you'll see from today's replay post, I began talking prepping in 2014. I've always been someone who prepared for any situation. I was raised my a step-mom who lived through the Great Depression. I consider myself a 1950s housewife. Often times, blog posts don't go up because family and home always come first for me. 

I'm still not completely over the sinus issue, thanks to all the autumn leaves beginning to fall. There's the last of the garden to take care of and we're redoing the green house these last two weeks Bob is home. I can spend days in October reconfiguring how I'm using the inside as far as seed tray placements and that type of thing. 

While I try to get things caught up here I thought since I have new followers/ readers, I'd go back to early posts and shine new light on them. In coming weeks I'll be sharing what I'm doing as well as introducing you to some of my favorite YouTube preppers.

One thing I will not do is ACTUALLY SHOW my space. To me, that is just inviting trouble should the SHTF. So let's take a step back to February , 2014:

* * * * * * * 

Prepping is nothing new. 

People have been preparing since the beginning of time. From the first man killing/ preserving food for winter to the Cuban Missile Crisis and more recent. For generations people have planned for a 'rainy day'. They kept their food stock in root cellars in case of long winters when what they preserved might be all they had to hold them until Spring. How many families prepared for 'the big one' like our folks in Blast from the Past. Though the movie was meant to be a comedy, there was nothing light about the importance of how prepared they were to live below ground.

But over the past few years, 'Prepping' has taken on a new meaning. Some have extended the term into 'survivalist' - preparing for everything imaginable from a natural disaster like a tornado to Armageddon. Several months ago I found a book by Bernie Carr called - THE PREPPER'S POCKET GUIDE - 101 Easy Things You Can Do To Ready Your Home For A Disaster.

Bernie breaks prepping down in to 101 manageable tasks to having everything you need for any emergency that might arise. Disasters, like tornadoes, will knock you off your game if you are not prepared. My plan to kick-start this blog is to take you on my journey as I work my way through the booklet and prepare our home for an emergency and put our Prepper Plan into action.

In the mean time, I recommend you order Bernie's book and join me on this journey. If you are already a Prepper or know someone, link me to their sites. I'd love to share what others are doing.

As an added bonus, I thought I'd share this video from Dionne Warwick. Is this Prepping sitution really for the moment we live? 

Be Safe, Be Prepared

~Kelly

PREPPING - Let's Be Squirrels!

According to the weather folks, our temps are finally supposed to start cooling down. I am so ready. I mean, seriously, today (as I type this) is October 1 and I'm still running the AC!) I am so ready for a REAL fall.

I do know 'winter' will be here eventually so I'm beginning to think about Prepping for winter.

I shop a lot at Dollar General. They carry the brand of toilet paper we prefer and price comparative to the other box stores. Periodically, they offer a $5 off $25 coupon to be used on the Saturday of that week. I stop in during the week and pick up one item from my list then go back on Saturday to stock up on a specific item.
Some of the items I purchase:

Charmin Mega Rolls
semi-generic paper towels
napkins
Bob's drink addatives (He likes the root beer, Orange and grape)
cans of Queso cheese
Personal hygiene products...

I pick up enough of the pricier items like the TP and Paper Towels one week. Next time the coupon comes around, I'll go to the next item on my list.
I'm spending $20 plus tax and gettting the necessities of the house

I will add that they do offer an app (of course there's an app for that!) where some weeks the coupon is only good on 'app' items.  I don't use the app. I don't need any more of my information being tracked than there is already. Some things you can avoid... others, not so much. Be selective.

What I'm going to suggest is that we take this room by room each week in October. By the end of the month, you should have a nice supply.

Week 1 - Bathroom
This one is pretty easy, that's why I started here.
Designate $20 (or as much as you can apply)
Go through your bathroom and make a list of the things you need to get through the winter
     toilet tissue
     personal items
     dental hygiene
     Vitamins
     hair care
     make-up 
            Note: I list this one if you use make-up on a regular basis. Anytihng other than 6 months                                should be tossed.
     cold/ flu over the counter items you use regularly like Nyquil, Ibuprophen, etc.

You get the idea.
This is also a good time to pitch things you've not used.

CYA next Friday for another Prepper/ Stock-up!
NOTE: I'm going to re-run this series.. IN COMPLETION.... beginning as soon as the SIP is lifted.

Country Blessings from the Ozarks.

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS - Basic Disaster Supplies Kit

This week, I'm hoping to get back in the swing of my Emergency Preparedness Series.

On the weekend of April 29th most of the state of Missouri was one of many states that dealt with serious flooding. Bob and I were stranded in Springfield as part of Hwy 60/63 was closed on and off over two days. By Sunday night nearly every rural road in our area was closed because of low-water crossings... including our road so even if we could have gotten out of Springfield, we wouldn't have made it to the house.

One area near us that really got hit harder than I've ever heard was West Plains MO. Jan Howard Blvd. through downtown was completely flooded and one of the power stations was in danger of flooding, so they completely shut power to the entire town.

From KY3 - More than eight inches of rain fell on the city Saturday. More is expected through the night. The city had to turn off power in fear of flooding at the city's substation. City leaders there ask residents to stay put. Many roads remain covered with high water.

Here is a video from one of our weathermen at KY3:

BRANDON BECK REPORTS FROM WEST PLAINS

This next link shows many pictures of a small community along the Eleven Point River that lost its battle against the torrential rain bringing the river way out of bank attempting to wash Thomasville MO off the map. My husband belongs to the Masonic Lodge there and they have chosen not to rebuild. Instead, they will meet at a neighboring lodge in West Plains.

THOMASVILLE MO

While I realize there really was no 'preparing' for a natural disaster such as this, having a Basic Disaster Supply bag as a 'Go Bag' is essential. Even the smallest item can bring a molecule of comfort during such a devastating period.

Ready.gov offers an exceptional list of things to have on hand. You can also download a PDF HERE

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS - Wolf Hunter Solutions

Today I want to showcase an awesome business Bob and I found through local advertisement in Springfield MO... Wolf Hunter Solutions  Go ahead, follow the link. I'll be here when you are done.

While Bob focused on the AR stuff - of which they have one of the largest selections of AR components I have seen anywhere - I wandered the tactical side of the store. They don't focus on just 'prepper'... but all things tactical for personal and law enforcement use. Josh was kind enough to let me take pictures so I'm going to post those and let you do a virtual wander through that side of the store.

Personal Hygiene kits 

Firestarters and supplies

Medical Kits

Field Medic Packs

Micro fiber towels (very compact)

Supply kiosk

waterless body wipes

Variety of water bags

One of the camel bags up close

Trauma Kit varieties

Trauma Kit

Medic supply wall

Variety of  packs

If you're ever in Springfield MO, stop and check this place out. You can also order through there site but nothing beats seeing this place in person.

PUTTING FOOD BY - Turkey and Noodles

I love this picture. While the storage itself is not practical for home-use, can you imagine having that kind of a stock-up and never having to worry about any of it going bad? Yeah.. not going to happen.

I am learning to keep 'freezer' stuff to a minimum. I mean, if the power were to go out for any length of time, I would be cooking like a mad woman - then trying to figure out how to preserve what I'd cooked, or feeding the neighbors. 

In the grand scheme of preservation, the freezer is not our optimal food storage. So explain to me why I have an entire hog in my freezer downstairs LOL. Some of that will convert to canning jars this winter.

In the mean time, I've also learned how to best freeze foods for long-term storage and avoiding freezer burn. My foodsaver is my best friend - both for freezing and for dry jar storage.

Thanksgiving leftovers are a cook's nightmare. Not mine. I learned many things at an early age and one of those was how to convert leftovers into amazing meals. One of which is Turkey and Noodles.

I started by removing the meat from the carcass. First I sliced off all that I could for hot turkey sandwiches. This is usually good for a couple of meals.  The rest became shredded pieces. This is about 1/3 of a 6 quart metal mixing bowl.

I made a batch of egg noodles using 1 dozen large eggs, 1 Tablespoon of Salt and enough flour to make a workable dough.

I like noodles with some texture so I only roll my dough to about 1/4" thick. My mom always rolled her dough into a cylinder as if she were cutting cinnamon rolls and sliced her noodles off in 1/2" strips. I just take a pizza wheel to my flattened dough. they are 'home style'.

The noodles are placed into a bowl and tossed with a bit of flour to keep them from sticking to one another.

Bring a large 6 qt. pan of chicken stock to a boil. Once the broth is at a rolling boil, drop the egg noodles a few at a time into the broth and stir to keep them from sticking together. Continue to boil until they are no longer doughy. I usually do not add the meat until the noodles are almost done. This gives me more room in the pan for stirring the noodles. 

Once the turkey and noodles were done, I divided them into 8" round cake pans (you can use square or even a 9x13 if you are feeding a family of 4 or larger). An 8" cake pan is the perfect meal size for two people. Place them in the freezer uncovered, to freeze.

Once the pans are frozen solid, they will pack nicely into Foodsaver bags without worrying about juice squeezing out the top and the bags will conform to the shape. 

Nothing says comfort on a cold winter afternoon then a bowl of homemade turkey and noodles. You can do this same process with chicken or beef, too. If you want to add the vegetables in, like peas or carrots, at the time of cooking that will save you a step in heating up a vegetable side when you serve  up a bowl. Since my husband does not like vegies, I bypass these ingredients and heat up our individual favorites (he'll eat mushy canned peas or green beans) when I fix the meal. 

Now... I did mention the disadvantage to freezer usage at the beginning of this article. One of the things I'll be trying this fall is Pressure Canning. I've never used one before but I do know that when it comes to meat/ broths, pressure canning will expand my preservation options and keep me from relying on the freezer quite as much. I'm off to buy one tomorrow and will let you know how that part of this prepper journey goes. 

PREPPING FOR THE WEEKEND - Power Grid

From here on out, Friday posts will be reserved for Prepping stuff. Before I go any farther, let me clarify....

For the most part I am not a SHTF kind of prepper. I was raised to be prepared for basically any emergencies. I've known since the 3rd grade about canning food, how to hold in the cold of the freezer or refrigerator for up to 4 days in the event of a power outage and that keeping bottles of water on hand is always a good idea. The way I see things.. between Mother Nature and people who don't think before they act, anything is possible. I want to be prepared.

So this article on Power-Grid Attack caught my attention and I think is worth a read. 

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/banking/power-grid-attack-might-hurt-finances.aspx

Since this link is about finances, here's a youtube video I found interesting. While in a SHTF scenario, I'm not sure money in any form is going to be worth a lot... commodities on the other hand will have definite value, I like the fact that the nickel is worth exactly what it is. If nothing else, a roll of nickels in your fist is going to help pack a protective punch.

My prepping posts will become more organized and instructive in the coming weeks. I hope you'll become a subscriber and share your thoughts in the comments below.

Blessings!

WEEK 1 Prepping - Where to Begin

Anytime someone wants to start something new, their first question is usually something to the effect of 'how do I start?' or 'where do I begin?'  My Mom always said any project is best started at the beginning. So I'm going to start this whole Prepping series at the beginning.

Start with DECLUTTERING a space to use as your new storage area. For us, that is in our utility room. Even with the wood burner cranking in the middle of winter, our utility room is the coolest room in the basement with two exterior (while well ground-insulated) concrete walls. One West and one North.

Right now as I'm in the middle of reorganizing and decluttering my craft room, this room has become the sorting area for those things. I hope to have that project finished in the next couple of weeks. But this is what this is what it looks like at present:

This first pictures is of the west wall where my husband built the temporary canned goods storage from 2x8s (possibly 2x6) and shelf bracket modules available at most home improvement stores. We found these at Lowes.

This is the South wall separating the utility room from my craft room. As you can see, the plumbing also runs through this area. If I can get a couple of projects done this summer, most everything there will be put to use and out of the way so that we can turn that wall into a rotating can storage similar to this one on My Family Essentials. The link will take you to the page where she talks about food storage and the picture of her can rotation system. For a quick look, I have a pic on my Pinterest Board - Emergency Preparedness -   CAN STORAGE

We use this cabinet to store our bath necessities as there is a shower in this room as well. But we also store the overstock of personal, beauty and paper products here.

A storage area can be one location in your home (ideal) or have zones throughout your house. Under the bed for instance, is a great place to store cases of bottled water. Think about repurposing various pieces of furniture such as an entertainment center (most people don't even need these now with the flat screen now a common household item.  Can you put shelves on the wall above the toilet area for extra rolls of toilet paper or personal products. While having them in plain view may not be the prettiest, how important is pretty when you need to have those items on hand?  A wooden chest doubling as a coffee table, end of the bed seat or even a hassock that has an opening top can be used to store canned goods.  

If you have a garage, how much can you declutter this area and add shelves for bulk items such as toilet paper, paper towels, detergent, etc.

Your assignment this week if you choose to accept it is to take a tour of your home. What can you get rid of and what necessary emergency supplies could you store there instead.

I've shown you mine, show me yours! Start a blog about your Prepper journey and link me. Sharing ideas could save numerous lives!

Kelly

PREPPING - What it is and why it's important

Do you remember this movie? 

Prepping is nothing new. People have been preparing since the beginning of time. From the first man killing/ preserving food for winter to the Cuban Missile Crisis and more recent. For generations people have planned for a 'rainy day'. They kept their food stock in root cellars in case of long winters when what they preserved might be all they had to hold them until Spring. How many families prepared for 'the big one' like our folks in Blast from the Past. Though the movie was meant to be a comedy, there was nothing light about the importance of how prepared they were to live below ground.

But over the past few years, 'Prepping' has taken on a new meaning. Some have extended the term into 'survivalist' - preparing for everything imaginable from a natural disaster like a tornado to Armageddon. Several months ago I found a book by Bernie Carr called - THE PREPPER'S POCKET GUIDE - 101 Easy Things You Can Do To Ready Your Home For A Disaster.

Bernie breaks prepping down in to 101 manageable tasks to having everything you need for any emergency that might arise. Disasters, like tornadoes, will knock you off your game if you are not prepared. My plan to kick-start this blog is to take you on my journey as I work my way through the booklet and prepare our home for an emergency and put our Prepper Plan into action.

In the mean time, I recommend you order Bernie's book and join me on this journey. If you are already a Prepper or know someone, link me to their sites. I'd love to share what others are doing.

Kelly