April 2016 Newsletter

April Gardening Chores Zone 6:  If you have not yet planted your peas, plant them right away.  You can also plant other cool season vegetables such as lettuce, kale, radishes, carrots, beets, broccoli and cabbage.  Do not plant warm season vegetables outdoors yet unless you have a greenhouse or can keep them covered every day.  Most of these will need to be transplanted or started by seeds around Mother’s Day.

Product Highlight of the Month:  Victorio Grain Mill  (non-electric)

If you plan on storing any grains, YOU NEED TO HAVE one of these!  This is small, very affordable and will be much better than smashing your grains between some rocks to make flour so you can have bread and other baked goods in an emergency.  Keep in mind that grains stored in their whole, unground form, will keep a lot longer than those that are already ground.

This grain mill can be used for wheat, barley, spelt, popcorn (for making corn meal), and even for making rice flour from your stored rice.  It clamps to your counter top or a table and does not need any power.  This retails for around $50-60.  If you just want to “save it for an emergency” it stores in a small box.  If you have an expensive electric grain mill, I would still get one of these to have for situations where you may be without power for long periods of time.

For those who still do not have a grain mill:  7 Great Ways to Use Wheat Without a Wheat Grinder.  This is the simplified version of a post by the ladies at Food Storage Made Easy.  They have this article posted on their website and on their Facebook Page.  You can do a search on those pages using the above title.   www.foodstoragemadeeasy.net

#1.  Thermos Wheat (like a hot cereal that has been cooking overnight in a thermos).

#2  Wheat Berries

#3  Popped Wheat

#4  Wheat grass

#5  Cracked wheat

#6  Wheat Sprouts

#7  Blender wheat flour (placing whole wheat kernels in a blender with other recipe ingredients and mixing in the blender.)

Small Space Storage Solutions

Even if you live in an apartment or a small house, you can find creative ways to store your food storage and other emergency supplies.  I will post some information here to help you get started searching for ideas.

www.thesurvivalmom.com   search her website for posts on this topic on her homepage.  Also if you use Facebook go to her Facebook page called The Survival Mom and search for “small space storage solutions” in the upper left corner of the page.  She posted ideas about this multiple times in 2015.

www.foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2009/01/26/small-spaces-storage-solutions-results/

This post above is really long.  They have lots of great ideas and you can also see comments from people who have tried these ideas or have even more ideas.  Remember the saying, “If there is a WILL…there is a WAY.” 

March 2016 Newsletter

March Garden Projects:  Amend your garden soil with manure.  If you live in the city you can buy it in bags from hardware stores for very cheap.  Empty composters into the garden as well. Mix well before planting.  Plant peas about St. Patrick’s Day in zone 6.  By the end of the month you can usually plant hardy cold weather vegetables such as broccoli and kohlrabi.  If you use row covers to protect from frost, you can start to plant lettuce and radishes.

 Sprouting Seeds: 

Sprouting various seeds is a fast and easy source of nutrition.  Sprouts pack a lot of nutrition in a very tiny package and you can eat them in just a few days.  Sprouts can be used as a replacement for vegetable if you have none.  All you need for basic supplies are seeds, a container with a lid for some ventilation and a source of clean water to rinse them off a couple times a day.

There are several different options for containers for sprouting.  The old fashioned way is just a quart jar and a cover of cheese cloth. Now you can buy a plastic “sprouting jar lid”.  You lay the jar on its side in a sunny spot.   There are also sprouting trays that are square or round. If you have multiple trays you can grow different varieties of sprouts at the same time.

Seeds that are commonly sprouted;  alfalfa, mung beans, other beans, peas, lentils, and wheat.

Use sprouts fresh on a sandwich, use in salads, as a soup topping, add to vegetables in a stir-fry dish, and use in an omelette.  

To buy bulk sprouting seeds check out Azure Standard Supply in Oregon, USA.  www.azurestandard.com  They can ship about anywhere inside the continental United States.  To see how you can make your own bulk seed sprouting mix, check out www.youtube.com and search for a video by Healthy Preparedness.  She has posted a video titled "Sprouting Mix-Save Money!"   

You can grow a few sprouts at a time in just a Mason jar covered with cheese cloth or use a plastic sprouting lid.

Shown:  The Victorio Brand Seed Sprouting "Kitchen Garden" kit.

A round seed sprouting container with 4 tiers.  You could grow 4 different kinds of sprouts at one time in this one. 

A sample of just one sprouting book for beginners.

A seed sprouting chart from www.rawforbeauty.com

February 2016 Newsletter

Emergency Preparedness and Provident Living Newsletter

February 2016

Do you use the FIFO system for Food storage?

FIFO is short for First in, First out.  This means that the foods you bought first, are the first ones you are using.  Use the oldest foods first.  This is the best way to ensure that nothing gets too old and will be wasted.

Even if you do not have a fancy food rotation shelving system you can do this.  Always put the purchase date on your foods and pull your older items forward.  Put the newest items in the back or on the bottom.  This is what they do in the grocery store.  There are many free ideas and plans on the internet, just search for DIY rotating can rack ideas.

How long will food last in cans such as vegetables and soups? 

Lately as I have been buying new canned goods I have been checking the “USE BY DATE” stamped on the cans.  It looks like they are suggesting that you eat the canned goods within 2 years of production.  No matter how quickly you eat things, it is always best to store your foods in the coolest, darkest and driest place possible to prolong the shelf-life. I had some store-bought green beans that were 3 years past the expiration date and were gross.  We could not eat them and we threw them away.    Home canned/bottled fruits and vegetables in glass canning jars can last a lot longer and will still taste good. Over time they will lose some of their vitamins and nutrition but will still be good to eat.  Light colored fruits though will turn dark and not look as appetizing. You may decide to store the light colored foods in the original cardboard canning boxes.  Tape a label on the outside of the box and put a date on it.

You can eat foods in cans that have dents.  Yes, you can. But, keep in mind that you really should use those soon as the dent will eventually cause deterioration in the metal and the food can spoil sooner.  Just get a marker and write “Use me up soon” on the lid and put it in front.

Use what you have and replace it as you use it.  First in, first out!

Growing and processing your own foods for true independence.  No man who relies on others for his food is truly independent.   Now is the time to learn how to grow a garden, even a small one.  This is the time of year to start buying your seeds and gardening supplies.  Dedicate a spiral notebook to be your gardening journal and start to sketch your garden plans in it.  Gardening rarely turns out as good as we hope. There is a big learning curve.  Now is the time to practice your gardening skills so you can become more independent.

 Preserving documents: 

Before you ever need to evacuate your home or if it is destroyed by a fire, flood or tornado…you should have a plan for your vital documents.

There are several options for making copies of your vital documents.  Whichever method you choose is up to you but you should have the copies stored in a different location.  The BEST thing to have would be the ORIGINALS or course, but if something happened to those, at least you could have copies and your photo ID to get you back on the road to recovering from a disaster.

Documents you would want to have preserved:

1)      Birth or adoption certificates for every person in your home.

2)      Passports or Visas

3)      Social Security cards

4)      Insurance forms for life, car, home, medical etc (include photos of the items and rooms)

5)      Pet and human vaccine records

6)      Marriage certificates

7)      Advance Directives if you have any

8)      Church records

9)      A Fairly recent photo of each person in the family.

10)  Anything else that you really should save.                           

Options for having extra copies.

1)       Take a large 3 ring binder and make copies and place in sheet protectors and keep that in a different location.  Or, keep the originals in the binder and have that in a place where you can grab it quickly as you evacuate your home.  Label it in a way that if your home was broken into, a thief would not know what it is.  You might choose to do BOTH of these methods.

2)       Scan all important documents and save the digital copies onto a thumb drive or disk.  Keep the thumb drive or disk at a bank in a safe deposit box or at your work in a safe or a trusted relative’s home.  Some people also choose to keep these in their 72 hr kit or bug-out bag.

3)      No matter which method you choose above, it is a great idea to keep your vital documents in a water-proof and fire-proof safe in your home.  Bolt the safe to the floor and keep well hidden.  For more ideas on this subject just use your favorite internet search engine or check out www.thesurvivalmom.com and   http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net  

4)      Keep in mind that there are some ready-made binders for this purpose for sale on line.  They are expensive, but you can make your own for pretty cheap.  It does not need to be fancy.  I made our binder using a 2 inch 3-ring binder, sheet protectors and some dividers with tabs.