January 2016 Newsletter

2016 Goals for Preparedness:  Suggested ideas if you need some.

1.      Evaluate what your family’s needs are.  What are the areas that your family needs to work on?  Concentrate on those areas first.

2.      Do you have EMPTY water containers?  If they are empty, you cannot count that as water storage!  Fill-up your containers ASAP.

3.      Do you have wheat but you don’t have a wheat grinder?  Buy a wheat grinder.  Start with one that is small, affordable and non-electric. Victorio Brand is a nice little starter one that retails for around $60.

4.      Did you get some preparedness gifts or items this past year?  Practice using them so you are familiar with the tools you have.

5.      Continually add to your stock of your most commonly used items.  Buy things when they are on sale. Put your favorite grocery store ads app on your phone or read the ads that come in the mail each week.

6.      Do you get these newsletter every month?  Do you read them right away and put things on your calendar?

7.      Make a goal of using the Stake dry pack canner at least once this year. Or go to the Sandy Home storage center and buy dry goods there.  It is really easy.

8.      Make it a goal to go to the case lot sales this year and stock up on your most commonly used foods.  Many times, the case lot sales have the lowest prices on canned goods all year.

9.      Are you lacking sanitation supplies?  Start gathering supplies and make a sanitation kit or two.  You can keep your supplies in plastic tubs or 5 gallon buckets.

10.  Do you have a garden plot but have not planted a garden in several years?  Plant a garden this year.  Gardening rarely goes as planned and there is always something to learn.  If you had to, could you live on only what you grow?

11.  Do you need a refresher course on First Aid or CERT?  Sign-up for a class near you and take the class this year.

12.  Sign-up and attend at least one of the free classes that your church or community will offer on preparedness topics.  You cannot borrow someone else’s knowledge.

13.  Do you have some old foods stored away but you don’t use it?  Start using it and as you use it, buy some fresher foods to store.  You MUST rotate your food storage.

14.  Do you have a FACEBOOK account?  Great!  Find pages on Food Storage and Preparedness and “like” a page or two. Other pages will be suggested for you to check out.  There is a lot of information on Facebook.

15.  If you use Facebook, please join our large preparedness group, or one in your area.  You can even start a group of your own with family and friends.  It only takes a minute and you can invite whomever you want.  If you live in West Jordan you may join one of these groups.  COPPER CANYON NEIGHBORHOOD PREPAREDNESS GROUP or WEST JORDAN EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS GROUP.

16.  So you ARE part of a preparedness group?  Do you check what group members are posting?  You can adjust your notifications settings and check as often as you like.  You may choose to only look at it once a week.  Set a goal to participate in more group buys this year.

17.  You have decided YOU WILL NOT GET A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT.  That is fine, many people chose not to.  There are many websites, stores and blogs devoted to preparedness and food storage.  Check them out and add some to your favorites list.

      This is funny, but is does not count as water storage!    You can fill containers from the sink or buy it anywhere, until there is an emergency.

Highlight of the month:   27 LED  work light,  also known as 24 +3 work light

This small light has 24 bright LED lights on the front and 3 LED lights on one end.  Most of these have 2 work settings.  Some brands have a strobe setting also.  (I have seen the same lights under different brand names online). On the back it has a magnet and a hook for hanging.  It comes with 3 AAA batteries.  These retail for about $4 each.  I have found them at Harbor Freight stores as well as on-line.

I like that it is small, bright, very useful and very affordable.  We now have one in each car and in each 72 hr kit as well.  We also have at least one in a handy location for when the power goes out.

September 2014 Newsletter

Product Highlight of the Month:  Victorio Steam Juicer

This easy-to-use machine is well worth the money if you plan on harvesting a lot of fruit, especially grapes.  The juice can then be made into jelly if you want. Nectar is a thicker juice that can be made from peaches or apricots.  If you put apple slices in the steamer you can get juice and then can the pulp left behind as apple sauce.  It is great for fruit that may not look pretty enough to can as halves.  Remove any undesired spots after washing and make into juice instead. You can also use it to juice tomatoes and other vegetables. It acts like a giant double-boiler.  Wash your fruit or vegetables and remove any LARGE stems or other pieces that you do not want juiced.  Fill the basket with your fruit.  Peels and seeds are fine to leave in.  The steam from the bottom pan will break the skins open.  Wait a while and then squeeze the clamp on the tube to release the juice straight into a clean, hot jar.  Put hot, prepared lid on and wait for it to seal on its own.  No mess and it is super easy to use.  You just keep adding more fruit every-so-often to the basket to keep the process going.  Do be sure to add more water to the bottom pan about every 1 ½ hrs. At the end of the canning session, dump the garbage left in the basket.  This steam juicer comes in two metals and price ranges.  The aluminum juicer is around $50-60.  The stainless steel costs quite a bit more.  In Utah you can find it at IFA Country Stores, Cal Ranch Stores and Macey’s as well as on-line.

Emergency Water Storage Information

Water is the most important thing to have in your food storage plan.  People cannot live without water for more than 3 days.  Our City Water supply is very vulnerable to sabotage and other problems with the system.  It is very easy to get started on storing at least a small amount of water in your home.  Do what you can, no matter where you live.  Here are a few things to remember when storing water:

1)      Each family should have a minimum of 2 gallons per person, per day. A Starting goal should be enough for 2 weeks.

2)      If you are using City water, it has been treated and does not need any other treatment if stored in a clean PETE container.  You may choose to add special water treatment tablets or a few drops of chlorine if in doubt.

3)      DO NOT store water in milk jugs.  You may safely store water in re-used soda or juice bottles.  Look for the PETE symbol on the bottom of the bottle.  Just wash them out first.

4)      If using large plastic barrels, make sure that they are NEW or have only been used for water, soda or other human foods before.  If you are not sure what was stored in it before…do not use the water for drinking!

5)      The darker the plastic bottle/barrel and the darker the storage area, the less likely that algae will be able to grow in the bottle during storage.    

6)      I personally like to have some of our water in small bottles in case we have to evacuate.  I like to have some of our water in the large blue barrels in case there is a disruption in the water supply and we are at home.  Be sure to also have a pump made to get the water out of the barrels!

7)      To improve the taste of water that has been stored, simply pour the water back and forth between 2 containers to add oxygen.  You can also add any powdered flavoring. 

8)      There are many water storage container options on the market.  Do what works for your family.

    

blue barrel and pump 30-55 gallon

re-fill clean juice or soda bottles with water

The Super Tanker water storage system

5 gallon water brick, stackable containers

                            

Vital Documents Binder

Storing, organizing and protecting your Vital Documents is one of the most important things you should do for everyday and especially during an emergency.  We have always kept these documents in a file in a file cabinet but it was always an unorganized mess.  It would take several minutes of digging through all the papers just to find a child’s immunization record for scouts or school, every year.  We recently learned of a new and easy way to keep them handy and organized.  We simply created a 3-ring binder just for these documents. Why did it take so long for us to do this?  (Store where your family knows where it is, but a burglar hopefully will not find it).  Some people choose to use a bright colored binder so it is easy to find.  You might choose to use a plain colored one and hide it in plain sight instead. If you ever have to evacuate your home be sure to take this with you.  If your home is destroyed, in most cases you must have the original document and not a copy!

Items needed:

1- 1 ½” or larger 3 ring binder                      sheet protectors

8 or more divider tabs

Fill the binder with the sheet protectors.  Create sections for each document that you do not want to lose.  Suggested documents to keep in here are:  Birth Certificates, Social Security Cards, Marriage Certificate, Diplomas, Titles to homes and cars, insurance papers, Powers of Attorney, Medical Advance Directives, immunization records, church records, a color photo of each family member and a list of distinguishing marks etc.