Five years ago I posted this advice on my Facebook page.  It has profited us greatly during this lockdown .  We haven't been to the grocery store in 2 months but we have been to a small mom & pop market & the Dollar general  for things like dog & cat food, dairy products, junk food and things you can't make.   here's what I posted  5 years ago:   
     
       I would STRONGLY suggest, with the greatest of urgency, that if you have not done so yet, this spring and summer you either raise or purchase your produce and learn to can it. (Freezing is good, but if the electric goes off for any amount of time it will thaw. )You can still can on a propane grill if you need to pressure can and a campfire will allow a boiling water bath enough heat to can high acid fruits . Lawns are nice, food is nicer. You would be amazed at how much will grow on 1/4 acre. Buy bread flour and All purpose flour.It freezes nicely ( to keep summer bugs out).What do you use flour for? Italian bread,whole wheat bread,rolls,cookies,pita bread,rye bread,pies,cakes,macaroni, spaghetti,fettucini,stromboli,pizza,every kind of pasta( buy semolina flour to combine with white flour to make pasta. It only uses small amounts as compared to the ratio of white flour).Look at EVERYTHING you use on a day to day basis.If you stocked up on different flours,yeast (get the freeze dried 1 lb brick that Fleishman's sells),rice,dried beans and split peas (to make soups and chili).A fugitive in Yugoslavia said he wished he had toilet paper stocked up because of his war torn zone.Always keep seeds and have seed potatoes.Do you have a SHORT WAVE RADIO ?? They are cheap to buy. Get the hand crank one. I have a hand crank flashlight in my car that still works GREAT after 8 years. Get one of those also.Being a prepper is not an off the wall anxiety state of mind. It is being realistic with the possible situations confronting us.The "grid" collapsing is one of them knocking out all electric and computer access.We immediately return to the 1800's but unprepared.

You don't need semolina flour to make good pasta. All purpose flour is great.  You also don't need a farm or a lot of acreage . A trip to the supermarket and ask for a crate of corn when they go on sale,  Then can or freeze it,You can buy "seconds" at fruit stands.  Tell them you are looking for "canners".... tomatoes, peaches, etc.  Start your tomatoe plants on your window sill in egg cartons. Then transplant the end of May.

   

The end of the harvest has finally arrived. Once again I am relieved but saddened at the same time. I will miss the wonderful sweet taste of a red juicy tomato freshly plucked from the vine. I will also miss  evening walks through rows of  soft dirt freshly hoed between plants and the smell of tomato vines. I harvested enough to make tomato sauce,salsa, ketchup,BBQ sauce plus some soups for the year. 

       I was fortunate enough to get several bookcases many years ago to store the canned goods. They once belonged to a lawyer in Greenwich Village ,NYC that my father's Aunt Hattie worked for as a legal secretary. That was in the early 1900's. They have sliding glass doors that help to protect the jars from cellar moisture and dust and they also look nice.

      I still have to dig up our potatoes but that can wait for another week or two.The soil protects them from deteriorating until the cellar is cold enough in the fall for storage. Once they are harvested the garden clean up begins. Uggghhhhh !  I'm not looking forward to that.
      Each year I try to learn something new or at least perfect something I couldn't get the hang of in the past. Last year I finally found a recipe for ketchup that actually had true ketchup flavor.  This past year I succeeded in making apple cider vinegar and it tastes and smells great.I used Cortland apples which are the only apples that I know of that don't turn brown. The apples remained white and the vinegar a lighter color. Since I can't test the pH I can't use it for canning but I use it for other things.
       This is also a time of year to save seeds. My window sills have been a ripening spot in my kitchen for tomatoes and now have seeds scattered and drying . Soon the sills will have new basil plants growing into the winter and in late February egg cartons will rest upon them as starter beds for tiny new tomato plants. I'll transfer them them to the greenhouse in the spring once the temps rise above freezing.
       So, what will I be doing the remainder of the year and winter ?  Well, I will probably sew. I learned to make puppets for Junior Church Bible story lessons and VBS  last year. I will probably make a few more. It's fun. We live on a farm. There is always PLENTY to do. 

        
        

Caring For Our Fellow Man in disaster Part 3 :Food Source management

In the previous 2 blogs I addressed some ideas of water and sanitation management and what we could possibly do to help others with our own resources.In this section I want to address HELPING OTHERS HELP THEMSELVES when it comes to food provision. Our own foodstores will be limited and will only last so long. I'm thinking of long term ideas for replenishing  food . Chickens can be reproduced quite quickly if you have an incubator but since electric might not be an option, does anyone have any ideas of  how to make an incubator in a way that the temp could be maintained ?  (God Bless broody hens. You can barter her chicks later for needed resources you don't have). 

    Meat on the menu will have to be a thing of the past ,at least for awhile.Don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg.Chickens can forage the woods & sustain themselves and they provide an egg every day or 2 depending on the season and availability of enough light hours. Vegetables would be the smartest way to go. Eggs & beans are a good source of protein. Cabbage & potatoes & beans will keep you alive in a famine.Potatoes , beets and other root vegetables can be grown along the border of the woods as long as there is enough sunlight. The plants would appear to be weeds and remain hidden from possible thieves.
    Beef cattle should not be slaughtered , if possible. As long as enough pasture is available they should be allowed to reproduce and just enough milk taken off the cow for cheese making and some milk for drinking until the calf can hold its own. Rural areas will have to revert back to where we were 100+ yrs ago with small farms and a cow , goats , chickens in the yards. Calves , chickens, goats & sheep can be sold off or bartered to the next guy down the road or neighboring communities.Manures will be needed for fertilizer . Horses would revert back to their original purpose... transport.A good community security system will of course be necessary.That's where community militias will come into play.
     Heirloom seeds should be started in the house the end of February for tomatoes ,peppers and other plants that do better if started ahead of time & transplanted when warm. Half an egg shell makes a perfect starter pot for seeds and fits nicely in an egg carton.Two or  three egg cartons ( lids cut off & placed underneath  for extra support) fit nicely on windowsills and will give you a nice tomato crop. Start more if you have the seeds for others who may need plants.Every tomato, every cucumber, every pepper will have tons of seeds. Remember others.
      Solar methods of dehydration to preserve your harvest should be checked out , copied and kept on the shelf for needed reference.
      Any other thoughts on this ? 
   

2. Caring for our fellow man in disaster

WATER:
   
        In the previous blog I discussed helping others in a disaster situation. In the event of an E.M.P. attack or any prolonged electric grid failure , water will quickly become a problem. City water will eventually give out as pumps from reservoirs  fail. Well water from rural areas rely upon electric water pumps to draw the water out of the wells. I am mainly addressing rural home dwellers  that have access to well water or some other water source. Youtube has some great sites teaching you how to access your well for water with some very simple methods.   We will need water for drinking and water for sanitation.  Once we know how to go about accessing it and have the simple gear to do it we should share this info with neighbors & friends for preparedness before the unthinkable happens.However, not everyone thinks on this wavelength assuming that electricity will always be there for them. Therefore, having access to water is important and sharing it is not only merciful but necessary to keep panic levels and violence at bay.
        When I finish 2 L. bottles of soda or juice I rinse them out and fill them with water. I store them away and cover them with plastic to keep dust off. These can be shared with others and they can keep the vessels for refills.
         Visit the neighbors and show them how to access their water. If they have the equipment laying around to make their own access, (PVC pipe, etc.~  see Youtube videoes), then encourage them to show others.
          Creek, pond & lake waters can be used for non drinking needs. If you have access to this water share it and pass along to others who don't. If you have a lid on your septic tank you can dump human waste down there or use a 5 gallon bucket of water to flush your toilet.
           I also think about those people who will be traveling the roads on foot and will need a water source. Some sort of a set up should be available to them along roads for drinking water as well as for washing. Any ideas ?
           Water purification methods ,boiling, etc are readily available on prepper sites, Youtube, etc.
As long as you have ice or snow you can distill water by placing a pyrex bowl inside a larger pot of water. Make sure there is a few inches of space between the walls of the bowl and the walls of the pot.Bring water to a  boil and cover the pot with an upside down cover with ice or snow on it. This causes condensation from the evaporating water as it boils and will drip into the bowl.

Caring for our fellow man post disaster

     One thing I have noticed on "prepper sites" when discussing SHTF scenarios is a lack of prepping for "the other guy". "What is the first thing you would do?", was the heading of one of the worst case scenario  discussions. Amazing how many, after gathering their loved ones, would head for the house, lock the doors, pull down the blinds and poke the barrel of their shotgun out of the corner of the upstairs window.
     In the event of an E.M.P. attack , which would take down  the grid and incapacitate most vehicles, those survivalists away from home would immediately recognize what was happening and grab their bugout bag and either head for home or the hills to get out of the city. Wide sweeping  panic would hit the general population  There would be a run on  banks for cash, grocery stores for all they could carry and beer & liquor stores would very quickly have empty shelves.Looting would become the general mode of payment since  electricity had ceased functioning."It's all about me and my family" as we enter  survival mode. The streets of cities, interstates and rural areas will be filled with vehicles that came to a sudden stop . Bewildered passengers  would begin wandering off highways in search of help  after they realized the futility of trying to restart their engines. Other immediate disasters will quickly follow, but let's not go there now.
       What about our fellow man? What about "Love thy neighbor?"  How should we react?  In the beginning of panic situations you will have to exercise great caution . Help where you can but watch your back.What I would like to address here is, let's say you got lucky and are at home . Since I live in a rural area of the mountains in the midst of farmlands I  already have a head start on survival and we planned it that way years ago. I'm not sure what I would do if I lived in the city, in an apartment building.So, I am considering what do those that have some semblance of control over their environment do for others ?  What will be their immediate needs?   Sanitation, water, food, shelter, warmth. Not in that order necessarily.

1. SANITATION

 Public privys will need to be erected quickly or people will defecate along the roads , as we have seen happen in areas where the homeless take residence. Human waste has been a problem in third world countries without sewerage systems.Disease quickly will become epidemic Bangladesh has ventured several years ago on a project that places 3 privys in neighborhoods, holes in the ground away from drinking water sources , that are moved and then composted into. Public outhouses could be erected along roads , maybe every 2,000 ft or so against a wooded area that could be easily dug.Those large laundry detergent containers with spouts can be set up in them for running water for hand washing. ( This would also help to ward off wandering populations from knocking on your door to use your bathroom).

In the next blog I'll address water . Does this sound crazy ?  Nope, it's not.

I do love to cook. I LOVE it ! Bar me from the cheese section of the deli dept. in the grocery store . Only pepper spray will drive me back.Cheeses are the sunshine of my cooking soul. I need my own cow. There are just so many cheeses that need to be made !  Several years ago I made my own mozzarella cheese. It costed he same to make as to buy, so I dropped that one. But it was fun and now I know how to do it if I need to.

I also  love kitchen gadgets. I am a sucker for them . I also love bowls, especially very LARGE bowls. And big pots, big, big BIG pots !  Do I use all that stuff ?  Oh yes !   I use every single thing in my kitchen. I was lucky enough to hit the RT 70 Flee Market ( NJ) just right one day and I found this GLORIOUS colander that holds about 30 lbs (or more) of grapes !    So much of what I use and need is seasonal, but once you have it , hang onto it. 

I love the movie  " Julie and Julia"... about a young woman's attempt to complete 500+ recipes  in a year from Julia Child's book , "MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING"..  I watch this 'chick!flick' about once a year. She has the same passion about cooking that I do. Thank you, Miss Giancinto, my high School cooking teacher in my freshman year of high school.I know the high school budget only allowed so much funding, so we learned how to make macaronni 300 different ways, and our scones were epic !

At this time of year we are gathering up the remains of the harvest.I don't harvest potatoes or pumpkins until November. Here are my grandsons in August 10 yrs ago digging up supper for that evening.

Pumpkins need to be gathered in and when I can get to it I will can up pumpkin pie filling.

This year we got a potato plow attachment for our tractor. Of coarse my hoe worked better. Out of frustration my husband dropped the tractor shovel & scooped along the ground.  A few potatoes got creamed but the rest were dislodged from their tight soil spots and we scooped them up & dropped them into a bag.

(Gus loves to pose for pictures.)It's 17 degrees out tonight.Dog gone cold.I brought  all the remaining pumpkins , apples and potatoes into the dining room to store for now, wherever I could find a spot. That room is closed off with french doors from the rest of the house and has no heat unless I open 2 sets of doors to allow the heat from the woodstove to flow warm air to it.The kitchen still has another 12 gallon crock of sauerkraut fermenting. The harvest is at it's end and I am so relieved. Then I can take a nap and start sewing for Christmas presents when I wake up. (:>