October in Review and November 2011 Preps

Is it just me or did October go by in the blink of an eye? I can hardly believe it is November and that Christmas is just around the corner. 

I don't feel like I did very much to prep this month. I bought a few new books to add to our survival library and added some odds and ends to our food storage (another gallon of oil and a few canned goods) but that's it. Hmm... I'll have to do better in November! 

I did have my first successful culinary experience with a Sun Oven.It makes me feel a lot more secure to know that I can bake bread without electricity - assuming that the sun is shining!

We also harvested the last tomatoes and peppers of the year. Both of the methods we are using to ripen green tomatoes are working well. It feels luxurious to have so many delicious tomatoes on hand when it is so cold outside.

Last, but certainly not least, we completed our chicken moat. I've wanted chickens for at least five years and I'm so excited that I finally get to buy chicks this spring! 

For November:

• We still need to plant the seed garlic we bought last month. Gotta get that in the ground soon.
• Our three pecan trees are due to be shipped soon so we'll be planting them as well.  
• I plan to process my pie pumpkins and freeze the pulp. The last of our cayenne peppers should finish drying this month and I'm planning on grinding them up for ground red pepper. We shall see if I can accomplish both of those objectives without chopping off any body parts or suffering wicked chile burns. 
• I've been using a borrowed Sun Oven for my solar oven experiments. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy one of my own. It is definitely an investment, but I think it is worth it. Yes, I've had some less than successful experiments, but I'm finally figuring out how to make the Sun Oven work for me. 
• I plan on taking advantage of the holiday sales to stock up on food storage items. I'm going to focus on chocolate chips, brownie mixes, sugar, flour, and other baking items. 
• Speaking of baking, I have a problem that I need your help with. It's time for another "Ask the Readers" post. Stay tuned for that later this week.

How did you prepare in October? What are your plans for this month? 

Adding to My Survival Library

I've been actively preparing for well over a year now and my list of things to get and to do never seems to get shorter. It gets overwhelming when you realize just how much stuff it would take to survive a major societal collapse - or even a minor one, for that matter. I recently finished reading James Wesley Rawles' Patriotsand the protagonists in that book have an insanely tricked out survival retreat. It makes me feel more than a little inadequate!

The best I can do is set purchasing priorities and see them through. Number one on my list is food storage. We should have our year's supply by the end of 2011. Number two is information - books, resources printed off the Internet, etc. on all sorts of survival topics. The books are helping me plan my future purchases and they would be an invaluable asset in any sort of long term disaster. I think of them as a kind of Noah's Ark of information.

Part of our survival library

I prefer actual, physical books. You'll never see me breaking out a Nook or Kindle. It's not my style and in a grid down situation, you may lose access to the precious knowledge contained in an e-book. I suppose the best case scenario would be to buy both a physical copy/copies of an essential book and to also have an electronic version.

I'm collecting books in a variety of categories:

Gardening
Canning/Preserving
Food Storage Cookbooks
Animal Husbandry
Defense
"Hardcore" Survival Topics (ie. Foraging, Trapping, etc.)
Traditional Skills
Medicine

At this point, I've pretty well gotten the first three categories taken care of. Since Hubby Dear is a medical professional, I'm not too worried about the last category, either.

Here's what I added to the library this month:

1. Barnyard in Your Backyard: A Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Rabbits, Goats, Sheep, and Cattle This book contains bits and pieces of all the "Storey's Guide to Raising..." books about these particular animals. I wasn't very impressed. I have and love the Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens because it is very, very thorough. Barnyard in Your Backyard? Not so much. I should have just bought the complete Storey's Guides for each of the animal species. 
2. The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It A beautiful book. Inspiring and packed with lovely illustrations. 
3. The Chicken Health Handbook If my hypothetical chickens get sick, I will be prepared. More than you ever wanted to know about chicken ailments. 
4. SurvivorsThis is John Wesley Rawles' sequel to Patriots. I liked Patriots OK. I am about 80 pages into Survivors and it is driving me crazy! Ever seen a kid with ADHD hopped up on too much sugar?This book reminds me of that; it flits between so many different people that there is no narrative "flow". Please tell me it gets better!

What are your "Must Haves" for your library? Are you buying e-books or paper copies?