March 2012 in Review, Part IV: First Aid and April Preps

Whew! This is the final part of my March prepping review. The last thing I did last month was to start chipping away at our first aid preps.


First Aid

I've had a first aid plan for a while but I haven't done much to build up our stockpile.

Triangular bandages, gauze, surgical masks, Ace bandages, Burn Jel and Coflex

This is but a drop in the bucket but at least I got started!


With March finally out of the way, here's what I have in store for April: 

1. Plant our apple trees and blueberries bushes. I'll post in-depth instructions on how to start off your plants right. There's a lot more to it than just plopping your trees in a hole. 
2. Get some more stuff for the chickens. The wee beasties are getting larger and I need to get some more items to keep them healthy and happy. 
3. BOB upgrade. I'll buy a few more items to upgrade and update our bug out bags. 
4. Food Storage. If I have room  in the budget, I'd like to buy some more #10 cans of milk
5. Inventory our First Aid stockpile. I need to get a better idea of just how much we already have.  

So that's me! How are you prepping this month?

January 2012 in Review and February Preps

January was a quiet month for me on the blog, but not so much at home. I have been so busy. Between my kids' homeschooling, extra-curriculars, and the normal insanity of having two toddlers (including one who is doing her best to give up her afternoon nap), life has been pretty nutty. Hubby Dear and I have also been going full-throttle with diet and and exercise, which has eaten up time I normally spent on the computer. My derriere is thankful for the change, however, and I've managed to lose 10 pounds in the last month!

Even though I didn't get time to blog, I most certainly worked on preps during the month of January.

1. Sales!

I hope many of you were able to take advantage of the sales at markdown.com and Honeyville Grains. I am very happy that I was able to stock up on both Tattler canning lids and freeze dried foods.

2. Reading, reading, and more reading

I read quickly through The Small-Scale Poultry Flock and have been mulling over all the interesting ideas it gave me for the role poultry can play on our homestead. Next, I bought a copy of The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way. Talk about wow. If you are interested in growing fruit organically, you've got to get your hands on this book! The focus of the book is building plant health, starting at the soil level and working up. It has me re-imagining the layout of our orchard and has piqued my interest in permaculture. I really can't recommend this book enough.

3. Miscellany

I socked away items like work gloves, bandannas, and safety pins.  These are all cheap, readily-available preps that could be important to have on hand in an emergency. Bandannas alone have countless uses.

4. Chicken business

Our chicks are due to arrive in early March. I spent a good portion of my prepping budget this month on various chicken paraphernalia.

Feed storage

I bought a couple of galvanized steel trash cans to store feed in and a couple of bales of pine shavings. Since I intend to use the deep litter method of manure management, I need mucho mas pine shavings.

Random chick stuff 

I also picked up the supplies I'll need for our chick brooder. Hubby Dear and I weighed out a variety of options (including crafting our own brooder out of a plastic storage bin), but for reasons of ease, the number of chicks we'll be brooding, and because I'm a total sucker for a so-called complete kit, we bought the Deluxe Brooder Starter Package from Randall Burkey.

The Deluxe Brooder Package from randallburkey.com 

You're supposed to have at least 1/2 a square foot per chick in your brooder. This set up will give me just about the right amount of space for the 17 chicks I'm expecting.

I also bought chick-sized grit, a bag of starter feed, and forage cakes. I'm glad that February always flies by so quickly because I am more than ready for my chicks to arrive!

Oh, and there's this little something that arrived via tractor trailer.

After some trial and error (including a dead lawn mower battery and creative use of a tire iron),
Hubby  Dear got the coop hitched up and moved it around to the back yard

This is an 8x8' chicken coop built by Horizon Structures. The delivery driver arrived after sunset one evening and decided that he couldn't make the turn into our driveway with his 75' long trailer. That meant he had to put the wheels on our coop and unload it directly on the country road we live on. Then he and I wrestled this nearly 1700 lb coop off the road and up enough of our hilly, rutted driveway to finally make it onto our yard. Hubby Dear, of course, was at work and missed all the fun. ;) The next day, he hitched up the coop to the lawn mower and moved it around back to take its place of honor in the chicken moat.

It was tricky business to get the coop positioned in the moat. It took many tries to get it right.

Horizon Structures is located in Pennsylvania and I... am not. Take a look at the amount of road dust that collected on the outside of the coop during the long journey to our home! It would have been better to buy locally, but I didn't have any luck finding something with the size and features I wanted.

In place and ready for action! Now we just need to finish the chicken moat.

This coop has a lot of upgrades, including an easy-clean glassboard floor, electrical package, and automatic chicken door. I'm pleased with the overall quality of construction, but was disappointed that the roof and paint got damaged during transport. Thankfully, Horizon Structures is not only sending me touch-up paint and extra shingles but also hiring a handyman to make it right. That's a business that knows how to treat its customers.

What's up for next month?

February Preps:

1. Books - You know I had to have more books on my list! Continuing the theme of permaculture, I plan to get (the unfortunately named, but useful) Gaia's Garden. I also find the concept behind Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day to be very intriguing. I make all of our bread, but the recipe I use for homemade pizza recipe takes long enough that I don't make it very often.

2. Chickens - I still need to get a few odds and ends for the chickens, namely a long, high-quality extension cord so that my coop can have power. We need to finish constructing the north wall of the chicken moat as well.

3. Orchard planning - Our apple trees and blueberry bushes will arrive in March. Ahead of that, I need to work on our plan and get some of the supplies that I can't find locally.

4. Garden - We are expanding our square foot garden next year and so we need to build a few more boxes and make more Mel's Mix.  

5. First aid preps - I have a huge list of items that I have yet to buy. I hope to make inroads on this.

6. Feminine products - After my ill-fated cloth pad experiment, I kind of abandoned this area of preparedness. Time to get back to it.


So that's me. Any big plans for February or accomplishments from January you'd like to share? 

My Top Five Prepping Failures of 2011

It's mid-December, which is a great time to put down the eggnog and Christmas cookies and reflect upon the past year. I made progress in our preparedness but have definitely experienced some failures. I'll talk about what went right in 2011 in a future post. Today is the day I get to expose all my inadequacies to the world. ;)

Top Five Prepping Failures

5. Sun Oven

The Global Sun Oven

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with the Sun Oven itself, other than an initial chemical odor that can lend your food a nasty aftertaste until you cleaned it thoroughly. Once I finally purged the Sun Oven of the noxious fumes, the only problem was me! There is a definite learning curve to the Sun Oven and it took me a month to figure it all out. By the time I had it mastered, my family was ready to stage an Occupy the Sun Oven protest. I guess they had enough raw potato soup!

Thankfully, the experiment ended on a high note.

Bread baked in the Sun Oven. Success at last!

This is a very vivid illustration as to why it is so important to USE and PRACTICE your preps.

4. Fall Garden

Remember this garden plan? We put a lot of effort into researching fall gardens. We learned about the best varieties, methods, and timing for our part of the country.

The results were even less stellar than the toxic chocolate chip cookies I baked: a handful of carrots, a few  small heads of cauliflower, and some radishes. We couldn't even get Swiss Chard to grow and all the authorities I've consulted say that chard is pretty much as foolproof as vegetables come. We didn't get any  beets, lettuce, spinach, salad mix, or cabbage. Our broccoli sprouted and grew tall, but they never formed heads.

Obviously we'll have to go back to the drawing board for next year. Our summer was abnormally hot and dry and that didn't help. Maybe things would have performed better if we had planted transplants rather than direct seeding. Perhaps we could have used floating row covers to shade the soil so that it wasn't so hot while the seeds we germinating.

All I know is that I am not cut out to be a subsistence farmer.  


3. First aid

The beginnings of my first aid stockpile, February 2011

One of my goals at the beginning of 2011 was to develop and deepen our first aid stockpile. I bought a few first aid basics last winter but didn't really progress any further. I picked up some supplies here and there for free (hurray for coupons!), but nothing in massive quantities.

I guess I wouldn't classify this so much as a failure but a result of a shift in my priorities. Getting a full year's supply of food has been project number one. I've also slashed my prepping budget in recent months and focused instead on saving money for the chicken moat and coop.

You can bet that I'll definitely focus on first aid again in 2012.

2. Diet/Exercise

Like so many of my fellow Americans, I am a bit out of shape. Four kids, stress, and a penchant for snacking have wreaked havoc upon my once shapely figure.  Hubby Dear and I vowed that 2011 would be the year we got our flabby butts in gear and got healthy.

Although it started promisingly, our New Year's resolutions fizzled and we remain the same girth that we started the year with. We'll try again. I don't need to be supermodel thin, but I do want to make sure that I'm healthy and capable of working hard.


Lastly, my number one, most pitiful prepping failure of 2011 is


1. Cloth Pads

I had so many good intentions! 

When my mom delivered a vintage sewing machine to my house last January, a world of possibilities opened up to me. How cool - I could sew clothing for my family if need be. I didn't want to wait for TEOTWAWKI, though. I wanted to create something practical that I could use now. Since I am not only concerned about preparedness but also increasingly interested in sustainable living, I became strangely excited about sewing my own cloth menstrual pads.

I tried, I really did. But when you carry the Un-crafty gene, there's just not much you can do.

My best effort was only good for a demented hand puppet

No matter what I did, I couldn't keep the needle threaded. Part of my problems might have come from the thickness of the four layers of absorbent material I was sewing through. I'm sure the failure is mostly due to my own incompetence, however.

If I want cloth pads, it looks like I'll have to buy them from someone else.

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Now that I have this all out in the open, I feel much better. I'll take a cleansing breath, take another swig of eggnog, and think of 2011's successes. But that is a post for another time.



Experienced any prepping failures? Share your tales of woe below.  

Gettin' Romantic at Cabela's

Hubby Dear and I recently celebrated 13 years of wedded bliss. My in-laws provided us with babysitting so the Hubs and I enjoyed a kid-free weekend excursion to the big, big, city.

Who needs chocolate-covered strawberries and diamonds? Nothing says romance like a trip to Cabela's! Browsing the guns and ammo under the watchful eyes of taxidermied polar bears is sure to ignite marital passions. ;)

It wasn't the only place we visited on our trip, but Cabela's was a highlight to be sure. This is what I came home with:

A can of Mountain House Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, Quik Clot Trauma Pak, SAM Splint, Firestarter, and rope

Mountain House #10 cans are still in short supply. There were plenty on hand at Cabela's, though, so I picked up one. They only carried about four or five varieties, but there were plenty of them.
I added the Quick Clot Trauma Pak and SAM splint to our first aid supplies. The Quick Clot Pak is good for large wounds - even some gunshots - and the SAM splint is reusable, which is a plus.

I've been wanting to get one of these firesteels I have refillable butane lighters, matches, and now this as my means to light fires. I'll definitely need to practice using it.

The rope was kind of a random purchase. It isn't heavy-duty, so I won't be using it to rappel down a mountain or anything. You can never have enough of it on hand, though, and since I bought it, it won't be lost in Hubby Dear's Man Land (aka the garage).



Anyone else have strange "dates" with your spouse since the preparedness bug hit?

July in Review and August 2011 Preps

July in Review:

The Garden -

July has been a tough month. Like much of the nation, we've been under the grip of a heatwave that just won't let go. We have had over two weeks of temperatures well in the 100s and very little rain. When I walk across our now beige-colored lawn, it sounds like I'm stomping on corn chips.

Our poor garden has suffered as a result. We've been watering daily, but there's only so much 110 degree weather that a plant can take. Compare these photos to my last garden update.



The beans gave up the ghost a bit earlier than they would have. Thankfully, we harvested a ton of beans before the heatwave hit. That sprawled out mess towards the back of the photo and under Hubby Dear's finger is our potatoes. We had a lot of wind one night that toppled them over. They are still alive, however, and have even sent out new green shoots. We're just letting them be and keeping our fingers crossed.




Tomatoes refuse to set fruit in this kind of weather, and the fruit that they already have ripens slowly. The local paper reported that when nighttime lows are consistently in the upper 80s and nineties, it messes with the plant's metabolism. Same thing with the peppers.

We're still battling the occasional hornworm . Mini Me is traumatized for life after hornworm "juice" sprayed on her as Hubby Dear squished one of the little buggers.






Our corn has fared the worst of all. The second and third boxes have pretty much stopped growing. If we had planted our corn just a week or two earlier, it probably would have been mature enough to weather the blistering heat. Oh well.





Our Baby Pam pumpkins are ripening much faster than expected. They should have another month of growth, but the fruit is turning orange and the vines are starting to die back. We'll see what happens.





The blackberries weren't bothered by the heat. They just keep giving their glorious, juicy berries. The success of the berries is sweet consolation.

Hubby Dear has begun planting the fall garden. He delayed it slightly in the hope that it will cool down a bit and give the seeds a chance to germinate.

Other July Preps -

-Woohoo! We finally have a year's supply of wheat and pasta! I also bought oats, popcorn, sugar, rice, and flour and packed it all for long term storage in mylar bags and buckets.

-Speaking of mylar bags, I won't be buying mine from Emergency Essentials anymore. This last batch they sent me was more plastic-y, if that makes sense. I immediately noticed a difference in the way they felt. When I went to seal the bag with my iron, the bag melted and ripped instead of sealing. Not cool! I'll be buying my bags from a different vendor from now on.

-I have been busy preserving what produce managed to survive the heat. I've frozen green beans, green bell peppers, jalapenos, and blackberries. I've canned massive amounts of blackberry jam and some dilled green beans. I used my Excalibur to dry parsley I gathered from my herb garden.

-Miscellaneous food storage: I also added several cans of ghee, evaporated milk, vinegar, maple syrup and brown sugar.

-I added some more freebies to my BOB - floss, toothpaste, mouthwash, shampoo and conditioner.

-I haven't killed the aloe plant I bought. In fact, it seems to be thriving. Also on the first aid front, I bought some cold packs and gauze for cheap using coupons.

-I'm loving my Bosch mixer! It easily handles multiple batches of whole wheat bread dough.


August Preps:

-I haven't nailed down exactly what I'm doing or purchasing. I definitely will continue to work on our food storage. I need to buy more oils, cereal for our three month supply, dry milk, and other food storage essentials. I should really be canning more meat, but I will wait until after my heavy canning months.

-We're going to keep plugging away in the garden. I'll be canning/freezing/dehydrating the harvest and posting about that. I'm praying that the heat lets up and that our tomato harvest is bountiful. Hoping for some cucumbers so I can make my grandma's cinnamon pickle recipe. You can keep track of my totals in the "Harvest 2011" sidebar on the righthand side of my blog.

-Hubby Dear and I are celebrating our wedding anniversary with a weekend trip to the big, big city. We're going to investigate the Cabela's store near the B&B we're staying at. Nothing says romance like fishing lures and ammo! ;)

-Not exactly a prep, but kind of, and very important: we start our homeschool year on August first.



How has the weather been in your locale? What have your done to prep this month?

Playing Taps for My KitchenAid and Other Miscellany

Back when I was a child bride, Hubby Dear loved to indulge me by buying kitchen equipment that we could not afford. I've never been one for jewelry, but I always want the latest, greatest kitchen gadget. For Christmas one year, he bought me the mixer of my dreams - a KitchenAid Professional 600

Rest in Peace, dear KitchenAid 

My KitchenAid served me well for over ten years. I was never totally happy with the job it did kneading bread dough; the dough seemed to just ride around and around the dough hook rather than get kneaded. Last week, I was making a double batch of EZ Whole Wheat Bread in it and things got truly ugly. First, I smelled a "hot" smell. I turned the mixer off for a minute or two, but I still had 7-8 minutes of kneading left, so I felt like I had to turn it back on. Big mistake. Smoke began pouring out and it quit running. I hoped that it would begin working again after a long cool down, but, alas, it seems like I killed it really and truly.

Hubby Dear and I debated fixing up my KitchenAid vs. buying a new mixer. From the research I did, it seems like it can be just about as expensive to fix a stand mixer as it would be to buy a new one. If I'm going to have to spend hundreds of dollars anyway, I'd just as soon get a new mixer, preferably one that is better for making bread. So I'm getting a Bosch

I don't think the Bosch will look very cute on my counter, but the fact that you can make up to 6 loaves of bread in it at once more than makes up for that! This month, many Bosch retailers are offering a $50 rebate, which helps make it more reasonable. Still, it's quite an investment. I hope it lasts me a decade like its predecessor.
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I bought an aloe plant this week, too. Much easier on the budget than a Bosch! ;)

Aloe vera

I'm not much on houseplants - if I can't eat it, I'm not interested in messing with it - but it seems like my neglect won't kill it.  As I read here, aloe plants need a bit of sun and very little water. I think I can do that. Here are some of the uses of aloe plants. I think an aloe plant is an excellent addition to our first aid supplies.  
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I was walking through the garden the other day and I ran smackdab into this:

Yuck! A Tomato Hornworm!

This is the first time we have ever had tomato hornworms in our garden. I can safely say that they are one of the most disgusting garden pests I have ever seen. Not only are they disgusting, but they are also very destructive. They can reduce a healthy tomato plant to a skeleton in 24-48 hours. Tomato hornworms are found most often on tomato plants (surprise), but they also like potatoes and peppers, which are members of the same botanical family.

Picking them off by hand is the preferred method of dealing with this pest. Yeah, um, no. I'm not going to do that. Have I ever mentioned that I have a serious phobia of caterpillars and butterflies? (Really. Long story involving a traumatic childhood incident.) This is the biggest, most foul caterpillar I've ever seen, and I have no intention of touching one if I can help it. Hubby Dear did remove it from the plant and then he sprayed our tomato plants with Neem Py (an organic-approved pesticide with neem oil and a bit of pyrethrin).

I was nervous that our outrageously healthy tomato plants would be consumed overnight, but when the next day dawned, everything seemed OK.

Last night, however, we saw three hornworms. There were two on two different tomato plants and one on our potatoes. Ick! Hubby Dear picked them off and then he dusted the tomatoes and potatoes with Bt, another organic-approved pesticide. Bt is actually a bacteria, Bacillus thuringiensis, that kills caterpillars. I'm crossing my fingers that this does the trick. I will cry if my tomatoes get ruined before we ever get to eat them, and by caterpillars to boot!


That's my week in a nutshell. What prepping/gardening/food storage -related things have you been up to?

"Where There Is No Doctor": A Review

Over the past few months I've used my prepping budget to build up our survival library. As promised, here's the first of many book reviews I'll be sharing.
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Have you seen the show on the Discovery Channel called "Dual Survival"? It pairs Cody Lundin, a barefoot, New Age hippy, with Dave Canterbury, a no-nonsense army vet. The most interesting part of the show is the dynamic between two extremely different people as they work together to survive in extreme scenarios.

Hubby Dear and I are a bit like that, I guess. He's extremely no-nonsense. I'm full of nonsense, which in this analogy makes me the hippy of the relationship. Hey, I do like granola.

One of the "dual"aspects of our relationship is that Hubby Dear is a physician and I... am not. We both took a look at the Hesperian Foundation's Where There Is No Doctor and we'll give you our separate perspectives on it.

Where There is No Doctor is often recommended. But is it really worth
adding to your survival library?

The Harried Homemaker's Take:

If you're looking for a book to learn about first aid or some at-home remedies for common medical ailments, this is probably not what you're looking for. This book was written as a handbook for aid workers and/or villagers in third world countries. I'd like to hope that the USA's medical infrastructure will always be around, but if it isn't, this book would become useful.

It covers basics like hygiene and nutrition - things we all learn in grade school here in the USA. It also gives basic instructions for childbirth, treating dehydration, setting broken bones, etc. Nothing is covered in depth, but it would be a useful starting point if you are truly without access to medical care. It is written in very simple language so that anyone should be able to understand it.

In short: this book isn't a substitute for routine care by a medical professional, but it could be useful in extreme, SHTF scenarios.

Hubby Dear's Take:

This book has an excellent breadth of topics, and it goes into a good amount of detail on a number of them. It covers things as basic as first aid, to ailments of specific organs/organ systems (e.g., the eye, the skin), to delivering children. Although as a family physician I do these things on a regular basis, I always have my trusty medical supplies with me in a controlled environment. This book gives ideas on how to handle these problems with common objects and under less than ideal conditions.

The authors of this book definitely have their own viewpoints on medicine, with some of which I agree, while with others I do not. For example, they are very much against the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in our culture. As a daily combatant in the war against the overuse of these medications, I appreciated their emphasis and explanations on this subject. However, they also are very much in favor of easy access for abortions, which I very much oppose. This really did not detract from the useful information in the book, though.

One somewhat minor point that I would like the authors to correct in any future editions would be in relation to the dosing of medications for pediatric patients. In general, we use weight to dose children, not age. All of the dosing in the book is by age. I think both should be there, with weight as the default if the child's weight is available. It's just more accurate and significantly decreases the possibility of overdosing or underdosing.

Overall, this book would be very useful to have in a situation where professional medical care is not easily available, whether that be in a far away village or during a TEOTWAWKI situation.

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Another dual aspect to this book is that you can buy it... or not.

The Hesperian Foundation makes this book available for free download on its website. Click here if you are interested in doing that.

We chose to buy a copy from Amazon.com because:
A) I don't feel comfortable keeping important survival literature only in a digital format 

and

B) It is easier and almost as cheap (by the time you add up printer ink and paper) to go ahead and buy the book rather than print it out on my own.


Didn't Hubby Dear do a good job with his inaugural post on the blog? Maybe if I'm really nice he'll agree to do a guest post or two.  :) Do you have any topics related to medicine that you'd be interested in seeing on the blog?

Month Twelve in Review and Month Thirteen Prepping Plan

I don't know about you, but the current events of the last month have really encouraged me to keep prepping. I've been only at this for a year and I feel even more fired up about preparedness than I did a year ago. I hope you all have made strides in your family's preparedness over the past month. Here's what I did:


Month Twelve in Review:

1. Added more $ to our BOBs/at-home emergency fund. It wasn't much, but I did put some of the cash left over from our vacation in our BOBs.  Even small amounts add up if you're a consistent saver!

2. Finished up the "leftovers" from Month Eleven.  I bought another case of toilet paper (I think we have about eight months worth at the moment) and got my improvised Bucket Berkey water filter.

3. Bought some additional preparedness and food storage-related books for our home library.

I bought Where There Is No Doctor, Where There Is No Dentist, Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners, and the SAS Survival Handbook

Combined with the books I bought last month, I have a ton of great reference material. I'll be posting reviews of all the books over the next month.

4. We continued to build our food storage. We bought 15 more pounds of honey and some more evil (but occasionally useful) shortening at Sam's, but mostly I spent my budget at Honeyville Grain and Emergency Essentials. I added more vital wheat gluten, freeze-dried veggies, split peas, barley, lentils, black and kidney beans, and freeze-dried fruit. We finally have a year's worth of legumes for our family. Whew! At least there's one item I can check off the list.

5. We were very busy in the garden. We weeded and planted, but didn't need to water very much due to all the severe weather! We're enjoying the fruits of our labor and can't wait for that first ripe tomato!

6. Enjoyed a safe vacation with my family. Disney World was fun, but there is no place like home.
 
 
My goals for June include:
 
1. Getting a dehydrator and experimenting with drying garden produce and herbs.

2. I want to stock up on canning supplies. I need more jars and I want to try out those reuseable canning lids.

4. More food storage, of course. Also some first aid items, as my budget permits. 



What preparedness projects do you have planned for this summer?

Month Nine in Review and Month Ten Prepping Plan

It's been a very productive month here at the Harried Homemaker Acres. I'm very pleased with what Hubby Dear and I have accomplished.

In Month Nine....

1. I got a FoodSaver and used it to vacuum seal dry goods like nuts and chocolate as well as meat for the freezer. I'm very happy with my purchase and I'll keep you posted about just how long it extends the shelf life of my stored foods.
2. I made a first aid stockpile plan and purchased quite a few items on the list.
3. I'm learning how to sew using the antique sewing machine that was gifted to us. My first sewing project - cloth pads - is coming along very slowly. I definitely am an inept seamstress, but I'll keep plugging away at it. I'll let you know how my handcrafted feminine items work after they get put through their paces.
4. I bought some more food storage items, including dry milk, snack foods (Nutella!), and miscellaneous canned goods. I also canned more ground beef and chicken.
5. Hubby Dear and I did some work outside in the garden in preparation for the spring planting season. We made our seed and berry orders and we'll be ready to go next month. I hope. We still have a lot of Mel's Mix to prepare and garden boxes to fill and we're going to get blasted with up to 6" of snow.



Most of our seeds and some new garden goodies arrived today

6. I finally got a shelf for the top of my Shelf Reliance Harvest 72" can organizer. One of my fabulous readers pointed out to me that Shelf Reliance actually does sell a top shelf (separately) for their food storage systems. I decided not to add to Hubby Dear's workload by having him make one and just ordered it. It cost $26.48 (ordered through a consultant, including shipping) and it will support up to 150 lbs.

The gray metal grid on top is the new shelf. It is sturdy and will be very useful.

In Month Ten:

1. I'm going to add to my EDC, which stands for Everyday Carry. These are survival items you carry with you everywhere. I'm going to add some things to my keychain and purse to help me be prepared for a wide variety of situations.
2. The majority of my prepping budget is going to be spent on food storage. In fact, the news articles about the looming food shortage/inflation problem that I've shown Hubby Dear have convinced him that we need to build our food storage more quickly. He thinks we should double our monthly prepping budget for next month and spend it all on food storage. Is he becoming a prepper or is he just trying to shut me up? ;0) I'm thinking our purchases through carefully so that I spend this money wisely. I'll definitely keep you all know what I end up buying.
3. We need to finish putting soil into our garden beds and begin planting at the end of the month. Our strawberry plants should arrive in late March and we'll also plant peas, potatoes, and lettuce around that time.
4. Hopefully, I'll finish my cloth pad project.

What have you done to prepare recently? What preps do you have in store for the next month?

Starting our First Aid Stockpile

One of the ways I spent my prepping budget this month was on a bunch of first aid supplies. We already had a pretty good selection of Band-Aids and OTC meds, but we definitely fall far short of where we need to be. In a survival situation, "boo-boos" can turn into life-threatening injuries if they are not treated appropriately. Your doctor or the ER may not be available. If you're into frugal living, there are lots of conditions that may be safely treated at home if you have the proper supplies and know-how. I happen to live with a certain medical professional who would be very happy if everyone kept their butts out of the ER for trivial stuff. (Such as, but not limited to: sore throats you've had for less than an hour, hayfever, and dandruff. All true stories.)

I have organized our nascent stockpile into four layers:

1) Everyday ills

First aid, adult, and children's boxes form layer one of our medical scheme

I have three plastic tubs for adult, children's, and general first aid items.These are stored in a handy location in the kitchen and we use the contents frequently. This layer includes commonplace items like thermometers, Band-Aids, children's pain medication, Tums, current prescriptions, etc.

2) Redundance

One bottle of Advil isn't nearly enough. I'm trying to get a year's supply plus of all essential medicines and supplies. All my extras as well as anything that might be especially temperature sensitive (My storeroom is at a constant, cool temperature. The kitchen, not so much.) are stored here. I'll rotate these into use just like we do our food storage.

3) Minor medical emergency supplies - These are to treat things that you might visit an urgent care clinic, your family physician, or an emergency room for. Small burns and wounds that are too deep for a Band-Aid but don't require stitches are two examples. You need to have the knowledge to discern what you can safely treat at home.




The middle shelf holds my minor emergency stuff

 Ignore the contents of the top shelf. My trusty ice cream maker doesn't count as first aid, unless it is making chocolate ice cream! ;)

4) The Big Guns - Things you really hope you never have to use, such as surgical kits and compression bandages. I haven't ventured very far down this path yet. Scary stuff that DEFINITELY needs training to use.


With these layers in mind, I created the following list of items that I think are necessary for a well-stocked family first aid stockpile. This is a work in progress, so if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments!

I hope to cross each item off this list over the course of the next year or so.


Prescription Medications:

1) Build up a one year supply of my prescription. Check your insurance to see how often you can fill your prescription. If you can get it filled every 20 days, do that and you'll gradually build up a supply.

2) Build up a supply of antibiotics. Read this, this, and this on SurvivalBlog to get some ideas of legal ways to do this and see where I'm coming from. You don't have to break any laws or cross into Mexico to do it and it could be life-saving.

3) Possibly get some Tamiflu.


OTC Medications:

1) Ibuprofen (adult and children's)

2) Acetaminophen (adult, children's and infant formulas)

3) Aspirin – This might seem like pain reliever overkill, but there are certain things that aspirin does that nothing else can, such as save your life during a heart attack.

4) Benedryl (adult and children's formulas)

5) Zyrtec or Claritin (adult and children's formulas) - Mini Me takes Zyrtec regularly.

6) Imodium (adult and children's)

7) Pepcid Complete

8) Tums

9) Hydrocortisone cream

10) Anti-fungal cream

11) Pedialyte

12) Salt substitute (for making electrolyte drink – read this)

13) Your drug of choice for constipation: Miralax, Fiber supplements, etc.

Wound Care:

1) Betadine

2) Alcohol wipes

3) Hydrogen Peroxide

4) Bacitracin ointment

5) Dermabond skin adhesive

7) Sterile gauze – different sizes

8) Non-stick wound dressings

9) First Aid Tape

10) SteriStrips/Butterfly wound closures


Miscellaneous:


1) Ace bandages

2) Eye drops

3) Lip balm

4) Diaper rash cream (Balmex, Desitin, etc.)

5) Burn kit

6) Moleskin for foot blister treatment/prevention

7) Bleach (unscented)

9) Disinfectant Wipes

10) SAM Medical Splint

11) N 95 Masks

12) Exam Gloves

13) Q Tips

14) Cough Drops

15) Sphygmomanometer (Blood Pressure Cuff)

16) Stethoscope

17) Otoscope


"More Serious Stuff" - You'd better learn how to use it ahead of time:

1) Israeli Battle Dressings - Did you read how these amazing devices saved lives during the horrible shooting in Tucson?

2) Israeli Abdominal Emergency Bandage

3) Quikclot Gauze

4) Dental Kit

5) Suture Kits

6) Medical Trauma kit (IV supplies, surgical instruments etc.) See Analytical Survival's YouTube video, Part One and Part Two for an example of what I'm talking about. Warning: the videos I linked have a high testosterone content. ;)

7) Childbirth Kit (although if we need this, Hubby Dear's urologist is going to have some explaining to do...)


Essential Literature:
 
1)  Where There Is No Doctor

2) The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy

3) Where There Is No Dentist

4) First Aid -- Responding To Emergencies



What do you think? Do I have any glaring omissions? What's the status of your first aid preparedness?