Month Ten in Review and Month Eleven Prepping Plan

I feel so accomplished. Hubby Dear and I really got a lot done around the homestead this month.

1. I upgraded my EDC. BTW, thanks for all the great comments and ideas. The stuff some of you all carry around is quite impressive. 
2. Our Food Storage Blitz Month was quite successful. It's such a nice feeling to know that we wouldn't have to go hungry during an emergency or job loss.  
3. We did a ton of work in the yard. Literally, we moved a ton of materials into our garden, a few bags at a time. First, Hubby Dear finished filling all 19 of our garden boxes with Mel's Mix. This was a major undertaking, especially since we had to drive 50 miles each way to get the materials and could only fit a certain amount in the ol' mini-van. I think we exceeding the load limit a few times.
   
   

   

   The boxes - filled with Mel's Mix and grids in place

We're also nearly done putting down pea gravel to cover the pathways between the boxes.
   
 



The grids are optional, but handy. The larger areas are where we're planting
 pumpkins. Radishes, lettuce, and peas are in the smaller boxes.


We planted radishes, peas (sugar snap and shelling), lettuce (both a romaine and leaf lettuce mix), cabbage, strawberries, and onions.



The Thinker's radish seedlings.

We also added a few more raspberry canes, doubling our raspberry patch in size.  We're still waiting on the organic seed potatoes we ordered to arrive. The delay is irksome enough that I think next year we'll buy our seed potatoes closer to home, even though they may not be organic.                                 
4. You might be asking what happened to the cloth pad project? Well, I got sidetracked with all the gardening work. And I got a huge stack of uber interesting books at the library. Then the NCAA basketball tournament started. (We are giant college basketball fans.) The result? I still have only two (partially completed, at that) cloth pads. I will get back and finish the project, eventually.   

What's in store for Month 11 of my Prepping Plan?

1. I want to add more cash to our BOBs/at home emergency stash.
2. We're going to craft our own water filter using food safe buckets and ceramic filter elements.
3. Using some of the suggestions from my Ask the Readers post, I'm going to stock-up on some more can openers.
4. I'm going to buy some garden seeds for long term storage.
5. We're going to continue building our food and oh-so-important toilet paper supplies.
6. We'll be very busy in the garden. Hopefully we'll have some lettuce to harvest.  
7. I have some preps of a unique nature that I'll discuss with y'all in an upcoming post. I've got to pick your brain again!

Food Storage Blitz Month, Part Two

Here's the next installment of our Food Storage Blitz - a run to Sam's Club.

I bought 150 lb of rice, 50 lb of sugar and another 50 of flour. I'll be storing them in buckets like I described in this post.

I bought a few more long term storage-type items at Sam's, but also some comfort foods for our three month supply.

Canned fruit, fruit snacks (hey, I've got four kids), Carnation Instant Breakfast, granola bars, maple syrup, honey, sliced almonds, chili powder, brown sugar and chocolate chips. The almonds, brown sugar, and chocolate chips will get put into canning jars and vacuum sealed.

Chicken and beef bouillon, pudding cups, a wedge of Parmesan cheese, 12 lb spaghetti, 12 lb macaroni, and 6 lb penne. I also bought a couple of jars of my favorite salsa and one of bread and butter jalapenos. I hope to can my own versions of those this summer.


Part III of Food Storage Blitz Month coming soon.

What are you stocking up on?

Food Storage Blitz Month, Part One

As I shared previously, my main goal for this month was to seriously amp up our food storage. We doubled our prepping budget for March and christened it "Food Storage Blitz Month". 

The thought of spending several hundred dollars all at once on food storage made me both excited and apprehensive. I was thankful to be able to get a bunch of food in one fell swoop, but I also felt the heavy responsibility to spend the money wisely.

After a lot of thought, I decided to split the money between our three month supply and our long term food storage. The goal is to have a balanced range of food stored and to gradually increase the amounts of all types of items until we have a full year of food.

Here's the first installment of our Food Storage Blitz Month: an order with Emergency Essentials.

I ordered 4 "Superpails" of hard white wheat, plus mylar bags, oxygen absorbers, and buckets to package some things on my own. (More about that in Part Two.)

We now have ten of these six gallon buckets of wheat and yet we still need to buy a lot more. We're about 200 pounds short of what we're supposed to have according to this food storage calculator.

I also bought some whole egg powder, freeze dried green peppers, drink mix, and lentils. Not very exciting, eh? I'm going to buy a dehydrator sometime soon and dry the peppers we grow ourselves, but these freeze dried ones are good to have on hand for now. The drink mix is high in Vitamin C (something that we are a bit short of in our food storage at the moment) and would be very welcome if we were living on stale-tasting stored water. The egg powder and lentils are simply good staples to have around.

More of our Food Storage Blitz Month coming soon!

Adding to my EDC

EDC is one of those acronyms that gets casually thrown around by hard-core prepper/survivalist types. It took me a bit to figure out exactly what it stood for. So, for the newbies like me out there: EDC stands for Every Day Carry. It is comprised of useful, preparedness-oriented items that you take with you everywhere. If you read blogs like M.D. Creekmore's The Survivalist Blog, you'll find there is much debate about what should be in your EDC, from food to firestarting supplies to weaponry. I'm often curious as to how some of these guys with huge lists of EDC items tote it all around. Do they walk around with strangely bulging pockets? Do they carry it in a backpack?
  

Camo is optional!

Well, every woman I know, prepper or not, already has an EDC. We call it a purse and they contain a variety of items necessary for feminine survival. Mine tends to collect little girls' hairbows, Cheerios, and ballpoint pens. I kid you not, the last time I cleaned out my purse it had 17 pens. I decided it was high time that I upgrade my EDC. Unfortunately that did not mean that I got a new purse. ;)

 A List of EDC Contents for My Fellow Harried Homemakers:

1. A fully charged cell phone. I don't use my cell phone very often, so I'm guilty of turning in on, sticking it in the bottom of my purse, and forgetting about it. More often than not, my batteries are low. I need to get better about keeping it charged up.
2. Cash and coins. Once upon a time I got stuck in a parking garage because I didn't have any cash on hand to pay the unsympathetic parking attendant. Ironically, this happened on the same day I took a tour of a Federal Reserve bank where I had been literally surrounded by money. I learned the hard way that it is wise to have both some cash and coins with me at all times. 
3. First Aid Kit. Click here to read about what's in the first aid kit I carry in my purse.
4. A Swiss Army knife or other multi-tool. I selected a Leatherman Squirt PS4 Keychain Toolbecause it was little, cute, and would go on my key chain. Plus, it came in blue, my favorite color.

This is teeny-tiny - just over 2 inches long - and very lightweight

Lots of handy tools

This is not the knife you want to have if you're fighting off grizzly bears in the wilderness. If you're fighting off grizzly bears in the wilderness, why are you toting around a purse, anyway?

5. Flashlight. I bought a Photon Freedom LED Keychain Micro-Lightand I'm super-pleased with it. It is small and inobtrusively fits on my keychain. According to the company, its beam is visible for a mile. It is definitely bright and you can even set it to continuously signal an SOS.

6. Victorinox Swisscard Lite Pocket Tool There is some overlap between this and my other EDC items, but I had to have it. It is just too cool!

This little card is full of surprises.

It holds a ballpoint pen, letter opener, straight pen, tweezers, scissors, and a screwdriver. The card has an LED light, magnifying lens, and can be used as a ruler.

And it will fit easily into a credit card slot in your wallet. Since I don't use credit cards anymore, I had plenty of room for one of these.

There is so much more I could add to the list, such as a firesteel, paracord, and a compass. I think this is a practical list and a good start for any woman's EDC.


What is in your EDC? What are your "must have" items that you carry in your purse? (Or "murse", for my male readers!)

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?