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 Eleven in Review and Month Twelve Prepping Plan

April was nuts around here. I fell a bit behind on the prepping front because I was so busy with the odds and ends of ordinary life. Let's see what I may or may not have gotten accomplished:

1.Add more cash to our BOBs/at home emergency stash.  Nope, didn't do this. No excuses, really. I just forgot about it.

2.Craft our own water filter using food safe buckets and ceramic filter elements. Didn't do this either. I ordered parts from an online seller, but they haven't shipped yet. It looks like there's a bit of a wait for Berkeys and Berkey elements since the disaster in Japan. This will hopefully get done next month.

3. Stock-up on some more can openers. This I did. Thanks to all the readers who chimed in on my post about can openers. I went ahead and bought a Swing-A-Way Can Opener

This is the kind we had when I was a kid. I was disappointed to see that it is made in China nowadays, but it worked well. It's basically identical to my Oxo Good Grips Can Opener, but the handle you turn to open the cans is metal, not plastic. I also took Bitsy's advice and bought some P-38 can openers.

Using the P-38 can opener

I was concerned that my legendary lack of mechanical prowess would prevent me from figuring out how to use it, but it's pretty intuitive. Quick(ish), easy, portable, and cheap - I'd definitely recommend stocking up on these. I also bought an additional lid lifter/bung wrench. (I always giggle when I say "bung wrench". Am I the only one with a juvenile sense of humor?)

4. Buy some garden seeds for long term storage. Yup, did this. My can of survival seeds is safely stored in the back of my extra refrigerator. In a couple of years, I'll probably buy another can for back-up purposes and store it elsewhere.

5. Continue building our food and oh-so-important toilet paper supplies. Not so much. I have restocked what we've used up and bought some freebies with coupons, but haven't bought anything significant. I'll just roll that over to next month as well.

6. Gardening. Hubby Dear's War on Rodents (WoR) has been extremely successful. The death toll stands at 11 mice and 1 vole. Inspired by reading Patriots, my suggestion was to display the corpses around the edge of the garden and post a sign reading "Garden Looters and Thugs". Hubby Dear somehow didn't think that was a good idea.

We've had a few radishes and lettuce to eat from our garden. Everything we've planted since the WoR is doing great. It won't be long before we'll be planting tomatoes and peppers. I'm excited - summer is going to be huge.

7. I picked your brains for ideas on preparedness on a road trip. I'll be implementing your suggestions soon.

8. I have used my new NutriMill several times to grind flour for bread and pancakes. I certainly enjoy the convenience of an electric grain mill. It is totally worth the noise and sore ear drums.

9. Speaking of birthday presents, my brother got me a gift card to Barnes and Noble and I used it to buy three books for our library: Patriotsby James Wesley Rawles of Survival Blog fame, Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long, and Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre. I've really only delved into Patriots thus far, but I'll review them all on the blog at some point.

For Month Twelve - my one year anniversary of prepping:

1. I'd like to get more $ for our BOBs/in-home emergency fund.

2. I'm going to buy some additional preparedness and food storage-related books for our library.

3. We'll continue to build our food storage. I'd like to get some more legumes and dried fruits and vegetables, as well as miscellaneous grocery items. I also sat down and calculated the exact amount of ingredients it would take to make bread for our family for a year. We already have enough for a plain, basic type of bread, but need to buy more vital wheat gluten, potato flakes, and honey for our favorite recipe.

4. Finish up the "leftovers" from Month Eleven.

5. Continue to keep our garden growing and garden looters and thugs firmly repelled.

6. Enjoy a safe vacation with my family.