August 2011 in Review and September Preps

I'm a bit late with my monthly summary, but here it is. To cap off a very interesting August, both of our water heaters died last weekend. It took five days for the parts to come in and for the water heaters to get fixed. No hot water when you have four young children home making messes all day in the middle of canning season? Life gets complicated and everything takes about twice as long to get done. It's going to take a few days to unearth my house from under the debris of dirty dishes, kids, and laundry.  I'm hoping September will be a better month.

August Garden:

Here's the bad news: the germination rate hasn't been great for our fall plantings.

Cauliflower hanging in there

We have a few tiny cauliflower and broccoli plants.

The Box of Death

This is the box we have christened "The Box of Death". All the strawberries we planted last spring died and now only one cabbage seedling remains. Lots of seedlings sprouted, but they mysteriously died. What gives?

Brandywine tomato plant gone wild

Our tomatoes are in a holding pattern. The insanely hot weather of July and early August caused the plants to drop flowers rather than produce fruit. Now the weather is better and flowers are setting, but we have to wait until the fruit is produced and ripe.

But there's good news.

The pumpkins are looking great. It won't be long before they're ready to pick. Our cucumbers and cantaloupe are consistently producing, too.

I'm harvesting and drying tons of cayenne peppers.

Green beans in September?

And, miracle of miracles, we have fresh green beans! Lots of them! Hubby Dear picked nearly two pounds just yesterday.

I reported last month that the green beans died, right? Well, in two of the boxes, the green beans bounced back and began producing with the mild weather we've been having.  How strange is that? It's fun to have some garden serendipity instead of garden catastrophe.


August Preps:

• In addition to the odds and ends I picked up at Cabela's, I bought some more items for our long term food storage: local honey, oil, mayonnaise, molasses and evaporated milk. I broke down and shelled out the mega bucks for a case of dry milk. We are getting so close to having a full year's supply of food. Exciting!
• I also added to our three-month supply: dry carrots, dry fruit, cornstarch, granola bars and cereal. My family is a crazy bunch of cold cereal addicts, so we have to build a big stockpile of it. Cereal is getting more and more expensive (like everything else these days) so it's a challenge to find bargains. 
• Speaking of stockpiles, my budding toiletry stockpile was getting out of control. I had been just pitching items in the cabinets in our master bathroom and it was pretty chaotic. To solve this problem, I bought five storage bins and divided the stockpile into five categories: oral care, body wash & soap, skin care, deodorant, and hair care. The bins should hold about a year's supply of these toiletries for my family and items are much easier to find now.  

The beginnings of my hair and skin care stockpile

• I added these two books to my library:  Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition and The Organic Fruit Gardener. 
• I've canned a bit of salsa, spaghetti sauce, pickled peppers, and cucumbers. I have two dynamite recipes to share with you soon. 

What's coming up this September? 

• I'm so excited! Global Sun Oven is lending me a Sun Oven to take for a test drive.  I can't wait to put it through its paces. Will it really work? Is it worth the hype? Is it better for baking cookies than my mini-van? You'll be along every step of the way.
• Of course I'll continue building our food storage. I plan to dehydrate a bunch of herbs and freeze pesto. Apple season is upon us so I'll begin canning applesauce, apple butter, and try my hand at dehydrating apples, as well. 
• The advent of cooler weather reminds me that we need to get a back-up form of heat for our house. We plan to get a wood stove at some point, but for now, a propane heater will have to do. 
•  I'm cutting back a bit on my prepping budget this month to start saving for my chicken coop. Hubby Dear and I are going to begin building the chicken moat this month. Since the two of us are ridiculously un-handy, that should be fun times indeed. Thankfully our marriage is strong enough to survive the trials and tribulations that are sure to unfold. ;) 

What did you do to prep or in the garden during the month of August? What do you have planned for September? 

Food Storage Blitz Month, Part Four and Month End Results

My Shelf Reliance unit has filled up a lot since this photo was taken

Sorry, I don't have a photo of the remaining items I bought for Food Storage Blitz Month. Every time I went to the grocery store, I bought a few extra items based on what was on sale and what I had coupons for. I never remembered to take pictures of my haul before I had them put away.

I bought:

- Several boxes of cereal
- Lots of canned soup
- Canned mushrooms. This is not something we usually buy, but there was such a good deal on them I couldn't resist.
-Refried beans
-Spaghetti sauce
-A few bags of 15 bean soup mix
-Crackers
-Tomato sauce

So, at the end of our Food Storage Blitz Month, where are we?

• Our Three Month Supply is much closer to being complete. I still need to fill in some items, but we made a huge jump forward this month.
• In terms of long term storage, we have:

        - 957 lb of grains, consisting of wheat, flour, oats, rice, and pasta.
        - 148 lb of legumes, not counting the canned beans (approx. 50 cans) I have stored.
        - About a 6 month supply of miscellaneous fats.
        - 150 lb of sugars.
        - 84 lb dry milk, 20 cans of evaporated milk and 10 lb dry eggs

All told, when you combine our three month supply with our long term items, we have 245.79 days of food storage for our family of six, according to the Food Storage Analyzer. Not too shabby!

Our goal is to have a full year's supply of food storage, so we still have a ways to go. The Food Storage Analyzer revealed that our storage is low in Vitamins A &C, so I need to remedy that, as well. Dried fruits and vegetables, legumes, and oils are my priority for the next few months.

There you have it! I hope you have been able to add to your food storage over the past month. What have you added to your storage lately?

Three-Month Supply Menus

Three months of meals from your pantry

Food storage can seem really intimidating when you're getting started, especially if you start off with the notion that you need a full year's supply of food, stat! I think the way the LDS Church recommends their members go about establishing their food storage makes a lot of sense.

1. Make a 72-hour emergency kit. Have enough food, water, etc. on hand to get you through a short-term emergency and be ready to get out of dodge, if necessary. In other words, create a bug-out bag. See how I made ours here. I would do things a bit differently now that I know more about it, but they are not a bad start.   
2. Build up a store of three month's worth of your regular, everyday foods.
3. Get one year's worth of long term storage items such as wheat, oats, beans, etc.

Today I'm going to share our family's plan for our three months of "regular" meals. To do create our plan, I used Food Storage Made Easy's Excel document. I also did a lot of Internet research. The sites I found most helpful were Prepared LDS Family (check our her Three Month Supply Menus) and Everything Under the Sun. Hopefully it will help you all with your food storage plans if I share an outline of our plan here on my blog. First, my requirements:

1. It must be completely shelf-stable. Nothing frozen or fresh allowed. Most people count frozen foods towards their three month supply, but I felt like I had to make everything shelf-stable. I spent a lot of time collecting shelf-stable food storage recipes from a variety of sources. The majority of these recipes do not require an oven, so I can cook them on my gas stove, on a grill, over a fire, or whatever I have during a grid-down scenario.
2. They must use common storage foods. Lots of rice, beans, and lentils. Nothing terribly exotic. All meats are either canned, freeze-dried, or home canned. (I'll be posting about more about my canning adventures later this month.)
3. Meals must resemble food we would eat. To be honest, very few of the meals I have planned out below are exactly what I would normally serve my family. I use a ton of fresh and frozen ingredients and like to have a wide variety of sides,etc. served with my meals. But I did take into consideration my family's habits and tastes. For example, the only thing we eat for breakfast at our house is cold cereal. I would be lying to myself if I planned all of our breakfasts to be oatmeal. My menu may not consist entirely of "regular, everyday" food, but it's all stuff that's not too far from what we normally eat.
4. We need variety. I don't want to repeat the same seven meals over and over.

So, with these things in mind, here are my menus. Each category should add up to 90 days of food.

Breakfast Menus

• 69 x Cold Cereal, Reconstituted Dry Milk, Carnation Instant Breakfast with Reconstituted Dry Milk
• 9 x Oatmeal made with dry milk, rolled oats and raisins, Carnation Instant Breakfast with Reconstituted Dry Milk
• 6 x Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins, Carnation Instant Breakfast with Reconstituted Dry Milk
• 6 x Apple Spice Muffins, Carnation Instant Breakfast with Reconstituted Dry Milk

Lunch Menus

• 12 x Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, Canned Fruit
• 6 x Macaroni and Cheese, Canned Fruit
• 9 x Canned Vegetable Soup, Bread and Butter
• 9 x Canned Chicken and Noodle Soup, Bread and Butter
• 6 x Rice Salad, Canned Fruit
• 6 x Cream Red Beans and Pasta Salad, Canned Fruit
• 6 x Lentil Stew, Fruit
• 9 x Pancakes
• 9 x Cowboy Delight, Fruit
• 6 x Chicken Salad Sandwiches, Fruit
• 6 x Indian Lentils, Rice, Fruit
• 6 x Spaghettios

Dinner Menus

• 3 x Fried Rice, Fruit
• 9 x Spaghetti, corn
• 3 x Quick Beef Chili and Corn, Biscuits
• 3 x Beans and Rice with a Bam, Green Beans
• 3 x Pineapple Chicken, Rice
• 3 x Chicken a la Queen, Corn
• 3 x Chili Mac, Green Beans
• 3 x Curry Beef on Rice
• 3 x Chicken Creole, Fruit
• 3 x Chicken Corn Soup, Bread and Butter
• 3 x Vegetarian Chili, Corn
• 3 x Italian Chicken and Bean Soup
• 3 x Chicken Alfredo
• 3 x Puerto Rican Beans and Rice
• 3 x Beef Stew, Biscuits
• 3 x Chicken Delight
• 3 x Chicken and Rice Casserole
• 3 x Chicken Fricassee
• 3 x Goulash, green beans
• 3 x Beef and Beans, Biscuits
• 3 x Homemade Rice-a-Roni, Fruit
• 3 x Shepherd’s Pie
• 3 x Taco Soup, Bread and Butter
• 3 x Tamale Pie
• 3 x Bean and Lentil Pilaf, Fruit
• 3 x Chicken Little Soup
• 3 x 15 Bean Soup
• 3 x Beef Soup

Snacks

• 9 x Granola Bars
• 6 x Fruit snacks
• 6 x Graham crackers
• 6 x Hot Cocoa
• 6 x Popcorn
• 6 x Brownies from mix
• 6 x Chocolate chip cookies
• 6 x Oatmeal cookies
• 6 x Apple Crisp
• 9 x Crackers
• 3 x Homemade Wheat Thins
• 3 x Skookie
• 6 x Pudding or Apple Sauce Cup
• 9 x Dried Fruit
• 3 x Snickerdoodles

Served with
• 48 x Fruit Drink (ie. Tang-like substances)
• 36 x Apple Juice

---------
My Three-Month Supply menus can easily be sized up so that I have a year's worth of menus. Here are the changes I'll make:

• I will rely more freeze-dried/dehydrated foods to avoid the shelf-life/rotation issues of canned food. Use freeze-dried corn, green beans, chicken, etc.
• My three month supply uses a lot of meat. I may have to eliminate some of the chicken meals in favor of more rice and beans.
• I don't plan on storing 1 year's worth of cereal, crackers, etc. 
• Storing survival seeds are a must! We'll need to grow our own food for long-term survival as well as to break up the monotony of our diet.  

So there it is! I hope this is helpful and I welcome your questions and comments.

This counts as food storage? Yep!

The stores are full of baking supplies at bargain prices. If you haven't done so already, why don't you pick up a few extra items? Many baking supplies are great for short or long term storage. Imagine being able to whip up some chocolate chip cookies when TSHTF. Doesn't sound so scary now, does it? ;)

In an upcoming post, I will share my menu for my three month supply of meals from food storage. Many of the snack and breakfast items in my menu use tasty stuff like what is pictured above.

Month Six in Review and Month Seven Preps

Did you think this past month seemed to fly by? I can't believe November is already drawing to a close. I also am astonished that I've been actively prepping for only seven months. I've learned so much and accomplished quite a bit.

RIP oil lamp chimney

Month Six of my prepping plan was a doozy. I had a humbling experience with primitive technology, bought a bunch of freeze-dried and dehydrated items for my food storage, stocked up on the necessities to have lighting during a power-down scenario, as well as accomplished the other items in my plan for this month.

In the negative column, I'm still not doing very well with adding in exercise, unless you count using my new grain mill. Hey, it does make me break a sweat! Also, the glass globe/chimney on my oil lamp met a premature demise when I was dusting it yesterday. This goes to show that A) I need to have some back-up chimneys on hand with my other supplies and B) My contention that housework is evil does have a basis in fact.   

 
Month Seven:

1. Continue to build food storage basics. Perhaps take advantage of holiday sales and stock up on items like spices, chocolate chips, canned pumpkin, etc.
2. Buy some ground beef and chicken breast and pressure can it. Conduct a taste test and see how my home-canned meat fares vs. store bought canned chicken. 
3. Create a first aid kit for for my purse. I'm thinking of making one in a Altoid tin.
4. Buy an electric grain mill and put it through its paces.
5. Begin the process of organizing some of my canned food storage for easier rotation. I'm going to try out and review one of the can rotation devices on the market.
6. In the category of "Hope Springs Eternal": Exercise 3x per week.

Do you have any prepping plans for December or are you consumed with Christmas purchases and preparations?

Using Your Food Storage: The Best Cornbread Ever

Moist and wonderful! It has a cake-like consistency.

Warning: If you like your cornbread dry, gritty, and tasteless, this is not the recipe for you. If you like moist, sweet, scrumptious cornbread, however, do I have a treat for you!


This is the best cornbread recipe I've ever tried. My family decended upon it like a horde of locusts and quickly ate it all up. OK, I might have given them a little bit of help with that! This is a fabulous, easy recipe that uses a bunch of commonly stored ingredients plus some that have food storage substitutions.


Eggs - Add dry egg powder in with the dry ingredients and put the additional water in with the wet ingredients. See your can of dry eggs for specific amounts.

4 T powder + 1 c. water = 1 c buttermilk

Buttermilk - I rarely buy buttermilk since most recipes I use it in only call for a little bit of it. One option is to make sour milk. Take 1 cup minus one tablespoon of milk (fresh or reconstituted dry) and then add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar. Stir it up and let sit for 5 minutes. You could also use buttermilk powder, a great product that stores practically forever in the refrigerator.

Butter - I think the butter is key to this recipe's moist texture. I keep a bunch of butter in the freezer so I always have some on hand. I'm pretty sure that substituting oil or powdered butter wouldn't work. Canned butter, on the other hand, is a possibility. Have any of you tried that before? Some people can their own butter, but I'm going to side with the USDA on this one and stick to commercially canned butter, available here. I plan on picking up some commerically canned butter and cheese at some point and I'll review it on my blog.

You must try this cornbread! It's heavenly served for dinner with chili or a hearty soup or even nibbled on at 2 AM in your PJs. Not that I know anything about that...

Grandmother's Buttermilk Cornbread, by Bethany (The same Bethany of refried bean fame), posted on allrecipes.com

1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs (Or dry eggs)
1 cup buttermilk (Or sour milk or dry buttermilk)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease an 8 inch square pan.

Melt butter in large skillet. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Quickly add eggs and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into mixture in pan. Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended and few lumps remain. Pour batter into the prepared pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Got milk?

If you have played around with the food storage calculators that are out there, you'll notice that it is suggested that you store a huge amount of dairy products. For our family, the numbers work out to 270 pounds of dry milk, 54 cans of evaporated milk, and 57 lbs of "other", which would include dry cheese, butter, and eggs.

Ay chihuahua. That's a whole bunch of stuff that we don't normally use. And aren't you supposed to "store what you eat, eat what you store"? What's the point of storing all that milk, anyway?

Well, dry milk has the nutrients of fresh milk without worry of rapid spoilage or delicious taste. Oh wait...

The truth is that dry milk is a great source of protein and can be used in a wide variety of applications from drinking straight up to yogurt to smoothies to baked goods. It's one of the four basic foods (the others being wheat, honey, and salt) that would be enough to keep you alive.

It is important to note that the food storage calculators' numbers are based on REGULAR non-fat dry milk, NOT instant non-fat dry milk. If you choose to store instant milk, you need to store double that amount.

Crystal from everydayfoodstorage.net has several really helpful videos on YouTube. The following one explains the difference between regular and instant dry milk. I highly recommend that you watch it.




After I watched this, I was convinced that we definitely needed to store regular non-fat dry milk. The space savings alone make that worthwhile. There was only one problem.

Where do you buy regular non-fat dry milk if you do not have access to an LDS cannery? Ever tried to find it in your local grocery store?

A #10 can of Regular Dry Milk from Walton Feed

I did manage to find a reputable source for regular non-fat dry milk - Walton Feed Company. Their prices aren't bad and they come highly recommended. A case of 6-#10 cans of regular dry milk costs $59. The catch is the shipping. It cost me over $20 to get my milk from their store in Idaho to the Harried Homemaker Acres. I did the math, however, and it will still save me a significant amount of money to buy regular dry milk instead of the instant.

Now how about the yuck factor. Again, Crystal has some great tips on how to mix it and doctor it up a bit.




One thing to note out about powdered milk is the shelf-life. Even if you buy all of your milk in #10 cans from a reputable dealer and you store it in ideal conditions (ie. cool, dark, and dry), powdered milk is one of the most perishable of your long-term storage items. I've found sources that say dry milk is good for 20 years, and that's probably true from a nutrition and safety standpoint. If you're wanting it to taste semi-decent, however, you had better rotate through your supply in 3-5 years. From what I hear, it gets pretty funky after that period of time.

My case of 6-#10 cans only adds up to 24 pounds of milk. That's not much toward the 270 lbs we need to store. There's bright side to building up our milk storage slowly, though. If I build our supply by purchasing a case every couple of months, the expiration dates of the milk will be spread out. If we just use a little bit along the way in our everyday meals, we'll be able to rotate our supply for maximum freshness.

Here's a link to the powdered milk section on Crystal's site. You can find a bunch of recipes that use powdered milk here so you can actually "store what you eat, eat what you store". I plan to use our milk in baking and other cooked recipes.

Selecting a Hand Grain Mill

I've had a couple hundred pounds of wheat since August but have been limited in what I can cook with it: blender pancakes, blender waffles, and disgusting hot cereal. Finally the day has come that I get to buy a grain mill. You can buy electric grain mills, hand grain mills, and ones that convert either way. I eventually want to have the capability to go electric for the time and labor savings, but it is most important to have a hand grain mill first. Otherwise TEOTWAWKI could happen and the only way my shiny electric grain mill would be useful is if it just so happened to grind some wheat as I threw it to the ground in frustration with my lack of foresight.

But what mill to pick? There a huge selection available and it's not like I can just walk into a dealership for a test drive. (Not in my neck of the woods, anyway.) So I did A LOT of reading. I read catalogs, reviews, and online listings. I read some more. I cross-referenced charts and watched videos. I gathered so much data that I practically overloaded. Here's some of what I looked at:

A comparison chart of hand and electric grain mills

The selection that Lehman's carries. Notes and reviews about several types

Purchasing the right grinder by Walton Feed Co.

Amazon.com listings and reviews

Grain Mill Comparison Chart (the "German made" one is the popular Family Grain Mill)


To my mind, there are three main considerations in selecting a grain mill:

1. Coarseness/fineness of end product - Will it make a true fine flour?
2. Ease of use - How hard is it to turn? How long does it take?
3. Durability - Will it stand the test of time?

Not to mention

    4.   Price



I read about el cheapo grain mills. 

Victorio Grain Mill, approximately $69

I carefully considered the virtues of the Family Grain Mill and the Country Living Grain Mills, both of which can be motorized.

Country Living Grain Mill, base price $395

I compared the Lehman's Best Grain mill with the Wonder Mill Junior Deluxe.

Lehman's Best, $169.95

Wonder Mill Junior Deluxe, $199.95

I drooled over this Diamant grain mill that costs more than my first car did.

Diamant Grain Mill, $1299

Which one did I select? And will I be pleased with my choice? You'll have to wait and see. My order is in. :)

Month Five Preps

This is what I've lined up for October:

1. Squirrel away more cash for BOBs and vehicle kits.
2. Buy a couple of cases of toilet paper. I estimate we need about 8 cases or so to have a year's supply, so this will get us a little closer to my goal.
3. Add some more matches to my supply.
4. Buy some air-tight containers for my pantry to hold what I take from my bulk food storage (ie. flour, sugar, dry beans).
5. Continue to build our three month and long-term supplies of food. 
6. Exercise at least three times per week.

I continue to go back and forth on exactly what I should be buying each month. This month I gave in to my urge to focus mainly on food storage. Buying food is more fun for me than many of the other survival categories. What can I say? I like to cook and eat. :) We'll get around to all areas eventually.

Month Four Preps

I keep going back and forth on what I want to buy in the next month. All the economic indicators point to a very long road before we get to real recovery. I'm worried about inflation, which means that I want to buy as much food as I can. It's almost feeling like a Sophie's Choice deciding which items to buy! (Yes, I can be overly dramatic. Why do you ask?)

These are the preps I have lined up for month four of my prepping plan:

1. More $ for BOBs. Add $ to our vehicle kits.
2. The items I postponed buying from Month Three: butane refills for my Zippo lighter, the remainder of the items for my van's vehicle kit.
3. Buckets, mylar bags, oxygen absorbers, etc. so that I can package bulk amounts of flour, beans and rice.

And something a bit different:

   4.   Exercise at least 3 times per week.

This last one may be the toughest one of all. Ack!

Month Three Preps

I've spent my money for Month Two so it's time to think about spending next month's money!

1) Get more cash and add it to our Bug Out Bags (BOBs).
2) Buy a box of trash bags.
3) Get a roll of heavy mil plastic sheeting and a roll of duct tape. Use it to prep for possible sheltering-in-place.
4) Buy butane refills for my Zippo lighter.
5) Buy maps for both vehicles + BOB.
6) Buy the remainder of items for my van’s emergency kit.
7) Continue to buy items for food storage.

My original plan for Month Three had me buying a bunch of food storage containers for my pantry and a Brother P-Touch label maker. That's the OCD organizer in me.

I decided that it was probably more important that I store up food. With my luck, TEOTWAWKI would happen and all I'd have to show for it would be a bunch of plastic with nothing in it! And with the threat of hyperinflation looming, food prices are only going to rise. It's best to stock up NOW on the essentials of life. However much Snapware makes my soul sing, it will not sustain me in an emergency. :)

My Preparedness Binder, Parts Two and Three

In case you missed it, the first section of my Preparedness Binder is devoted to Food Storage and Preparedness Stocking Plans. I've collected bits and pieces of the collective wisdom of preppers on the Internet to come up with my own plan to buy food and supplies.

The second section in the binder is entitled "Food Storage Information". In this section I have general information about long term food storage.

• Print offs from the LDS Preparedness Manual including :

-The Seven Major Mistakes in Food Storage

-Recommended Food Storage Shelf Lifes

-Growing and Using Sprouts

-Water Treatment

• Print offs of information from Food Storage Made Easy - water storage, grains, baking supplies, etc. This includes types of items to store, ideas on how to use them and shelf lifes.
• A handout from Everyday Food Storage about wheat

I intend to collect more information on how to use the items in our future long term food storage and put them in this section.

The last section of my binder is devoted to emergency and disaster information. The LDS Preparedness Manual was very helpful for this section as well. I included:

• A Preparedness Test (We failed!)
• Supply Table/Master Preparedness List
• Generator Info
• What to do in the case of biological or chemical agent dispersion
• Nuclear/Chemical decontamination kit and how-to
• A Shelter-in-Place diagram (I got this from Ready.gov)
• Nuclear Disaster and Warfare Info

I have also collected quite a few recipes that use food storage items. I plan to put together a binder for food storage recipes soon.

Speaking of food storage recipes, I have finally completed our three month food supply. Well, not the food itself, but the shopping list of what we need to have three months worth of shelf-stable food. I'll have to post our menu sometime. The Excel file from Food Storage Made Easy was essential and really made things so much easier.

It is a bit intimidating to realize just how much food and other items we need to store. 45 cans of Chicken Noodle Soup, 75 large cans of fruit and eight cases of toilet paper are among the highlights of the list. (Yes, we use a lot of toilet paper. It's pretty ridiculous.) I'll just keep chipping away at it and get there eventually.

Month Two Preps

Now that my Month One Preps are mostly complete (our van emergency kit is a glaring omission, I will admit), it's time to think about Month Two.

Month Two Preps:

1. Get $20 in small bills to add to BOBs.
2. Continue to build our three month supply of food and other essentials.
3. Reorganize our storage room. Clear out junk, donate unnecessary items and consolidate to make room for food and water storage.
4. Buy Iosat tablets for the whole family.
5. Buy items necessary to store 2 weeks worth of water for our family - barrels, siphon, water conditioner, etc.
6. Fill water containers. Store appropriately in our cleared out storage room.

Month One Preps, Part Four: Three Month Supply of Food

In my last few posts I have tried to illustrate what I've accomplished during my first month of prepping. It doesn't feel like I've done very much because I see all of the shortcomings of my plans and I know how far I have yet to go. Plus there's the whole issue of my desire to spend money on preparedness vs. Hubby Dear's gazelle-intensity to pay off his vehicle. I'll wear him down yet, LOL!

The last item I have to discuss from my month one preps list is a three month supply of food. Basically, this is normal, everyday food, not designed for long-term storage. What do you eat regularly? You should store three months' worth of that food.

Some people include frozen foods in their three month supply. I'm kind of ambivalent about that. If I'm storing food for a minor emergency - job loss, quarantine, etc. - that is fine. But if the power goes out, a three months' supply of fresh or frozen food will quickly spoil.

In addition to food, it is recommended that you store up at least three months of non-food supplies. These are items like toilet paper, diapers and cleaning supplies. I have decided to go above and beyond these recommendations and build a year's supply of non-food items. The only exception to this is diapers. With two children in diapers, a year's supply would be HUGE. I could definitely get better about storing diapers and formula, though.

The best explanation of how to store three months of food is from the ladies at Food Storage Made Easy. You can read about it here. They have a wonderful Excel spreadsheet that helps you calculate just how much you need of any one item. It is also available as a print-out if you do not have Excel.

Another helpful resource is this Three Month Supply List from http://www.everydayfoodstorage.net/

Obviously I'm not going to be able to build up an entire three month's supply in one fell swoop. I am buying a few extra items each time I go to the store, however, and they will build up. I'm having a kind of hard time with this. We do not eat a lot of canned food besides beans and tomato products. My children are so used to eating only fresh or frozen vegetables that they refuse to eat canned veggies of any kind - even home canned green beans. It's taking some extra thought on my part to plan three months of shelf-stable meals we'll all enjoy.

And then there is the problem of where to store it all. But I'll tackle that in a future month.

Month One Summary:

1. Get Hubby Dear to back-up the computer
Status - Still need to do this.
2. Create emergency kits for both vehicles
Status - Hubby Dear's vehicle is complete. I need to figure out how to fit it
all in my van.
3. Make Bug Out Bags for our family
Status - Complete
4. Buy a large box of N-95 Masks
Status - Complete
5. Buy a crank flashlight/cell phone charger
Status - Complete
6. Create Emergency Binder and Preparedness Binder
Status - Complete, though I continue to find and print off useful articles for
my preparedness binder
7. Stock up on 3 Month Food Supply items
Status - In progress
8. Start saving cash and add to Bug Out Bags
Status - In progress. I've got a measely total of $34 at the moment and will
continue to add to it each month.