2012 in Review and 2013 Goals

Happy New Year, y'all! I hope everyone had a blessed holiday season.

Unfortunately, I was either busy or sick for much of 2012 and so my posting here wasn't as regular as I would have liked. Nevertheless, I managed to make progress on my preparedness goals. Here's the list of goals I had last January. I didn't accomplish everything, but I'm not unhappy.

In 2012 I :

• Upgraded our bug-out bags 

• Added a bit to our first aid supplies. This is definitely an area where we fall short. I will admit to being a wee bit complacent about first aid since Hubby Dear is a medical professional. I need to improve. 

• Expanded our garden and learned some hard lessons during a very poor growing season. Our area of the country experienced the hottest year on record as well as one of the driest, so our garden was far less than stellar. 

Delicious heirloom fruit and vegetables

• We added to the orchard we established in 2011. We planted apples, blueberries, pears, and an almond tree. I learned a lot about organic orcharding from an amazing book, The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way. I immediately started implementing the principles from the book and saw an amazing amount of growth in our existing and new fruit trees. I can't recommend that book enough. 

• I planted comfrey in our orchard area. It's part of the whole holistic orchard deal, but the bonus is that it is also a medicinal herb. I learned about permaculture and now have plans to have a bunch of medicinal perennials growing among the trees in the orchard. 

• My favorite item on the list (and new obsession) is poultry. We started raising chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Having livestock was a big stretch for two former city kids like Hubby Dear and myself, but we have really enjoyed the journey. We started off with chicks and poults from hatcheries and ventured into hatching eggs with an incubator. Our chickens gave us 1,645 eggs in 2012; the ducks provided 124.  

Some of our ducklings

• Related to that last one, we butchered our first animals. It was so rewarding to grow our own meat and butchering is definitely a worthy skill for any prepper. 

• All the manure that started appearing on our property provided the impetus for us to begin composting. 

• Managed to keep our strawberries alive! We won't have to re-plant this year. I am hopeful that we will have a generous crop next spring. 

• Another success: I learned all about sprouting, an easy way to grow fresh, nutritious greens all year 'round.

• My success with sprouting for people encouraged me to grow wheat grass for my birds. It took a couple of tries (and a horrible infestation of fruit flies), but I finally got the hang of it.  I'm also proud of the black oil sunflower seeds we grew for the chickens. 

A Peredovik black oil sunflower

• I survived pneumonia. That should count for something, right? 

• I stocked up on reusable Tattler canning lids. I used them for all the canning I did and I finally got the hang of using them. They are a little different than standard metal canning lids, but once you get it, you won't go back. 

For 2013, I remain focused on building up our homestead. One reason is that I just like doing it. I love puttering around the garden and taking care of my birds. I have expanded into breeding poultry for pleasure and profit, so that also takes up a lot of my time and energy.

The other reason that my preps are centered on homesteading is that I feel it is quite necessary. The shenanigans in DC regarding the so-called Fiscal Cliff made me sick to my stomach, but I hope that it will serve as a wake-up call to many. I fear that our country is in an irreversible decline and our prosperous American lifestyle is in serious jeopardy. In short, I think we're screwed. I feel that being as self-sufficient as possible will be incredibly valuable in the days ahead. You might not live on 5 acres in the country like I do, but I hope you are thinking about things you can do to help your family weather whatever storm may come.

With that said, here are my goals for 2013:

The north half of our garden, May 2012

1. Continue to add to our orchard. We have peach, nectarine, cherry, and plum trees ordered for the spring. We'll plant more peach, apple, and apricot trees in the fall. Here's the master plan for our orchard if you haven't seen it. 
2. Expand our garden again and try some new varieties and methods of cultivation. 
3. Try new types of pest control in the garden. We garden organically, but haven't ventured much into companion plantings to attract beneficial insects. That is a priority for me this year. We will also experiment with row covers to flummox the evil squash bug that has plagued us in the past.  
4. We tried starting seeds indoor last year. We had mixed results, mainly due to lack of sunlight. We are building an easy DIY seed starting kit that should really help out. 
5. Water storage is a huge issue for any prepper and the horrible drought we are in has really brought it to my attention. I hope to get rain barrels installed and may experiment with using greywater. 
6. First aid - the perennial topic for me. I've got to get going here. 
7. Food storage - I need to take inventory of what we have used up and refill as necessary. I will be canning and dehydrating the produce of our garden and herb garden. 

So that's me. What about you? What do you have planned for 2013? 

My Car Kits Keep Springing a Leak!

Back when I created our vehicle emergency kits, I thought Aqua Literz would be the perfect water storage solution. The 5 year shelf life, compact container, and ease of use sold me on them. I wasn't long, however, before the first batch of Aqua Literz I bought mysteriously sprang a leak, leading to a comical email exchange with the retailer I had purchased them from.  I bought their reassurance that Aqua Literz are indeed ideal for car kits and decided to buy another case.

Fast forward to today. Hubby Dear was moving things around in the back of our van and found this.

Leaky and moldy! 

That's not dirt you see in the above photo! It is mold. Eeew! All five of the Aqua Literz I had in my van's emergency kit looked like this.

I never found a real hole on any of the Aqua Literz. It appears that water had been slowly oozing out, contained between the layers of cardboard of the packaging. No wonder it grew mold!  I have no idea how any of this occurred since they were all stored securely.

Not just mold but multi-colored mold. 

Obviously, I won't buy this product any more, but how should I store water in my vehicle kits?

Here are the options as I see them:

1. Commercially bottled water - This would be an easy route to go. I am concerned with the possibility of the plastic leaching chemicals in the water, especially in a hot car. I'd also have to rotate this fairly frequently. 
2. Used juice bottles - I think the plastic in these are probably better than what is used in bottled water. I can't say that for sure, though. I'd certainly have to rotate these frequently, they might leak, and I'm afraid the water would taste funny. 
3. Canned water - Canned water is relatively expensive. It is hard to think of a more durable container to store water in, however, and it boasts a 30 year shelf life. I'd have to make sure that I keep a can opener handy and it isn't exactly the easiest thing to use on the go. 

Am I missing something? How do you store water in your vehicle kits? 

2010 Preps in Review and 2011 Goals

I can't believe how quickly 2010 went by. I thought it would be interesting to evaluate my prepping progress over five areas.

INFORMATION:

• I probably made the most progress in this area. I had zero knowledge of or interest in preparedness at the start of the year. Now I have read on the subject extensively and I feel comfortable with many of the most important preparedness areas. I feel confident in my knowledge of food storage, but not so much in areas like defense and alternative energy.
• I made efforts to preserve my newly gained information. I have an enormous preparedness binder with lots of information printed off and organized. I collected numerous food storage and garden vegetable recipes and have another binder for that.  
• Hubby Dear backed up our computer on SOS Online Backup. We also have several flashdrives with important items copied onto them.
• I made an emergency binder with essential documents for our bug out bags (BOBs).

Speaking of bugging out...

SURVIVAL ESSENTIALS:

• Because of our location, it would take something extraordinary for us to bug-out, but now we are prepared to do so. We have BOBs packed and ready to go.
• Our vehicles are always equipped with emergency supplies.
• We have a couple of ways to start fires and a large stash of dryer lint (tinder!).
• We have emergency lighting ready to go.
• If we had to, we could shelter-in-place during a chemical or biological threat. We have potassium iodide tablets in case of a nuclear incident. (Even the federal government thinks you should shelter-in-place during a nuke event.)

WATER AND FOOD:

• I came up with three months' worth of menus of shelf-stable, normal meals and a plan to get 1 year's worth of food.
• I have between 2 and 4 weeks worth of water stored at home. 
• According to Emergency Essentials' Food Storage Analyzer, we have about 151 days of food currently stored.
• To help us rotate our storage, I invested in smaller food storage containers and some can organizers.
• I bought a hand-crank grain mill and learned how to use whole wheat berries to make bread.
• I learned how to use a pressure canner in addition to my water bath canner. I've canned a variety of items from pickles to ground beef to applesauce.

FIRST AID/HEALTH AND HYGIENE:

• We have first aid kits in several different places, from my purse to our BOBs.
• We stocked up on items useful in a pandemic, such as N-95 masks and nitrile gloves. I've already been very glad to have the gloves on hand (no pun intended) during our family's bout with stomach flu over Christmas.
• We've begun to stockpile toilet paper and OTC medications.

That's quite a bit accomplished in seven short months.

My Goals for 2011:

1. Get a full year's worth of food storage.
2. Buy an electric grain mill (finally).
3. Continue to develop our gardening skills. We're converting our vegetable garden to a square foot garden. Hopefully we'll get enough cherries, raspberries, and blackberries to can and freeze this year.
4. Can a wide variety of garden produce.
5. Further develop our water storage and purification abilities. This could include: getting a Berkey filter, storing pool shock, mapping out nearby natural water sources, and installing rain barrels.
6. Deepen our store of first aid/medical supplies.
7. Lose weight and get in shape - both Hubby Dear and I.

And finally...

    8.    Start saving towards our home renovation that will include the installation of a woodstove.

Whew! That sounds like a lot. Hopefully we can accomplish all of these.

How have your preps come along in 2010? Do you have any big plans for 2011?  

Take the SurvivalMom's Report Card Challenge

One of the blogs I read reguarly is The SurvivalMom. A few days ago, she wrote this post, a report card on her current state of preparedness. It inspired me to rate our ability to survive during a crisis here at the Harried Homemaker Acres.

1) Water - C. I have 2 weeks of water stored for my family, four weeks if we use what is in our reverse-osmosis system, water heaters and random bottles stored here and there.

To turn this into an A: I need to buy a water filter and materials like bleach to sanitize additional water we would collect during a long-term emergency.



2) Sanitation - B. I've got about two months of toilet paper, a big bottle of hand sanitizer and a gallon of soap stored. I also have a large box of trash bags and a few 5-gallon buckets we could fashion into toilets if need be. 

To turn this into an A: More toilet paper! My goal is to have a year's worth on hand plus a large supply of paper towels. I would also like to have several more boxes of trash bags and perhaps a toilet seat we could affix to the aforementioned 5-gallon buckets. We used to have a burn barrel before we bribed convinced a mom and pop trash collection operation from a town 40 miles away to come and get our trash each week. We may need to get another barrel to use WSHTF or borrow our neighbor's barrel. (I live in a place without trash collection. I told you we live in the sticks!)



3) Laundry - D-. I have a bit of extra homemade laundry detergent and a large laundry room with a deep sink and racks that I could hang our clothes to dry in.

To turn this into an A: More laundry detergent, at least 6 months worth. I am also considering getting one of these or something similar that would make washing laundry by hand easier.


 

I wish this was my food storage! From UtahPreppers.com

4) Food Storage - D. If we ate some strange meals (peanut butter and green beans on pasta, anyone?), we could survive for at least a month, probably more. We would certainly be unhappy and probably constipated, though.

To turn this into an A: I need to keep storing a wide variety of foods. This needs to include all the food groups, plus some comfort foods to keep morale up. My goal is to have a minimum of 1 year of food stored. I'm working at it in 3 month increments (ie. get 3 months worth of all kinds of food before I store more of any one particular group). I need to have a selection of foods that are easy prep for those very busy days or if Hubby Dear has to make something on his own.


 
5) Knowledge and Skills - C. I'm continuing to read and research, buy items, and then test them out. In the past few months I've learned how to use a pressure canner and got some hands-on experience with wheat kernels. Our whole family is working toward becoming self-reliant through gardening. I've even bribed Hubby Dear to read Rawles' How to Survive TEOTWAWKI. Don't ask how I managed to accomplish that feat.

To turn this into an A: I need to continue what I'm doing but branch out into other areas far from my comfort zone. A major area we are lacking in is self-defense. We have always been against having firearms in our house but I'm beginning to see that this is an important part of preparedness. I need to get a ton of education and practice in this area before I make such a major commitment.


Compared to where we need to be, we score four raspberries on a five raspberry scale. Compared to where we were six months ago, however, we're definitely on the right track.

How do you rate?

Water, water everywhere

One of the books I have read to my children so many times I have it memorized is "Water, Water Everywhere". Although I have already have two weeks worth of water stored (plus another two weeks if I utilize our water heaters), I can't seem to stop storing water. Soon I'll have water, water everywhere in my house.

I've taken to cleaning out empty apple juice bottles and filling them with water. After labeling the bottle as potable water, I write the date I filled it and store them in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator we have in our garage. We don't have a lot of items in this extra refrigerator and these water bottles will serve dual purpose. Not only are they additional water storage but they also will help our refrigerator maintain its temperature. A full refrigerator requires much less energy to keep cold.

That will save us money in the short term and possibly save our lives in the long term.

Water storage and protection from nukes

I finally completed my prepping purchases for this month. They fall into two major headings, water and nuclear preparedness. I'll discuss each in turn.

WATER

Why store water?

Water is one of the most important items in preparedness. You can't survive very long without water and yet it is something that we all take for granted. We just expect that clean, safe water will always flow out of our faucets. That is something that you absolutely cannot count on in an emergency. Municipal water supplies could be contaminated or they could be out of order. If you are on well water, a loss of electricity would cut power to your pump. A major local, regional or national power grid outage would then leave you up a creek without a paddle. Bottled water is one of the first items to get sold out in anticipation of a hurricane, snow or ice storm. Be ready ahead of time!

How much water to store?

You should count on at least 1 gallon of water per person per day. That gives you enough water to drink as well as some for basic hygiene and cooking. Most sources that I have read recommend that you store a minimum of two weeks worth of water. For our family that would be:

6 people x 1 gallon per day x 14 days = 84 gallons

How do you store water?

I have decided to accomplish this in a couple of ways. First, I purchased a 55 gallon barrel.

It is important that your water storage containers be made of food-grade materials. You should never store water in something that once held anything you would not put in your body (gas, cleaners, etc.). I chose to buy our water storage containers but you can use clean and empty pop or juice bottles. Some people are able to get barrels that held syrup, etc. for free from restaurants. Be sure to clean your containers thoroughly if you go that route and again, make sure the containers are of food-grade plastic.

You also need a way to open and close your barrel plus drain out the water. The barrel has a valve on top that you need a bung wrench to open.

Water weighs over 8 lb per gallon, so it will be very heavy when the barrel is filled. You do not want to be fooling around should you have to use your water in an emergency. You can buy siphon pumps or siphon hoses. I chose to get a simple hose. You can buy the barrel in a combo with the siphon and wrench from Emergency Essentials. I was pretty pleased at the price point and it was quickly delivered via Fed Ex to my residence.

It is space efficient to store a lot of water in a large container but at approximately 455 pounds when full, it is definitely not portable. What if we need to bug out? I found the basic water storage kit sold by Emergency Essentials to be an easy and economical way to get five 5-gallon storage containers.

The kit consists of heavy duty mylar bags that have a spout. You fill the bags with water and place each one in a cardboard box. The boxes have handles and stack easily. The kit is reuseable and seems like it would be pretty sturdy as long as your basement or other storage area stays dry.

This is what my storage area looked like with my storage containers filled up and ready to go.

I went ahead and placed some cardboard underneath the water barrel. Many people recommend that you have some sort of separation between your plastic water containers and the concrete floor. The thought is that chemicals from the concrete can leach through the plastic into your water. Other folks think that as long as your concrete is not getting heated up (ie. from the sun, outdoors, etc.) you are fine. I chose to put a layer of cardboard underneath my water barrel even though our concrete stays cool all year long. Another solution to this problem is to rest your barrel on top of some 2 x4s.

If you're adding it up, this totals 80 gallons of water and my family needs 84. We do have an additional three days' worth of water stored in our BOBs in the form of Aqua Blox. Should we need even more water, we have two 40 gallon water heaters. You can also use the water in the tank of your toilet (not the bowl!). In all, we have enough water for nearly four weeks.

In the future I plan on buying a large Berkey water filter for more long term solutions. While we do not have a natural source of water on our property, we do live in an area where there are many farm ponds nearby. If TSHTF, we could haul in water from those ponds or a nearby public lake and then filter it. We also have some water treatment tablets and bleach that could be used to disinfect suspect water if necessary. Boiling water once you filter out the big particles is always an option as well.

Do you need to treat your water?

Generally speaking, if you are filling your water containers with water from municipal supplies, you do not need to add any sort of water treatment. You do, however, have to rotate your water, dumping it out and refilling your containers every 6 months to 1 year.

If you add this water preserver sold by The Ready Store, however, you can extend the time water stays fresh in your containers to 5 years. I don't know about you but I don't have the time or inclination to dump out 84 gallons of water every year, so this was a good investment for me.

Another thing you should think about is how you are going to fill your water containers. Most garden hoses are not considered safe for drinking water. They can have lead and other chemicals leach out of them or even harbor mold and mildew. I went ahead and bought a couple of water-safe, mold resistant hoses. You can find these online at emergency preparedness stores or even at your local Wal-Mart in the RV or garden section. In the end, filling our water containers from our regular garden hose probably wouldn't be a big deal, but better safe than sorry in my book. After all, that's why I'm a prepper.

NUCLEAR PREPAREDNESS

This next purchase may seem kind of random or paranoid.

These are Iosat tablets which consist of potassium iodide. If there is a nuclear incident, it will flood your thyroid with iodine so that it does not absorb radiation. There are dosages on the package for people of all ages and the medicine can be stored for up to seven years before you need to replace them.

People tend to be much less afraid of nuclear radiation than they were decades ago. The Cold War may be over, but the recent arrest and deportation of those Russian spies living in the US should remind you that Russia isn't exactly our best friend. Rogue states like Iran and North Korea certainly have the motivation to launch a nuclear attack on the US. Terrorists of all stripes would definitely like to do so.

I'd like to think that, living as I do in the middle of nowhere, we'd be safe. There is no guarantee, though, particularly when you consider the effect of weather systems. The BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico illustrates how weather, wind, and ocean currents can spread a localized disaster over a huge area. There are also nuclear power plants dotted throughout the country. They, too, could be a source of a nuclear emergency.

Of course there is much more to consider when it comes to nuclear preparedness. Many of the other preps I'm doing would be essential: water storage, food, hygiene, etc. A great resource and one that is available for free is

Cresson H. Kearny's Nuclear War Survival Skills.

That's a long post but one I hope will be helpful to those of you starting out your preparedness journey. My Month Two Preps are complete.

Progress Report on our Month Two Preps

1. Get $20 in small bills to add to BOBs. IN PROGRESS Whenever I get some cash, I add a little bit to the stash in our BOBs.
   
2. Continue to build our three month supply of food and other essentials. IN PROGRESS Every time I went to the grocery store during the month of June, I picked up a few additional items for food storage. That would be why our grocery bill was out of control! Since Hubby Dear and I have agreed upon an amount in the budget for food storage, I have promised I will do much better in July! As a result of my over-spending, however, we have a few additional items in our storage like canned fruits and vegetables, paper products, toiletries like toothpaste and bodywash, salad dressing and pasta, to name a few.


3. Reorganize our storage room. Clear out junk, donate unnecessary items and consolidate to make room for food and water storage. COMPLETE We have a storage room in our basement that was very organized but filled to the brim. Hubby Dear and I went through the contents of every storage bin and were able to throw out, recycle, or donate enough items to empty 7 large bins. I will use these for food and supply storage. We also have cleared out enough space for the water containers we're buying. If I can convince Hubby Dear to get a vasectomy, we'll be able to donate all of the bins of outgrown baby clothes we have stored and I'll have even more room. Somehow I don't think that will be a very persuasive argument for him. ;) We cleaned out about half of the items that were underneath these stairs. Our water storage is going here. I've started moving some of the items I had stored in my kitchen to these shelves. I haven't quite figured out what I'll store upstairs and what's going to come downstairs. Right now I have some condiments and peanut butter on these shelves along with about 24 pounds of pasta in that clear plastic bin. 24 pounds down, 87 to go! The top part of the shelf has my canning supplies and last year's canned tomatoes and pickles.

I still have a lot of organizing I could do here, but I'm kind of waiting until this summer's canning is complete.


4. Buy Iosat tablets for the whole family. See #5


5. Buy items necessary to store 2 weeks worth of water for our family - barrels, siphon, water conditioner, etc. INCOMPLETE After Hubby Dear gets paid this week, I will be able to make these purchases.
   
6. Fill water containers. Store appropriately in our cleared out storage room. INCOMPLETE but coming soon!

Breaking News... Hubby Dear gets roped into prepping! Sorta.

Well, after our big talk with Dave Ramsey, Hubby Dear has agreed to allocate $300 a month in the budget towards prepping plus an additional $50 in the grocery budget for food storage. I can get quite a lot accomplished with that kind of budget. I'm happy, he's placated, all is good.

Hubby Dear is making a trip into town today to get preparations for a little July 4th gathering that we're having and I threw a bit of a monkey wrench into the mix.

Here's how the conversation went at the Harried Homemaker's Acres:

"Hubby Dear, you need to get some Product X", I told him, batting my eyes and wearing my most charming smile.

Product X, of course, is a pseudonym for an item that can be decidedly embarrassing for a male to purchase.

"Aw, sweetheart, I don't think I can buy that!", he cringed. It just wasn't a manly sort of purchase. Going to the store to buy strawberries, marshmallows, and Product X??

I replied, "Well, you know, I saw they have some drinking water safe hoses in the RV department at Wal-Mart. That ought to butch-up your shopping cart quite a bit. Why don't you pick up a couple of those as well?"

And so he did. :)

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.