Lisa Bedford's Blog, page 96

Persimmons: An Incredible Fruit!

Each fall, my husband and I head to property in eastern Oklahoma for a mental health break. It’s incredibly beautiful out there, and the eastern side of the state where we are is green, lush, and hilly, not dry and dusty. There are two mountain ranges nearby, the Sallisaw Mountains and the Ouachitas.  It’s the land of the Choctow Indian nation, and many tribal people live there.

I’m always looking for wild edibles to forage, so on this trip I decided to hunt for persimmons. They are a yellow to orange fruit, shaped like a slightly flattened tomato. These trees grow in the south and southwest, and can grow as high as 25 feet.  I had heard from the locals that persimmon trees were common, and could be harvested for a delectable treat. (In fact, the word “persimmon” is Latin for the “food of the Gods”). These trees originally came from China and the seeds were introduced here by Commodore Perry in 1856. I’m so glad they were! They have amazing medicinal and health benefits associated with them. More on that in a bit.

I  went out into a wooded area, wearing long pants, boots, and my hair pulled up into a ponytail. Good thing. There were so many burs, insects, rough terrain, and snakes that I probably would have come back on a stretcher. But, I found what I was looking for.

As the wooded area opened up to Lake Robert Kerr, I found a whole grove of persimmon trees! They had already lost most of their leaves, but the fruit was unmistakable. I found them in all the colors from green, yellow, orange, and orange-red. The green ones aren’t ripe, but can be picked and ripen at home for a month in the fridge. You can also place them in a plastic bag with a banana to speed along the ripening process. The banana emits ethylene gas that ripens the persimmon more quickly.

The yellow persimmons are turning ripe and can be harvested, too, but the orange ones that are dead ripe need to be eaten within a few days. I tried one that was almost ripe, and it started out tasting sweet, but that gave way to a very astringent taste that made my mouth pucker.

I later found out there were two kinds of persimmons: astringent and non-astringent. The non-astringent type can be eaten green, but tastes even better when fully ripe. The astringent type needs to be fully ripe to avoid that bitter astringent taste. Oh, when you find them, be sure to harvest them early because the wildlife love to eat them, too.

Not only do ripe persimmons taste good, they are packed with nutrients. I’d consider it a “Superfood”. Here’s a list I’ve compiled of all the good things persimmons have to offer:

Vitamin A

Helps maintain healthy skin and can reduce wrinkles. Persimmons provide 55% of your daily requirement.


Vitamin C

Helps boost your immune system to fight the flu, colds, and infection. Persimmons provide 21% of your daily requirement.


Manganese

Persimmons provide high amounts which are used as co-factors for the enzyme “Superoxide Dismutase”, which acts as free radical scavengers.


Fiber

Helps prevent constipation and moves things through the G.I. system


Phytonutrients

Neutralizes free radicals and helps repair damaged DNA


Flavonoids

Have antioxidant powers associated with reduced risk of many diseases.


Beta-Carotene

Helps prevent night blindness, eye problems, skin disorders, enhances immunity, and slows the aging process


Lycopene

Is an antioxidant and has properties that may prevent tumor growth. May reduce cancer risk.


Lutein

An antioxidant which destroys free radicals, found in high concentrations in they eye, which leads us to believe it is crucial to good vision.


Cryptoxanthi

It’s a carotenoid that can be directly converted into Vitamin A and is associated with a reduced risk of polyarthritis. It may also protect against prostate cancer.


Zeaxanthin

Protects the eyes from UV rays, helps the light filtering function of the eyes, and protects against age related eye diseases.


Potassium

An electrolyte and mineral that triggers your heart to beat, , your muscles to move, kidneys to filter blood, nerves to work, and can reduce blood pressure.

There are a variety of ways to enjoy eating your persimmons. Dried persimmons can be used in cookies, baked goods, salads, oatmeal, or cereal.

LEARN MORE: Want to learn how to home-dehydrate fruits and vegetables? Read this tutorial.

They can be eaten whole, except for the seeds and calyx (very top of the fruit). The pulp can be spread on parchment paper and dried into fruit leathers. Just use your imagination! Maybe in a smoothie? I’m going to try them all. I have a new found respect and admiration for this unusual and praiseworthy fruit.

Persimmon hunting adventures, the downside

Even though I dressed for my wild woods adventure, I did end up with chiggers and ticks from my self guided tour of the woods. I was horrified to see HUNDREDS of tiny ticks swarming all over my body. My friends told me I must have run into a “Tick Bomb”. I had no idea what that was.

Apparently these tiny, tiny ticks swarm in a ball on tall grass or weeds & explode on you when you make contact with them. Even though I wore long pants & boots, it didn’t help. They were inside my socks that were inside my boots. I couldn’t get them picked off fast enough.  It was so bad, we had to buy a used vacuum cleaner, vacuum out the entire truck where I had been sitting, throw the bag away, launder our clothes at a laundromat, double shower, double hair wash, and they were still there. We had to manually pick them off, one by one. (Later I found out, many people use wide tape and apply it over their skin. It removes dozens at a time.)

After I blow dried my hair, they reappeared. An army of them were crawling off my scalp downward, so the manual removal began again. It was 2 days before I stopped finding ticks. Some vacation!

For all my chigger and tick bites, I used my Lavender, Frankinsense, and Melaleuca oils to relieve the pain and itch. It really helped. At home I made a hot bath with a half cup of my homemade Apple Cider Vinegar, and my previously mentioned essential oils. I figured the ACV was a meat tenderizer, so maybe it would kill any remaining chiggers.

It’s been a week now, and I’m almost better. The bites have scabbed up and have stopped itching.  I just wanted to warn people that foraging is not always fun, it does have its risks. Plan appropriately and expect the unexpected.

READ MORE: I love to forage! In this article, “Learn the Art of Foraging“, I share with you more of my adventures.

A special thanks my friends, Lisa Hazelwood and Sherri Long-Hamilton for their advice on identifying and treating this infestation.

Want to learn more about foraging?

The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants by Department of the Army
Foraged Flavor by Tama Matsuoka Wong
The Forager’s Harvest by Samuel Thayer
Foraging.com — A round up of classes, websites, and more.
Foraging Texas website
Nature’s Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Wild Edible Plants by Samuel Thayer
Stalking the Healthful Herbs by Euell Gibbons
Tree Finder by May Theilgaard Watts
Wild Cards: Edible Wild Foods (playing cards)
Wild Edible Fruits and Berries by Marjorie Furlong and Virginia B. Pill

The post Persimmons: An Incredible Fruit! by Mary Blandford appeared first on The Survival Mom. Be sure to check it out!

13 Reasons a Rural Retreat May Not Be the Safe Refuge You Might Think

Way back in 2007, when I first became aware of the need to prepare for an increasingly uncertain future, I was convinced that our family needed to move from the city to a hidey-hole or a cabin in the woods, commonly referred to as “rural survival retreats.” Preferably in Idaho.

Our retreat would be located at least 25 miles from the nearest interstate and 10 miles from the nearest town, which would have no more than 1000 residents. We would be safe from zombie biker gangs and hoards of desperate people leaving the big cities en masse.

Since then, I’ve given a lot of thought to survival retreats and have come to realize they aren’t the be all, end all when it comes

to preparedness and survival. That’s not to say they will become hell-holes when everything hits the fan, but I’m concerned that too many trusting folks believe that once they get to their retreat, they’ll be safe and sound.

Here’s why a rural survival retreat may not be the safe refuge that everyone thinks.

1. Rural areas are hot spots that attract the self-reliant and libertarian leaning citizens

In case you haven’t noticed, self-reliance isn’t exactly a lifestyle encouraged by a federal government and many state governments intent on increasing the level of dependency of citizens. Incredibly, top politicians boast of the number of

Americans on food stamps and are actively working to increase those numbers!

Citizens wishing to decrease their level of government dependence are viewed with suspicion. Without a doubt, those living in rural areas will come under increasing scrutiny as their activities are viewed as oppositional to those of the federal government. You will be in their bulls eye in the form of punitive regulations and laws, at the very least.

2. In a word, drones

Recently it was reported that the federal government had some 30,000 spy drones it was willing to bequeath to law enforcement agencies across the country. Has your local police or sheriff’s department requested one of these? Is there any reason to believe it won’t be used to spy on the activities of innocent civilians, especially those who may show signs of uppity self-reliance activities?

In 2012 it was rumored that drones had been used by the EPA to keep track of the activities of independent farmers and ranchers. The rumors were denied, but I can’t think of a single reason why they won’t be used to check out “suspicious activities” of those living off the radar.

3. Google knows where your rural survival retreat is

Do you really think your survival retreat hasn’t been mapped by Google? Activate a drone, and a survival retreat is less of a

retreat, with survival questionable. And, Google has a very cozy relationship with the federal government.

4. Government entities with limitless money and power but no

accountability

Here is just a sampling of stories that illustrate all too well how powerless a rural family is against the force of government.

“EPA power grab to regulate ditches, gullies on private property” and subsequently, “Feds sued over massive water-rule power grab”

Keep in mind, though, that in the summer of 2015, the EPA brilliantly managed to release over 1 million gallons of highly toxic waste into the beautiful Animas River in Colorado. These are the same people who believe they have the right to regulate rivulets of water on private property.

“EPA’s wood-burning stove ban has chilling consequences for many rural people”

“U.S. top court backs landowners, limits power of EPA” The Supreme Court did not say that the EPA’s methods ere unconstitutional, just that citizens have the right to sue after the fact.

“It’s actually illegal in Colorado to collect the rain that falls on your home”

“New labor rules threaten role of farm kids,” This idea was dropped but serves to illustrate the lengths that some in

government are willing to go in order to squelch those desiring and promoting self-reliance.

“Supreme Court denies family farmers the right to self-defense from Monsanto lawsuits”

How many rural families have the time and resources to fight unjust charges and policies such as these? Not many, and I haven’t even started on the I.R.S.!

5. The drought could spell big trouble for rural survival retreats

I’ve noticed that every crisis seems to cause some in government to react with reactionary speeches and usually unnecessary, burdensome policies.

The current drought has me worried because I can easily see it used as an excuse for government interference with the use of well water. How hard would it be for an agency to declare that one person or another was, “using more than their ‘fair share’ of water,” and regulating well water usage for everyone?

Read more: Already living in a drought? Learn these techniques to garden in a drought.

Of course there are also natural dangers that low levels of water bring to rural areas in the form of forest fires, animal starvation, and difficulty in growing crops.

6. Leave it to the United Nations to harass rural Americans

Has your local news media been covering Agenda 21? No? Thought not. Americans don’t even realize that the policies of this oppressive document are already being voluntarily implemented in many towns, cities, and states. The goals of Agenda 21 are shocking and when you read through them, it’s obvious they are becoming a threat to rural America in the form of various regulations put in place by people who mean well but don’t understand how easily they are signing away basic freedoms.

7. Why should your rural neighbors trust you?

How long does it take to establish trust?

How well would you have to know someone in order to leave your children with them for a week?

Would you tell your family members about your preps, what you have, and where they are stored?

Well-meaning folks who buy a rural retreat and attempt to become established there are sometimes shocked to discover that their neighbors may be polite but they are hardly welcoming. Some of these neighbors have lived in these small towns and outlying areas for decades, so I don’t blame them at all for looking at newcomers with a roll of their eyes.

You’ve moved out to the boonies, the neighbors don’t seem interested in  joining your “survival team”, so now what? How many years must you live there in order to become one of them and, in fairness, would you really want to? Just because they’re country folk doesn’t make them trustworthy or noble any more than coming from a city or the suburbs makes you shifty or irresponsible.

8.  Natural disasters know no borders

Mudslides, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and massive forest fires endanger everything from big city buildings to placid rural retreats. You may have found the perfect location for your bugging out but it’s not impervious to acts of God.

9. Squatters are a fact of life

One of the most memorable scenes in Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, is when one of the main characters, a self-made millionaire, finally reaches his survival hide-out only to discover that it’s already occupied by squatters. He doesn’t have the weapons, man-power, or tactics to remove them, so he continues on, hoping to survive without any of his supplies, gear, or shelter.

Book review: Here’s my video review of Lucifer’s Hammer.

Rural retreats are, well, rural. They’re out in the country, the boondocks, and unless you live there pretty much fulltime, they are vulnerable to squatters moving in, using your stuff, and staying there. How, exactly, will you prevent that and when you arrive at your now squatter-filled home, will you put up a fight or walk away? What if law enforcement isn’t available or they just don’t care?

10. Harsh weather conditions are a rural reality

When you look at a map of the United States, there’s a reason why vast areas remain virtually unpopulated. Those areas encompass enormous deserts with few, if any, water sources and tracts of forests that cover steep mountainsides and difficult-to-access valleys.

These areas aren’t just rugged terrain but they also experience some of the harshest weather conditions, such as extreme drought or multiple winter blizzards. Throughout history, people have built their civilizations in areas that enjoyed milder climates and reliable water sources. Sure, the lure of a peaceful retreat may be calling, but make sure you visit that location in different seasons so you know what to expect.

11. Criminal elements

I’ve always said, “People who live far from other people, do so for a reason.” Sometimes it’s because they truly want to be one with nature and enjoy the solitude, but for many it’s because they want to avoid the law and law-abiding citizens.

When we were house shopping in Texas, we checked out a number of homes miles from town and on acreage. One local friend said, “Be sure to find out where the meth houses are,” and he wasn’t kidding.

No, not everyone who loves country living is a criminal, but you can’t deny that the hinterlands have a certain allure for people who have something to hide.

12. Road conditions can be nonexistent

Thousands of words have been written about bug out vehicles, with long debates about which make and model is best. The fact is, though, that the vehicle is less important than the road conditions to your retreat. There are some routes that are completely impassable during long periods of time in the winter. If the S hits the fan during December or January, you may be completely out of luck due to something as mundane as road conditions and will have to go to Plan B — hunkering down at home.

I have multiple copies of the DeLorme atlas, which is very detailed, but in certain weather conditions, having multiple routes planned still won’t get me to where I need to be, no matter how urgent the cause.

Read more: Here are my tips for putting the DeLorme atlas to use for planning evacuations, this article not withstanding!

13. Isolation can work against you

I love getting away from it all and leaving the sounds of traffic and people far behind, but in a survival scenario, being alone and isolated can work against you and, in fact, could be deadly.

Health and physical safety are very fragile. Accidents happen, a common cold or flu can take the turn for the much worse overnight, and you’ll find that your First Aid class and copy of a survival medical handbook just aren’t going to do the trick. If an urgent trip to the hospital becomes a matter of life or death, can you make it there in time?

Sometimes the problem won’t be a health issue but, instead, a bad-guy issue. Living away from everyone else has its risks but for the criminal, it also has its opportunities.

Fernando Aguirre, author of Surviving the Economic Collapse, lived through Argentina’s multiple collapses and has this to say about surviving in a rural area:

I don’t think an isolated homestead or farm is the best place to be in, and it certainly isn’t when crime becomes a real problem all across the country. In people’s minds, in their novels and fantasies things may always work out just the way they want. It also helps that none of the things speculated in these fictional scenarios have ever occurred, at least not yet. A person can be so easily fooled into thinking that his retreat or homestead in any given US state is safe from looters and criminals because this or that “expert” claims so, the real reason why it´s been working well for any given period of time is that you’ve never actually had it put to test by your environment. Argentina puts you to test and that’s where suppositions, theories and wishful thinking crash against the cold hard reality.

…a friend of mine suffered an attack to his farm in just a couple days ago. He’s smart, successful, experienced, and a true survivalist in my opinion. You might remember the home invasion attempt my dentist suffered a while back. This friend of mine wasn’t that lucky. During the afternoon five men approached the housekeeper’s home and took the family hostage. Dogs barked but they (the men) moved fast. They used ski masks and gloves, armed of course, communicated with radio and were very professional. Right after reducing the housekeepers they quickly moved to the main building and took control of the main house. My friend wasn’t there with his wife and kids, it was occupied by other family members that were visiting. Being the smart person he is, that’s not his main residence and prefers to live in a gated community.

Read Fernando’s entire article at this link.

Listen to my interview with him on the topic of “Prepper Myths”

In these different scenarios, how quickly will help, in the form of law enforcement, medical professionals, or fire fighters get to your location? If you don’t have reliable internet or a phone landline, how will people know that you need help?

 

I haven’t written these points to discourage anyone from establishing a retreat somewhere away from big cities, but I think it’s important to not over-estimate the level of security such a retreat might bring and to have a checklist of sorts for considering how quickly things can go sideways.

No, I don’t think cities are safer! They come with their own challenges and dangers, but at least preppers who are also city-dwellers are aware of their vulnerabilities. Too often, survival pros sell the concept of a “survival retreat” as a cloak of immunity from coming troubles, and that is what concerns me.

The post 13 Reasons a Rural Retreat May Not Be the Safe Refuge You Might Think by The Survival Mom appeared first on The Survival Mom. Be sure to check it out!

Using Butter Powder: A Tutorial

Most food storage products purchased from food storage companies are pretty much the same all across the board. Foods like wheat and freeze-fried fruit are all very similar no matter what brand you choose to buy.

Other products, and dairy products in particular, are not that way so much. They vary from company to company, and since food storage companies are changing their recipes all the time, a can of something like butter powder or dried milk that you bought four years ago may bear little resemblance to a can purchased from the same company today.

The upshot of all this means that food storage products are getting better, tastier, and higher in quality all the time. The tricky part is that sometimes there is a little bit of a learning curve while you are trying to find a brand you like for a particular product, and in figuring out how to best use it.

Learning to use butter powder

This was my experience with butter powder. Fats and oils are one of the trickiest things to store because of their tendency to go rancid. Like all things stored in large #10 cans, the appeal of butter powder is in its shelf life, which can be up to five years under the right storage conditions. Compare this to regular butter, or even shortening, which can last up to 18 months.

Learn more: When should you buy food in #10 cans? When should you buy smaller sizes? Read this tutorial.

The first time I tried to cook something with butter powder, I tried it with sugar cookies. One of the primary ingredients is butter, and I figured if any recipe would be a good test of this particular food-storage product, sugar cookies would be it.

I hesitate to use the word “disaster,” but…well…if the shoe fits, right? The cookie dough had the consistency of cookie “batter,” and wouldn’t firm up no matter how long I refrigerated it. My kids and I adore taking “snitches” of cookie dough during the cookie-making process, but I was particularly unhappy with the taste. It was reminiscent of reconstituted powdered milk: somewhat “off,” but in a way that is difficult to quantify in words. When baked, the texture of my cookies resembled cake. That’s fine when you are baking a cake, but not so great when you are hoping for a batch of cookies.

Being a prepper, though, means you don’t let little things like that stop you. As previously mentioned, not every can of butter powder is created equal. While my first experience made me want to weep, subsequent experiments with butter powder were much more successful. For one thing, I discovered that even though the the label on the can said to reconstitute the powder with an equal amount of water, this was a big mistake – the result was far too runny and didn’t at all behave in cooking the way regular butter does. The trick, then, is to cut down the amount of added liquid so that your reconstituted butter has the consistency of butter. This alone will go a long way toward avoiding disaster cookies. Some even use a bit of vegetable oil when they reconstitute the powder.

Another lesson to take away from this: the whole point of butter powder is that it is supposed to taste and act like butter, that you will be able to bake cookies during times of emergency. Good butter powder does just that – you can put it on popcorn, in mashed potatoes, and cook with it to boot. The only thing it doesn’t do is melt in a pan. Therefore, if you are going to buy it at all, don’t get the cheapie kind – you will be disappointed. A high-quality product is absolutely worth the extra cost. If possible, buy it in smaller quantities, like a #2.5 can, and compare brands.

So how can you use butter powder?

In baked goods
Mixed in with mashed potatoes
Combine it with honey for honey butter!
Add to pancake mix
Reconstitute as a spread for toast, muffins, and breads
Combine with other savory seasonings as a popcorn topping
Sprinkle it over hot, cooked veggies
Add it to macaroni and cheese

Apple Crumb Cake

3 cups flour

2 tablespoons baking powder

1/3 cup Augason Farms Whole Eggs

1 3/4 cups water

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup Augason Farms Apple Slices – chopped & rehydrated

In large bowl, blend all ingredients and mix well. Pour into a greased 9×13” baking dish.

Topping

2/3 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup Augason Farms Butter Powder

2 tablespoons water

1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

In small bowl, mix all topping ingredients with fork until crumbly. Sprinkle crumb topping on top of cake. Bake at 375˚F for 25-30 minutes.

The post Using Butter Powder: A Tutorial by Beth Buck appeared first on The Survival Mom. Be sure to check it out!

My Story: Getting Back On Your Feet When the S Hits the Fan

Life is going along comfortably and predictably, and you think “it” won’t happen to you, not really. Then it does.

A family job loss.

In my case it was a phone call that, at first, seemed to be a typical call from the boss, except this time it’s different.Your main bread winner has just been told they are being let go. This recently happened to my husband, and in spite of a severance package, he had no clue what or where his next job would be.

The Stuff Hit the Fan in our life, for real.

Luckily, over the years we have discussed what we would do in this sort of situation and how we could live well within in our means. We have little debt beyond a car and the house. As preppers, we have whittled down a lot of our bills and are mentally prepared to do even more. And we have things in the house that will enable us to reduce regular monthly bills quite a bit, like food storage.

Utilities, Cable, and More

Right now we have two cable TV boxes. One is definitely being sent back. We talked about getting rid of both and switching to Amazon and/or Netflix for all our TV, but we need to keep the internet service from the cable company anyway so it makes sense to keep the bundle and the lower pricing.

The router for our internet is plugged into a surge protector. That’s a good thing, of course, but if we change where it is plugged in, then we can flip a switch and all those “vampire” electronics like the PS3 that are plugged into the same surge protector will cease drawing current all the time. That will help, too, especially if we hunt down all the other “vampires” in the house.

We have a programmable thermostat. (They range from simple to Wi-Fi enabled; we really, really like our WiFi enabled thermostat, even though it’s a bit more expensive to buy.) Over the last few years, we have made our home warmer in summer and cooler in winter, but we can adjust the main floor a little bit more. Every degree helps!

TIP: Have you thought about paying ahead on your utilities in order to have a safety cushion, just in case? Here are a few details.

When we moved into our home years ago, there were a few utility service companies we selected, but we haven’t re-checked prices in several years. We’ll be doing that now.

The kids and a family job loss

In most ways (for them), this will just be accelerating / implementing things we have already discussed. They know we want to sell a bunch of their old toys on eBay and there is a stack of movies and video games pulled for the same purpose. Seeing some car parts and other things added in won’t seem terribly odd to them.

More info: Deluttering can not only help make your everyday life easier but it’s also a great way to identify items to put up for sale. Here’s The Survival Mom’s guide to decluttering and getting organized. It’s a FREE ebook!

Our kids aren’t in any expensive activities, mostly just Scouts, so we don’t need to take them out of any expensive lessons or clubs, but we can’t add anything, either. Also, they know we just had to replace the HVAC so they can blame any decreases in spending on that for awhile. (Yep, great timing on that. Sigh.)

It’s not good for kids when their parents are panicky, so we waited a week or so to figure out some things ourselves, then talked to them. This included the fact that we may need to sell our house and move, possibly even to another state, if that’s where the new job is – but that isn’t our first choice and won’t happen soon, if it happens at all.

We aren’t big spenders and don’t go crazy with Christmas and birthday gifts, plus I do have some gifts I bought ahead and have been waiting to give. We will do the same thing we always do and buy things as we see them, on sale (with an extra emphasis on sales this year). I already found a Woot sale on t-shirts, so my youngest child bought fun tshirts for everyone. Total shopping for five Christmas gifts with shipping and tax: under $30.

More tips for celebrating in tight times: 15 Ways to Celebrate Good Times in Tight Times

In addition, I buy school supplies on clearance every year, so I have more than enough to cover most of what they need for the new school year. The ever-elusive 3 subject and 5 subject notebooks are the main things I will need to buy. (Why on earth they are so tough to find in the store remains a mystery to me.) So, all in all, the kids should be OK for now.

Read more: 7 Tips For Raising Secure Kids In An Insecure World

Eating

We’ve been eating out too much the last few months. I know. It’s bad for the budget and the waistline – but the summer has just been insanely busy and, well, you know how it goes. Chik-fil-A / Dominos for dinner sounds great! Clearly, that’s over and done with.

We will be eating some of our food storage food, but it will be supplementing what I pick up at the grocery store — using coupons and store sales! We aren’t anywhere near a point where we need to completely upend our diet to the extent of not grocery shopping. The dehydrated ham will be added to omelettes and stir fry dinners, for example. The kids will suck it up and eat home-made pizza bagels instead of their favorite pre-made brand. In short, we’ll be switching from store-bought to homemade. (Read the mini guide.)

Since there is still a lot of fresh summer produce available, we will try to buy fresh fruit and veggies and dehydrate them to use over the winter. I have done this multiple times before, but not to a large extent. We will do it to a much greater degree this time. Also, I may even try my hand at canning – for salsa and some other fairly easy items like pizza sauce. (At least, I think it’s easy.)

TIP: Learn more about dehydrating foods inexpensively.

Other ways to save

We’ll probably try to wait a few months before talking to our parents. Yeah, that. But it’s not gonna happen at all if we can avoid it. No point adding that extra stress into our lives. Even though we are fully grown adults, our parents still worry about us as though we were still youngsters!

On my husband’s side of the family, advanced age has led to his mom’s memory problems that are severe enough our explanations really won’t stick. Any attempts to do that with her will lead to confusion and delay. With my own parents, their worries will intrude and make us feel even worse and more stressed about the situation.

On the plus side, we should be able to make some real headway on all those little (and not so little) household projects that have just been sitting there. Late September into October is perfect weather for things like painting the house (with the windows open) and fixing things outside. We plan to take advantage of that and get our house in better shape, especially since we have the supplies needed to finish the projects. (It’s like the meme says: If a man say’s he going to something, he’ll do it. No need to ask him about it every six months.)

We are also clearing out things we no longer need and will sell most of them. This will give us some extra money, make keeping the house clean easier and faster, and just generally help us get a fresh start.

Final thoughts on our family job loss

Hopefully my hubby will get a new job quickly and it will pay better than his last one. Best case is that happens and he ends up with double-pay for a few months and a few weeks of time off in between. But worst case is, well, worst case. We are cutting down avoidable expenses, staying home, and generally saving wherever possible.

I have faith that it will all turn out for the best, but there’s no denying it is tough and stressful in the short term.

Resources for frugal living, especially with a family job loss

Check out my monthly series of past articles, “52 Weeks Savings”, with discounts, bargains, and deals for each month of the year. Here’s a sample month for June’s best bargains.
Learn more about the 52 Weeks Savings Challenge here and customize it to your own income and circumstances with these tips.
Join Survival Mom’s 52 Weeks Savings Club on Facebook. We’re over 2500 members and going strong!
Dave Ramsey has solid advice for taking control of your finances. I recommend his basic book, The Total Money Makeover for an easy-to-follow plan and a quick, motivational read.

The post My Story: Getting Back On Your Feet When the S Hits the Fan by Guest Poster appeared first on The Survival Mom. Be sure to check it out!

5 Steps to Train Your Mind

If we’re honest, none of us are 100 percent prepared for every emergency.

Let me go first: If a tornado were to strike tonight, my gas tank is only a quarter full, only 2 of our 5 gas cans are full, I’ve dipped into our food storage to supplement the pantry, and I do not think there are shoes for our youngest in our shelter area.

Disaster will strike and you will not be completely prepared. You will have to make do with what you have at that moment.

So, what can you do to be truly prepared?

You can train your mind.

1. Be situationally aware, always.

Take a minute when you get in your car to go anywhere and think about what you will do if you are stuck in your car for several hours, or if you have to walk home from where ever you are going.

When you arrive, check for exits and think about what scenarios could happen while you are there and what you would do. It only takes a few moments, but I find that it also lets me enjoy what I am doing. I have prepared my mind for what could happen and this preparation lets me focus on what I am doing instead of worrying.

2. Learn to improvise.

You won’t always have the right tool for the job. Instead of asking where you can find a shovel to dig a hole, ask what things you can use to dig a hole. Before you go to bed tonight, ask yourself what you would do if disaster struck tonight with just what you have in the house. What could you use to substitute for the things you haven’t bought yet? What options do you have for cleaning? What options do you have for cooking? How creative could you get with what you have?

3. Keep learning.

Keep learning new skills. Make a list of skills that would be valuable and that you want to learn. You don’t have to learn them all right now, but you can gather books and materials on the topics so you can learn about them whenever you want (or need) to. The Survival Mom Mini-Guides are a great place to get started with this!

Consider printing out anything electronic so you can have the references on hand in case of prolonged power outages or an EMP attack and creating your own Preparedness Binder. For example, I am an amateur gardener, so I have several gardening reference books on hand. You could create individual binders for cooking, sewing, medical preparedness, homeschooling, woodworking, etc. in addition to one more general Survival Mom binder.

4. Develop muscle memory.

Bug out now and see how you do. Or, for something more low-key, go on an impromptu picnic to see how well you can do with what you have on hand. I did this once with a friend and our children. We brought peaches, but forgot the knife to cut it up. What to do? The children could take turns taking bites or we could use a pocketknife from my purse. We needed to sanitize it, so we put some hand sanitizer on it and wiped it down with a baby wipe.

We improvised and came up with a solution. You can train your brain to improvise by practicing scenarios. You can do this with family fire drills, tornado drills, intruder drills, etc. Your brain will remember the actions you take and then, if a real emergency happens, you can react quicker.

5. Avoid complacency

It’s human nature to get complacent. Once you think you are fully prepared, you may stop thinking and planning. However, being prepared is a lifestyle, not a checklist. You can always be more prepared. A good way to not get complacent is to pick a topic every month to work on.

Check your food storage one month – is it stored correctly? Will you actually eat it? Does anything need to be replaced? Do you like your inventory system? Another month, update your Grab-n-Go Binder – walk through your house and look through your computer files to see if there is anything else to add that you wouldn’t want to be without. Another month, you can sort through your ammo, clean your firearms and make sure they are in good working order. When was the last time you practiced firing them at the range?

There is always something to do to be prepared. Don’t forget the more mundane tasks like reducing clutter and keeping on top of your finances! The more you stay on top of, the easier it is to enjoy day-to-day life.

I have now filled the gas tank and stashed some shoes for our youngest child in our tornado shelter. I still need to re-supply a few items in the food storage and fill the gas cans, but I keep going day by day. I know where my weak spots are and keep trying to make them stronger. I think about it a lot and keep training my mind. Now I need to go find some shoes….

The post 5 Steps to Train Your Mind by Sarah Anne Carter appeared first on The Survival Mom. Be sure to check it out!

“How To Be A Prepper” — FREE Webinar Recording

 

UPDATE: Here’s the link to the recording. Get ready to sit back and learn the basics. Advanced preppers might even pick up a new idea or two! http://connectpro19068335.adobeconnec...  If you’re a note-taker, you can download the class outline here.

I hope you know me well enough by now to know that I am hardly a foaming-at-the-mouth prepper as portrayed on Doomsday Preppers and similar shows. In real life I’m quite calm and actually, pretty boring.

When I teach prepper and survival classes, I hope I’m not boring, but the class is definitely going to be middle-of-the-road and very practical. It’s the sort of class you would feel very comfortable inviting your non-prepper friends to. You know. The ones who watched Doomsday Preppers and ran the opposite direction!

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve taught live classes and webinars but with some 20+ years of teaching and training in my career background, I’m itching to get back in action.

I hope you’ll join me on Tuesday, September 15, at 7 p.m. Central Time, for a live class, “How To Be A Prepper”. I’ve developed this class specifically for newbies but also for those who have been prepping but feel they need a little more guidance and focus. Most of us begin prepping in a random fashion fueled by a bit of panic, admit it! We desperately want to get prepared with food, water, flashlights, duct tape, and every other survival and preparedness supply imaginable and that means we don’t always take time to sit down and figure out exactly what we need, when we need it, and hold fast to priorities.

That’s what this class will focus on. I’ll even teach you how NOT to be a prepper and how to connect with others who are like-minded.

Not only that, I’ll be giving away a couple of door prizes and even have a discount code for one of the products I’ll be featuring!

To join the webinar, you don’t need to pre-register. Just click on this link a few minutes before class starts to reserve your spot. The webinar service I use only allows a total of 100 people in the webinar room, and that leaves just 99 spots once I arrive!

Again, here are the details:

DATE: Tuesday, September 15

TIME: 7 p.m. CT (8 p.m. ET, 6 p.m. MT, 5 p.m. PT)

LINK: http://connectpro19068335.adobeconnec...

I’m planning to record this and make it available indefinitely, but if you can attend the live event, it’s always much more fun!

Hope to see you there!

The post “How To Be A Prepper” — FREE Webinar Recording by The Survival Mom appeared first on The Survival Mom. Be sure to check it out!

7 Things To Do When Panic Sets In

It is happening NOW!

Your stomach starts hurting, your heart is racing and your brain is reeling – you’re starting to panic.

The stock market is crashing, a hurricane is going to hit, wildfires are approaching your backyard.… It could be any scenario. You could have seconds, hours, days, or weeks to get as prepared as possible, but the panic comes with the certainty that the scenario is for sure going to happen.

I felt this when I had to evacuate the Florida panhandle for Hurricane Ivan. I was leaving and possibly coming home later to a destroyed home. I had a few hours to pack up my valuables and get out. I didn’t think about the power being out while I was gone. Much of my food spoiled and there wasn’t much food to be found when I did come back. I didn’t think to travel with extra food and water.

Luckily, my home was untouched except for a power outage and I didn’t encounter any problems on my drive home through areas torn apart by tornadoes. If I knew then what I know now, I would have done a much better job being prepared – and wouldn’t have found some of those nasty, moldy surprises!

Whether you are an expert survivalist or someone who hasn’t even thought about prepping, here are 7 things you can try to do when panic sets in because honestly, most of us can’t find a nearby hilltop to mediate on. (If you can – go for it!)

1. Assess the situation (a.k.a.: stop panicking!)

Your panic served its purpose by letting you know how serious the situation is facing you. Take some deep breaths and take a few minutes to think.

Where are your family members? Do you need to get them or are they safer where they are?

What is the exact situation and how long will it last?

Is it best to stay in place or do you need to leave?

What do you need to have on hand or to take with you for the duration of the situation?

Make a list and then get moving. Here are some more steps to follow, depending on how much time you have. If you only have 30 minutes to evacuate, you should probably just do the last two steps – gather the important items, pack them, and get out. However, if you have a few hours or a few days, the rest of the steps could be key to surviving.

2. Get gas

Fill up your gas tank and any gas cans you may have on hand. You can buy a four-pack on Amazon. Do not use any random container you might find to store gasoline. It’s just not worth the risk. It’s better to be safe in your gasoline storage than, well, you know.

If you have to leave, you’ll want to have gas to get where you want to go. It isn’t at all unusual for gas stations along evacuation routes to have long lines, run out of fuel, or radically raise their prices. Buying early and bringing some gas cans with you will save you the hassle of dealing with that.

Even if you plan to stay where you are, you be forced to leave at some point and you want to be able to do that, if you have to. Depending on the scenario, gas prices may rise quickly, leaving you unable to afford more fuel and stuck only being able to go a shorter distance or even forced to shelter in place, no matter the danger. Also, if electricity might be out for a long time, the gas pumps could stop working for a while.

3. Get cash

2014 Image from the website of the DEA.

If there is a chance electricity could be down for any length of time, you need to get some cash to have on hand to purchase goods or services. ATMs and cash registers won’t work without electricity. If you have the time, try to change the $20 bills out for smaller bills so you can pay an exact amount instead of overpaying if a store or person doesn’t have exact change.

If you ask, you can easily get $100 in $1 bills, $10 in quarters, etc. because that’s how banks bundle cash.

4. Get food and water

Fill empty containers in your house with water. Buy water, too. If you have a water BOB, go ahead and fill it but keep in mind that will only be useful if you shelter in place or upon return to your home. It is not something you can take with you during an evacuation.

Buy food that doesn’t need refrigerated and can be cooked easily without power. Canned goods and soup, along with shelf stable nuts, fruit, and crackers, would be good to have on hand. There are also pre-packed meals that can be eaten cold from the package. As one example, Tasty Bite has a variety of Indian entrees available from Costco and some markets. Target has a similar product under their house label.

Consider, too, how you would cook, and if you need matches and firewood, charcoal and lighter fluid, or extra propane tanks. Bleach for cleaning and disposable plates and silverware could come in handy. Toilet paper, diapers, and feminine hygiene products should also be grabbed if you have a chance to run to the store and don’t have a stockpile at home.

Don’t forget about your pets! They need a food / water bowl, carrier, favorite toys, somewhere to sleep, and proof of vaccinations. Don’t forget food and treats! If you have a dog, bring their leash, doody-bags, and a muzzle, if there is even the slightest chance they might conceivably need one.

Actually, you should keep proof of their vaccinations in with your important paperwork because without it, they won’t be allowed in many places, most specifically including shelters, which may not take pets under any circumstances. In addition, if your vet’s office is destroyed in whatever is headed your way, this may be your only proof. Do you really want to go to the hassle and expense of getting new vaccinations? During an evacuation? Exactly.

5. Get medicine

What prescriptions are necessary for your family to survive the duration? Do you have enough? If not, a call to your doctor or pharmacy would be worth trying to get more on hand. Even if you do have enough, ask your doctor for a letter stating any chronic medical conditions that require medication and what that medication is, including dosage. Keep this with your important paperwork.

Why do you need the letter if you have the medication? In an emergency, you could grab an old, empty bottle by accident, drop or otherwise lose it as you are leaving, spill the pills, or any number of other things resulting in not having any medication. If you have a letter from the doctor with this information, it will make it a whole lot easier to have another doctor (who doesn’t know you) provide a replacement prescription.

If that is not a possibility, research homeopathic or natural remedies and try getting those options to have on hand. (For example, Survival Mom explores options for dealing with diabetes here.)

6. Figure out security options

What are your options for keeping yourself safe during this situation? If you have guns, do you have enough ammo? Does everyone who needs to know how to use the guns? Laws vary state by state for concealed carry, open carry and transporting firearms – check what they are in your state and any state you will be traveling to or through.

What other weapons do you have? Do you have a knife? Baseball bat? Do you have hunting weapons, including bow and arrow, black powder firearms, or larger knives? Who knows how to use them and do you have all the supplies you need? If you plan to travel with them, do you know of any restrictions on their usage or carrying in any states you will travel through or your final destination? (Regulations on black powder weapons are often different than for more modern weapons.)

Gather important papers that you don’t want to lose or have fall into the wrong hands. (This is a step you can shortcut by always keeping everything in one easy-to-find-and-carry container, such as a fire safe box.) This includes electronic devices like thumb drives, laptops, tablets, and cell phones. If you have a backup hard drive with files and/or photos, gather that as well. Don’t forget charging cords and cubes.

Documents should include medical files, social security cards for everyone in the family, passports, pink slips, birth certificates, immigration papers, copies of drivers licenses / ID cards, and green cards. Don’t forget custody papers, if they apply. In addition to the information mentioned above, your medical file should include immunization and vaccine records for everyone in the family, human or not. Again, this reduces the chances of having to get shots because no one can confirm you have had them without records. Doctors have to provide immunization records free of charge. (The rest of your file will cost you.)

Make your kids responsible for their own data security. They can, and should, gather their own electronic devices, including school-use ones and thumb drives, and the cords and cubes they need, as well. If they travel often, including weekend trips to grandparents’ homes, they may already have this down pat – if you regularly make them responsible for packing their own things.

7. Pack up

When it’s time to leave, gather everything you need to survive and start packing up. Use blankets to cover valuables that can be seen from outside the car. Put valuable documents, medicines, and electronics together in one bag that stays with you all the time.

If you plan to shelter in place, know that any situation can turn and you may need to get out abruptly. You may want to start packing up bug out bags for everyone in your family and gather food, supplies and important documents together near the door, or even pre-packed in your vehicle, so you can grab them quickly if you do need to leave.

Final thoughts

If you have time, you might want to consider contacting neighbors, friends, and family members to not only let them know about your situation and your plans, but also so they can prepare as well. Use your panic to your advantage by making you take your situation seriously and do everything in your power to ensure you and your family’s survival.

The post 7 Things To Do When Panic Sets In by Sarah Anne Carter appeared first on The Survival Mom. Be sure to check it out!

Take Your Flood Fight to the Next Level

We’re all familiar with the humble sandbag and it’s part in a flood fight: a natural or synthetic fiber, open-ended bag used to stop bullets, water, or mud. Filled with sand or stone aggregate, they do an adequate job at stopping flood waters if properly filled and stacked. Government agencies provide information to the public on how to use sandbags, such as this Lake County, Illinois video, but did you know that sandbags come with limitations?

Sands through the hourglass

Sand is really just millions of very small rocks. Sandbags let us harness and shape sand into usable shapes and structures. But even confined in bags and interlocked together as best as we can, the sandbag wall, or barrier, is a fragile thing in the face of the power of water. The sandbag’s strength is vertical; it can withstand a great deal of force from directly above. The problem is that flood waters exert sideways, or “shear” force where the sandbag is much weaker.

Also, sandbag walls/barriers typically do not have added reinforcement, such as you would have in a masonry wall. The horizontal and vertical steel reinforcing bars (“rebar”) placed inside masonry or poured concrete walls help absorb forces exerted on the wall from all directions. The necessity of reinforcing masonry is evident when earthquakes occur in other countries, such as Haiti, Pakistan, Iran, Nepal and China. We see from the collapse of multiple buildings what happens when masonry buildings do not have such bracing.

Sandbag structures have none of that reinforcement which makes them vulnerable to flash flooding or currents in water. That being said, they are still the most cost-effective “hasty barriers” when time is of the essence and funding is low.

A New Concept

Disclaimer: The following discussion is meant to provide some more durable alternatives to the basic sandbag wall. Please consult with an architect or engineer before relying on the following procedures to protect life and property.

Don’t you love an article that requires a disclaimer? I included it, though, because I want to make sure you have the right advice for your particular set of circumstances. I’m a practitioner, not a licensed professional, but I have enough knowledge and experience to protect myself, and I’m happy to share that with you.

So let’s talk this through. Let’s assume a huge storm is coming your way, and the National Weather Service predicts flash flooding or a river at flood stage in your area. You and your neighbors have a limited amount of time to prepare and protect your properties.

I’ll tell you what you can expect once everyone becomes aware of the approaching storm. At the grocery store, bottled water and convenience food will fly off the shelves. At your local hardware or big-box home improvement store, sandbags, shovels, bagged sand, and plastic tarps will disappear. However, you’re not concerned. Your home protection plan is a little different than Joe Neighbor’s…you go to the commercial sales desk, because you have a plan. I bet few people are buying concrete as the storm comes in!

Better than Jell-O Instant Pudding

If you own a home, you’ve probably been introduced to “Ready-mix concrete”. It’s a bag containing Portland cement, sand, and gravel aggregate. Need a fence post or mailbox post set? Buy a $3.00 bag of ready-mix and add water. I would argue that bags of ready-mix concrete form the backbone of temporary flood protection that is more durable and reliable than sandbags.

So here’s the concept: Instead of stacking floppy bags of sand, you will lay uniform, rectangular bags of ready-mix concrete end-to-end to form your wall or barrier. The big difference will be the addition of lengths of steel reinforcing bars (rebar) horizontally and vertically as you build your wall, tying the horizontal and vertical bars together with wire just as you would in reinforcing a concrete wall.

As you need to make the wall taller, you add a level of bags that alternate like bricks in a wall. For example, it’s known that a 50-pound bag of Quikrete Fast-setting Mix is 17” long, 10” wide, and 4” thick. If I need a 50’ wall that is 3’ high, I just need to do the math: 50’=600”, divide by 17”=35.5 bags for each course. Three feet=36”, so I need (9) courses of bags to get my desired height: 9×35.5= about 320 bags. Fast-set concrete cures within an hour, probably a good quality in the face of rising flood water.

But you’re not done yet. You’ll need various lengths of rebar and wire to tie it all together. Rebar comes in 10’ and 20’ lengths for horizontal reinforcement, and 1’, 2’, and 4’ cut lengths for vertical bracing. For each level of bags, punch the rebar vertically through the middle of the bag, leaving enough length to make it through the next level of bags. Tie overlapping lengths of rebar together with steel wire to continue the bracing. Investing in a rebar cutter will cut your costs.

On top of each level of bags, lay a long rebar piece lengthwise across multiple bags, tying the horizontal length to the vertical lengths for cross braced strength. If you slit the top of each bag course, the rebar will bond directly to the concrete in the bag below. As water seeps into holes you poke in each bag, the concrete inside will harden. Sounds like a lot, but you’d fill thousands of sandbags for an equivalent wall that wasn’t nearly as strong.

Advantages/Disadvantages

The resulting wall or barrier is not as strong as an engineered concrete wall, nor is it intended to be; its purpose is to provide a stronger temporary barrier. Ordering and handling uniform bags of concrete is much easier than filling and placing sandbags.

Sandbags are the ultimate in flexible temporary walls…when you’re done, load them up and move them elsewhere. My suggested concrete bag structure is less flexible; the hardened concrete will stand strong until you decide to demolish it. That’s cool if you have a long flood season, but for a one-off storm it may be more work than a sandbag wall. The bottom line is to give you some food for thought as you prepare for that next big storm.

The post Take Your Flood Fight to the Next Level by Jim Acosta appeared first on The Survival Mom. Be sure to check it out!

Survival Mom DIY: Assemble Your Own Seed Bank

When talking about preparedness, we often look to a hypothetical future: The lure of “What If …” is indeed strong  for many reasons. I think it’s useful to first take a  look back at What Already Happened…

A brief history of very tough times

My father grew up in farm country during the Great Depression, before Social Security, welfare or food stamps. However, they had other things, country wisdom, self-reliance, pride, and neighbors. Life was hard-scrabble enough when Grandpa Johnson was alive, but my Grandma suddenly found herself widowed with no marketable skills and 5 children.

I learned a lot of wisdom from her, but one of my favorite of her survival lessons is The Broccoli Story:

At some point,Grandma Johnson came into possession of a packet (which was much larger back then) of broccoli seeds. Broccoli was a new-fangled, exotic (read “expensive”) thing. She was told to grow it just like cauliflower but without the bothersome leaf-blanching.

So, she bartered for the use of a field and grew it. The family took turns staying up at night to guard it with a BB gun (my Dad claims it was a BB anyway…). When it was ready, Grandma cooked just one head for the family to try as a treat. Then some local Amish, who were prone to helping widows, loaded the harvest into an ice-laden wagon. They took her into the nearest city, pulled up to the back doors of fancy restaurants and rich homes and sold it direct. The family lived for several months on the broccoli money.

TIP: If you don’t have land, or even a backyard, to grow your own food, have you every thought of bartering for that space on someone else’s property? You do the work, they get a percentage of the produce in return. Sharecropping on a very, very small scale! Read these tips from a gardening pro to help you become a better gardener so you can make this happen.

There are a whole bunch of lessons in this story but there’s one that people often miss, namely,  Grandma already knew how to grow cauliflower and save the seeds! She knew about soil, transplanting, cabbage worms, and that the whole cabbage family can’t take much heat.  Could she have availed herself of that amazing opportunity to provide for her family if she’d had to learn all that on the fly? I doubt it.

The experience was already there. She just needed the raw materials.

Ready-made seed banks aren’t the answer

That’s one reason I object to most ready-made seed banks, but I now find that I also object to the psychology behind them and lots of the advice on building your own. Thankfully, many of these commercially sold seed banks now include a book or spreadsheet on using and saving seeds, but that’s just book learnin’.

What is paramount is actually using the seeds and then replenishing them. This will accomplishes 4 things:

1. Real World gardening experience: The Good, The Bad And The WTH?

For reasons I’d love to have explained to me by a shrink or anthropologist, many people think that growing food is an instinctive, evolutionary skill that will just “be there” when they need it. Or perhaps that it’s not rocket science and they’ll be able to figure it out well enough. They’re willing to accept that you have to be taught to cook food, but not grow it. Most experienced gardeners are chuckling at the thought.

2. Replenishment mentality

Here at The Survival Mom and from any other responsible info source, replenishment of your food storage is stressed. Yes, it’s great to have canned tomatoes if there’s a societal collapse,  a prolonged job loss, or a pandemic-induced quarantine of your town really does happen, but that stored food will eventually run out.

Where will you be if you don’t know how to grow and preserve more tomatoes? Seeds are no different. The seeds in that #10 can of seeds are going to run out, and you’ve gotta be able to make more. Remember the first time you were left home by yourself? Drove a car without supervision? That’s how it feels to see seeds that you grew and saved yourself burst through the soil.

3. Fresh seeds

Seeds are literally living, breathing things. They are composed of a tiny dormant plant, fuel to keep the plant alive and a shell to protect both. Eventually, the fuel is expended and the plant is weakened beyond usefulness (seeds below 70% germination often lack the vigor to thrive), or it dies altogether. Like a hibernating animal, they need protection and are still burning fuel. Imagine if a bear accidentally hibernated for two winters instead of just one? If he survived,  he might not recover from the starvation no matter how much food there is now. If he hibernated under a tree instead of in the shelter of a deep cave, he wouldn’t survive at all. More about that below.

Maintaining a supply of fresh seeds is vital.

4. Food Independence

Remember the 80’s movie “Willow”? Our titular hero-farmer begins planting a field and is confronted by the village tyrant, Burglekutt, who demands to know where Willow got the seeds. Burglekutt  has a local monopoly on seeds and he hasn’t sold Willow any.

Willow responds that he saved the seeds himself, and this enrages Burglekutt even more than if Willow had simply bought them elsewhere. Because it’s not just about money. It’s about control. All dictators know that in order to truly control a populace you have to control a number of things, but the most vital are:

Education
Information
Food and water

Between gene-violating seed companies seeking everything but “food sustainability”, political correctness passing for science, a federal (and some state) government increasingly intent on “fairness” through infantilization, and the many-layered madness of modern farming; it’s never been more vital to control as much of our own food production as we can.

A wise man once said that the most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you.”  There’s a whole alphabet soup of agencies tasked with protecting/providing our education, medication, housing, food and water.  Because dependency worked out just swell for Native Americans.

Problems with ready-made seed banks

It’s tempting to just buy a container of seeds with the promise that they will be your “survival seeds.” From my own experiences, there are a number of problems with these read-made seed banks, all of which can be solved with a DIY seed bank.

1. Literal or implied claim of the seeds lasting 10 years or more.

Sure they will, in the freezer. What if that’s not an option? Some seeds have a shorter life than others and have to be replenished more often. If not kept in airtight containers in the freezer or fridge, onion and parsnip seeds die in just a year or two. Sweet corn in four, but worse, it fosters the buy-once-and-forget-it psychology.

2. “Grows 40,000 pounds of food!”

What’s the nutritional content of that food? Is there adequate protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber, oils and antioxidants? In order to make extravagant claims, many seed banks overuse very small seeds of water-heavy vegetables (celery, cukes, tomatoes) at the expense of larger seeds that produce nutrient-dense crops like flint corn, beans, and winter squash.

Besides nutritional deficiencies, this  can create problems reproducing healthy seed, especially in the case of corn. One seed bank I stumbled upon had only 30 dent corn seeds (you need at least 200) but had 1,500 eggplant seeds! Now, I love me an eggplant, but if my garden were my family’s primary food source, I’d trade 100 eggplant seeds for just 2 of Butternut squash.

3.  Not enough protein, whether it’s legumes, corn or other grains.

Yes, in case of an emergency, we would be using our existing food storage, but it’ll eventually have to be replenished. Fishing might be an option if you’re near uncontaminated water. As for hunting, imagine there’s mass evacuation and relocation or basic services and food supply systems have broken down. Can you imagine how many untrained yahoos are going to acquire a gun and go traipsing around shooting at anything that moves, including each other? They’ll over-harvest or scare away all the game, at least for a while, and it might not be safe to go out there until all those nimrods have starved or eliminated each other.

4. The frequent inclusion of Jack O’ lantern pumpkin seeds in seed banks.

I will never understand this. They’re bland, watery, and you can almost floss your teeth with the flesh. The seeds are no more nutritious or easier to oil-press than sugar pumpkins. The seeds are typically bigger, but not enough to justify a pumpkin that’s best relegated to the compost pile if you aren’t feeding them to animals. If you are using them as animal fodder or in homemade dog food, try using naked-seed varieties like Kakai or Lady Godiva. Fido gets the flesh; family gets the seeds. If the pumpkins are for the emotional comfort of children, they can still carve sugar pumpkins or other edible globe-shaped ones. When you make your own seed bank, you can be choosy about things like this.

5.  The advice that its okay to use hybrid seeds

This is usually from either well-meaning novices who think that seeds from hybrids just revert to their parents’ characteristics, or from people who feel passionately about landrace gardening because landrace varieties are more genetically diverse.

Seeds from hybrids sometimes produce usable fruit. Sometimes. They eventually stabilize into open-pollinated varieties eventually, and only in a large enough breeding population. To let hybrids go off on a botanical Spring Break and see what happens is a fun adventure and a great way to loosen the genetic corset of heirloom purity. But for the person who may have to actually feed their family (not just this year, but next year and beyond) from the seeds in a can or bucket, it’s probably safer to include multiple varieties of a vegetable and leave the tinkering for more stable times. Including right now.

6.  One-Region-Fits-All

Almost nobody outside the Southeast quadrant of the country has any desire to grow okra! There are places where flint corn takes too long and dent corn is preferred. Then there are people for whom life without hot peppers isn’t worth living. When you make your own seed bank, you can adapt to local and personal needs and tastes.

7.  Lack of genetic diversity

In the space occupied by 100 Contender bean seeds, you could instead fit smaller amounts of 2 or 3 different beans. What if Contender doesn’t do well in your area? With even a little more diversity, you’ve got options, including breeding new varieties. One of the reasons the commercially sold seed banks include only 1 variety is to cut down on packaging.

8.  Lastly, wasteful packaging

Much the same way that supermarket produce is bred for looks and shipping ease instead of for flavor and nutrition, seed packets aren’t designed for storage. They’re designed to show a picture, give a description/instructions, for all packets to be uniformly sized in a display rack, and to house an adequate amount of the largest seeds.

They’re fine for legumes, corn and squash, but far too big for everything else. When I started saving seeds I immediately noticed how much space was wasted on packaging. So I started cutting them down or using coin rolls. Craft and department stores now have teeny ziptop bags for beads. Love them! Then I apply labels with just a few words of description, relative to that veggie:

“Tomato: Opalka. Paste-type, Red, Determinate, 80 days”

The 2 packaging options on the right each contain the same volume as the original on the left.

That being said, we’re reminded by Jim Cobb that if we have to barter any seeds, a few in original manufacturers’ packaging (especially plastic) will fetch a higher price when traded to people who don’t know and trust us.

Assembling your own seed bank

The first step to creating a DIY seed bank is to decide what size container you want to use. Will it be a canning jar? A five gallon bucket? Vacuum sealed bag?

I recommend something at least the size of a #10 can or a half gallon jar. Check local restaurants for gallon/half-gallon glass pickle jars and bakeries for 10 liter (2.6 gallon) buckets. Often, you can get these for free.

In this case, bigger is better, but remember that your seed bank may have to be portable. Many people keep two seed banks in two sizes: one larger and more comprehensive and a more basic one that’s also more portable. When choosing a container, remember that the enemies of seeds are:

Moisture
Heat
Light
Oxygen
Time

Controlling the first four enemies will greatly slow down the fifth. The simplest solution for this is a cloth or brown paper lined glass jar kept in the freezer or fridge. If the freezer isn’t, or ceases to be, an option, a cool basement is better than nothing. Just make sure your container is completely watertight to keep out humidity.

Glass and metal containers are best since plastic is actually a lot more porous than one might think. You’ll just have to refresh the seeds more often. Notice I didn’t say, “replace’. You can buy or trade for more seeds periodically, but growing at least some of your own seeds makes more economic and self-sufficient sense. The seeds will also adapt to the local climate that way.

Read more: Here are a few tips for saving seeds, just to get you started.

Next, get a good seed saving book and start using it. Start now. Besides putting you on the path to true food independence, it will also give you seed storage guidelines and safe minimum populations for each seed in your collection. Seed To Seed  by Suzanne Ashworth is usually recommended and is a very good book, but people have different learning styles and I find it a bit dry and academic. It also dismisses growing many things outside typical zones, like sweet potatoes in New England (which I’ve been doing for years). My favorite seed book is The Complete Guide To Saving Seeds  by Robert and Cheryl Gough. It’s much better for visual learners,  has lots of charts and great sections on storage and vigor.

What to include in your DIY seed bank
Vegetables

Vegetables are naturally the first thing that springs to mind when you think about storing seeds for future food production. When you begin to put your own seed bank together, take into account all the above considerations plus a few more:

Mixed maturity dates

Let’s say you’re growing a very early tomato, like Stupice, and a late one, like Brandywine, and you get hail the size of ping-pong balls in mid-July that destroys a lot of your crops. (This happened to me!). Or, in a different scenario, Late Blight infests your area. This also happened to me. Because the Stupice tomatoes matured early in the season, they are already safely canned/dried/frozen long before you lose those Brandywines to the hail or blight.

This works in reverse, too. If you put out Stupice transplants in early May and a freak snowfall kills them, your Brandywines are still in the house, all snug and waiting for Memorial Day. The same goes for squash, corn and everything else.

Color, color, color!

There’s a whole world of corn outside the yellow/white varieties, and beans aren’t always green. Neither are “greens” for that matter. By mixing up the colors of produce in your seed bank, you’ll get lots of healthful antioxidants, but also sanity-saving variety.

Stuff you don’t usually eat

I can live very well without turnips, but I keep them in my seed bank because they store well over winter and the cabbage family is ridiculously nutritious. If there are seeds for produce that you don’t usually eat or care for much, perhaps save just a few for family, barter, bribes or to get used to because they have their charms.

Which brings us to…

No-process crops

There’s a lot more to live storage than traditional “root cellar” crops like potatoes and onions. Many other crops do better outside the cellar, like squash and garlic. Did you know that there are melons that keep until Christmas?  “Stowell’s Evergreen” sweet corn used to be pulled up when ripe and the whole plant hung upside down to preserve in a semi-fresh state. Such crops don’t require precious water to reconstitute and would be life savers if it weren’t possible to can and freeze. It’s worth researching a wide variety of vegetables to learn about tips like this.

Other seeds to save besides vegetables

Man cannot live by veggies alone, or food alone, for that matter. It’s a good idea to make room for some non-veggie foods and non-food item. Instead of hunting far and wide, nearly everything discussed below can be found at Sustainable Seeds and/or Bountiful Gardens, so I’ll just link to other sources where appropriate.

Grains

Throughout history, villages that prospered and grew into civilizations have shared several commonalities. One of them is harnessing the power of grains. Grains are intensely nutritious, easily grown, easily stored, and provide much more than flour for baking. They can be used for fuel, medicine, as a cover crop, animal feed/bedding, roofing, insulation, garden mulch, alcohol and more.

A very small amount of seed can produce a small crop and plenty of more seed for next year, so it’s space-effective to store at least two kinds.  Wheat is the obvious choice, but there are a lot more to choose from. Small-Scale Grain Raising is the definitive guide and very readable.

Fruits

We don’t normally grow bramble, shrub, and tree fruits from seed because the offspring might be different than the parents and it takes so darn long to even find out! But it is an option for the long-term, especially in the case of fruits that are medicinal (elderberry, cranberry) or have a special quality (quince or apple for pectin).

Medicine

Store seeds for at least five different medicinal plants and have one be an anti-viral. I favor medicinal plants that have other uses, such as cranberries that support prostate health and licorice as an anti-inflammatory. Make sure you have something to address specific health concerns in your family. For instance, one of the grains I store is medicinal in my life, hulless oats. Both my parents had multiple heart attacks and died young of heart disease.  I eat oats like it’s my job.

One mom grows sweet orange trees specifically for their medicinal purposes.

Oil

I know it’s hard for Americans to imagine struggling to get enough fat, but it can be a real problem in long-term crises like war and pandemic. There are now small, relatively inexpensive and very effective home oil presses.   A host of plants can be pressed for oil including multi-use plants like pumpkins and flax. Hopi Dye Sunflower provides purple dye, oil, and food. Trifecta!

Sweeteners

Natural sweeteners can be made from sorghum, stevia, maple trees, and sugar beets. This is especially important if you are concerned about genetically engineered (GE) crops, since sugar beets are being targeted by GE. Making sugar from the beets is fairly easy, and the beets can also be used like a vegetable or as animal fodder.

Fibers and Dyes

Ever notice how much leather they wear in both American frontier and post-collapse movies? It’s not a fashion statement. It’s a predictable side effect of a population in transition. How much more comfortable would our family be (and how much more valuable would we be to society) if we had the option of producing cloth?

Cotton is an obvious and familiar choice but has also been heavily impacted by GE, so get seeds from a company that’s organic or in an area where cotton isn’t commercially produced. And how much fun is it that cotton comes in  colors besides white?

After researching how to make linen from flax, I understood why linen has historically been so expensive. It makes cotton production look like a relaxing weekend hobby! But that’s why it would be so valuable for sale or barter.

As for dye plants, the choices are vast  and many of them are also edible or medicinal.

Useful Objects

Here are just a few suggestions for seeds that produce plants that, in turn, produce handy items to have on hand:

Walking Stick Kale
Loofah sponges
Dead Man’s Fingers for latex
Bayberries for candle wax
Gourds in useful shapes (Dipper, Bushel, etc)
Jute for rope
Non-invasive bamboo

Last but not least, color-indicating silica gel to keep seeds dry. Moisture is seeds’ biggest enemy and powdered milk and other homemade desiccants really don’t do much. If the gel beads get saturated with moisture, the non-toxic dye turns dark and they can be re-dried in the oven and reused!

Color indicating silica gel

Food storage advice always includes the instruction to, “Store what you use and use what you store”. That includes storing, using and replenishing your own seeds, now more than ever.

We’ve all seen films of desperate mobs surrounding the aid trucks after a disaster, or tyrant-afflicted masses driven to riot, and we believe that having some cans of food on a shelf will keep us out of the fray. They will. For a while. But those supplies will eventually run out. Along with those cans on a shelf you need a DIY seed bank, seeds in a jar that will give you more options both now and later.

More gardening resources for you

All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan
The Complete Guide to Saving Seeds by Robert and Cheryl Gough
Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre by Brett L. Markham
Grow Your Own Groceries website
Seeds of the Month Club website
The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible by Edward C. Smith
The Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook by Jennifer Kujawski

The post Survival Mom DIY: Assemble Your Own Seed Bank by Beth Johnson appeared first on The Survival Mom. Be sure to check it out!

Freeze-Dried Yogurt: A Tutorial

I asked a few of my friends what they thought of when they heard the words, “freeze-fried yogurt.” One said, “Outer-spacey astronaut food.” The other said, “Those Gerber things for babies.”

It may sound spacey and weird, but don’t underestimate the power of freeze-dried yogurt bites. They are delicious, handy, and great for bribing children to do their chores. Would it be too much to believe if I told you freeze-dried yogurt was good for you, too?

A word about  yogurt’s health benefits

Yogurt in general has a number of health benefits. The nutritional value of milk is well-known, but does not have a very long shelf-life as regular, straight-from-the-cow milk. Additionally, many people are allergic to one or more substances commonly found in milk. The biological process by which it is made breaks down a lot of the hard-to-digest enzymes and proteins found in milk, so many people who are lactose intolerant or have other milk-related sensitivities can eat yogurt without getting ill. In this way, you could argue that yogurt is milk, only better.

Another great health benefit of yogurt is the live cultures found therein. The term “live cultures” refers to the presence of live bacteria. These keep your gut populated with healthful microflora that keep you healthy, and fight off the evil bugs that cause the 24-hour flu. Freezing yogurt destroys the live bacteria, but due to the nature of the freeze-drying process, some brands of freeze-dried yogurt do contain live bacteria. Kept dry, the cultures are in a dormant state . If reconstituted, the bacteria “wake up,” and function just as well as those which have not been freeze-dried.

(Ever thought of making your own yogurt? Try making some from powdered milk!)

Yogurt for food storage

To the best of my knowledge, plain freeze-dried yogurt is not available from any manufacturers in #10 cans to be used as a starter for making yogurt at home. You can, however, purchase starter cultures that will keep for up to two years in the freezer. These are available from specialty online retailers as well as Amazon.

Conventional yogurt keeps better than plain milk, but even yogurt is not well-adapted to long-term storage – at least not without some commitment. If you are going to be making your own yogurt in a situation that would not allow you to buy it in convenient little cups at the grocery store, you need to either have commercial starter culture on hand and/ or making a new batch every 1-2 weeks.

Freeze-dried yogurt can be a good solution because of its long shelf life. Under ideal conditions, it can be expected to last 25 years or more in an unopened can. Once opened, though, store it in a dry location because it is affected by humidity. You’ll get chewy yogurt bites that might clump together rather than crunchy bites!

Reconstituting freeze-dried yogurt to be used as actual yogurt is probably the most pedestrian thing to do with it, but as with most food storage items, it can be used for much more than just that! Try this recipe for trail mix:

Yogurt Trail Mix

2 cups yogurt bites (any flavor)

1 cups peanuts or almonds

1/2 cups hulled sunflower seeds

1/2 cups dried cherries or craisins

1 cup Freeze-Dried Fruit (I prefer strawberry slices.)

Combine all ingredients. Pre-package in smaller, snack-sized bags for school lunches, hiking, or road trips. The addition of yogurt bites will mean your kids will pick out something other than M&Ms from the rest of the trail mix. On the balance, I’d rather they pick out yogurt than chocolate.

Freeze-dried yogurt bites are available in a wide variety of flavors:

Blueberry
Banana
Caramel
Cherry
Pomegranate
Raspberry
Strawberry
Vanilla
…and a few more, depending on the company.

At my house, these are prized above candy. On more than one occasion have I had to discipline a child for sneaking them without permission. Right now, the blueberry flavor are the reigning favorite and are referred to as “purples.” All freeze-dried yogurt are “purples,” even when they are pink or yellow.

Straight from the can, combined with other goodies as a snack mix, added to a smoothie mixture or a bowl of cereal, or reconstituted for a cup of creamy yogurt, I recommend freeze-dried yogurt.

 

The post Freeze-Dried Yogurt: A Tutorial by Beth Buck appeared first on The Survival Mom. Be sure to check it out!