This simple rain barrel configuration collects over 825 gallons of water from the rain gutter on one house. Using PVC pipes, these inexpensive 55-gallon plastic barrels are connected together in an overflow system, enabling
I didn't realize it has been so long since I updated my blog. The weather has warmed up a bit so we've been working outside. We're leaving soon for our second annual trip to Lake Mead in Nevada. It will be nice to get out of the snow and ice for awhile. The warm wather is nice temperature wise but it melts the snow down into ice which is a pain (expecially if you fall). When we feed the buffalo we have to wear our ice cleats which, while they keep you from sliding (usually!) they aren't comfortable. Even with them you have to be careful. It'll be so good to be able to walk around outside without fear of slipping or falling. We decided to take the little trailer and my motorcycle with us to Lake Mead this year so we had to get a license for the trailer. They socked us $89.00 for license and registration fees. It's light duty two wheel, flatbed trailer with a 1/2 ton rating. Susan and I can lift it off the ground by ourselves! I can see why they have a sign on the door of the county offices saying no firearms allowed. They don't want any competition while robbing you blind. Okay, rant off! I've got a lot of pictures on this posting so I better get busy here ... The place we normally get water has a frozen hydrant so we used alternate sources. This is our youngest son filling them at the fire department. We also went to the neighbors one day when they had their pump running. It's only a mile each way to them so that works out well. We've been getting rain and melted snow for wash water so the plastic jugs last awhile before they need refilled. Susan's been canning all kinds of food for our trip. We plan on being gone a couple of months and are trying to bring everything we need except gasoline with us. We won't have refrigeration so she's canning butter (above) and several other dairy type foods to take with us. She's using small jars so that when we open them we'll be able to use them up before they spoil. This is Cream Cheese. It cans up beautifully. When you open it you can spoon it out with a knife or spoon to spread it on whatever. This is cheddar cheese. These are the "before" pictures of the cram cheese, cheddar cheese and cottage cheese. She's been heating up the lids to soften the seals prior to placing them on the jars. The jar on thefar left is cottage cheese. It's the first time canning it so she only tried one jar. The one in the center is cream cheese. The cottage cheese turned watery so she's using it in lasagne for dinner tonight. We won't can anymore until we find a better way. And egg-nog prior to canning. She canned several jars of sausage patties to eat on our trip. You can eat them cold out of the jar or heat them up or crumble them for use in gravy or cassarole type dishes. She also canned some bacon for the trip. She cuts them in half then rolls them up in parchment paper before putting them in the canning jars. We save our old lids to use them on jars with dried food. This is how Susan keeps them separated and organized. Once the jars seal you can take the rings off and use them on the next load of jars. In a clockwise direction starting with the top left container she has large rings, small rings, large lids and small lids. She always uses new lids when canning. She made a large pot of beans. We'll have beans and bisquits for dinner (bisquits on the right) and she's also dehydrating the extra beans for later use on out trip. When you cook them then dehydrate them they're kind of like "minute beans." Just add water and heat them up and they're ready to eat. You can also mash them up then rehydrate them and make refried beans. The first batch dried and ready for packing. There will be several more trays to dry yet before we're finished. These are dehydrated blueberries. What is in this pan was once five pounds of frozen blueberries. I've been using the warm weather to get the paneling in the Uhaul. There will be shelves where the masonite is. Since the masonite is about 1/4 the cost of the panelling we use it where there'll be shelves or cabinets. I'm wiring one of the electrical outlets in this photo. Susan has the curtains sewed and ready to put in the Uhaul. Some of what we're taking on the trip with us. Were planning on staying about two months once we get there. After that it will be too hot there for us "cold country" pansies. We'll be taking the Coleman camp oven. The oven is small so Susan got out some of her smaller baking pans. We;re using plastic buckets to store things in. They stack well, are air tight, and are relatively tough. Time to dig the motorcycle out and get it loaded up. I'm digging a trench down to the ground behind the MC so we can roll it backwards once it's free. There is ice around the bottom of the tarp. We had to break enough free to get the tarp loose. The dog decide she wanted to dig too. Too bad I can't channel some of that enthusiasm a more useful direction! We got it free then walked it down the path to the back of the trailer. We had the trailer propped against a tree so Susan and I had to roll it back on it's wheels and pull it over to the Cherokee. The motorcycle strapped and tied down with a bicycle on each side. If it makes to the pavement it should make it anywhere. Our road is in bad shape this year. We're hoping spring break-up is over when we get back. We had a wet fall and lots of very cold weather over the winter. That usually means frozen ground and spring flooding plus with the ground saturated if the wind blows much when it thaws we'll have trees falling down everywhere. We already have some serious frost heaves on the paved road leading into Fortine and Highway 93 is in bad shape with lots of potholes in the pavement. Susan making bisquits, sausage and sausage gravy for breakfast. That's just me doing some laundry. I was working outside so whenever I came in I'd swish the clothes a bit. When I finished washing I dumped the water and put clean water in for the rinse. I wrung them by hand and hung them inside to dry overnight. Me writing. I try to get a couple hours of writing in every day. On days I can't work outside I write more. On nice days I write less and work outside more.
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by Tristan Miske My parents and my parents-in-law do crazy things like rafting or kayaking wild rivers, and backpacking and camping and things like that. They've been trying to find a truly waterproof way to pack a few emergency supplies, so I decided to experiment. I've heard of using small containers like Altoid mint tins or vitamin bottles, and probably a few others I can't think of right now. But after watching guys at work, and other places where I hang out, throwing away chewing tobacco cans I decided to give them a try. For the record (mother, are you listening?) I don't chew tobacco, I swear they're someone else's cans. I started off by laying a book of matches in the bottom of the can. Then I dug some dryer lint out of the trash can in our laundry room. I know I could have soaked the dryer lint in Vaseline or something else to make it kind of like a fire starter but I thought it might get the matches gooey and make it hard to light them. Before I stuffed the dryer lint in the can I took some of it outside and lit it to see how well it caught fire and how good it burned. It passed the test, so here it is, nestled in the can with the matches underneath it. The top part of these cans have a separate storage space. It's supposed to be a place to discard 'used' chew, if you need a place to put it. I put four ibuprofen tablet in there, but you can put other pain relievers such as aspirin or Tylenol in there, or small hard candies for emergency energy. If you're diabetic the candies might be a good sugar fix if your blood sugar drops. That might happen if you are unexpectedly in the wilderness longer than you planned. I'm not real familiar with diabetes, so I'm just talking from vague things I've picked up along the way. I'm barely an adult, so don't be too hard on me. I do take preparedness seriously though. Now time for the submersion test. Into the sink and then I filled the sink with water. But...it floated. Well, that's actually a good thing, because if, for example, you're on a wild river and you dump into the water and your little kit gets away, it floats. But I wanted to see if it was really watertight, so I forced it under the water. After a few minutes of staring vacantly at it I weighted it down with something and left it for a while. When I came back I opened it up and the contents were still dry. I made up two more and submerged them as well, to make sure it wasn't just the first can that was water tight. All three cans emerged from the water with dry contents. Knowing how invisible something like this little can could be on a river or lake, I tied some of this marker tape around the can. First one direction, then the other, and tied them together. That gives the can visibility. If you're staying on dry land you might not want to use the bright tape around it, but remember, it's possible to fall into water when you're not expecting to. I have...um, family members, who have fallen into streams while crossing on downed trees. If they needed to make a fire to dry out clothes and warm up, they would have this handy little kit to start a fire with. If they got bruised up in the fall, they could make use of the ibuprofen. If the can fell out of a pocket, they could find it and retrieve it, and hopefully not fall in again getting the can out of the water. I'm thinking of other things that could be put in these little cans. A small compass maybe, and a map printed as small as legible and folded to fit in the can. No one plans to get lost, but it can happen. I'm on Search & Rescue, and we hear that a lot. Another thing that could go in the can is a fish hook and about a 10' length of fishing line coiled up and tied. Fishing line takes up almost no space. If you get strong enough fishing line you could use it for snares for small animals, doubling it if you need too. But then we're talking about survivial food for the seriously lost folks. If I come up with more cool combinations for the kit, I'll send in updates to be added to this post. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Miske, for this information. It's always nice to see the younger generation taking preparedness seriously and doing things like this. Keep up the good work, and please do send in more as you experiment. Please leave comments or questions below, or email them to: [email protected] Susan and the Poverty Prepping team
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Well for starters, my name is April. I live in MIchigan, where we are currently covered in snow! We got pounded on this last week! I have a wonderful husband (David) and a beautiful daughter (Jaydin). I'm here because in light of the economy, the government, the rise in the cost of food, and just wanting to be self reliant I have decided to experiment with "off the grid" living. Some of you are probably like "woah this girl is one of those" and click off the page, but let me say I am NOT an extremest. It pretty much boils down to the fact that I want to make sure I can take care of me and mine if something does happen that would force us to rely on living that is different that what I am living today. Not to mention I believe God wants us to be prepared: Proverbs 27:12 “A prudent person foresees the danger ahead and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.” So please join me as I try, and probably fail, at learning to be self reliant & research "off the grid" living. Also keep in mind, money is an issue for me, therefore I will be "prepping" in spurts and do what I can when I can. I started stocking up on a few items about 2 weeks ago. These are a few of the things I bought along with my first batches of dehydrated food. I purchased 1- 16oz bag of dried pinto beans, 1-16 oz bag of dried split peas, 2 containers of aspirin 2 containers of triple antibiotic ointment, and 2 containers of salt with iodine. I then dehydrated about a half package of each, celery and carrots (in the small jars to the left). I also dehydrated mushrooms (fresh white button) and sliced potatoes. I feel pretty satisfied with this as I had completed this within 2 days of deciding to embark on this journey. Also because it only cost me about 10 dollars. FYI the Aspirin and triple antibiotic ointment are in the 88 cent section near the pharmacy in Walmart, and everything else I either had, or bought on sale. I found an awesome site that gives pretty informative articles on off the grid living and a list of supplies to find at the grocery store as survival food. The list can be found here: http://offgridsurvival.com/survivalfood/
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Julia here! Do you cook with an iron skillet? Iron skillets are one of the most wonderful tools you can use in your kitchen! And here are a few reasons why... Health Benefit #1- Use Less Cooking Oil! That lovely sheen on cast-iron cookware is the sign of a well-seasoned pan, which renders it virtually nonstick. The good news about this is that you won’t need to use oodles of high-calorie oil to cook your tasty foods like potatoes, veggies, chicken, and more. :D We usually use a dab of butter on our antique frying pan, instead of cooking oil. I've heard it's not best to mix butter and cooking oil when seasoning one skillet, and we use butter because we usually cook scrambled eggs in our antique pan. :) BTW, To clean cast iron, never use soap. This will strip the pan of its natural seasoning.Simply scrub or scrape your skillet with a washcloth or a brush and hot water and dry it completely. (We actually scrape ours off with a small square of plastic that came with our pizza stone.) :D One way to season your cast-iron skillet is to cover the bottom of the pan with a thick layer of kosher salt and a half inch of cooking oil, then heat until the oil starts to smoke. Carefully pour the salt and oil into a bowl, then use a ball of paper towels to rub the inside of the pan until it is smooth. If you're using butter, heat a small amount of butter in the pan until it's good and sizzled, then wipe clean with paper towels. (why paper towels? So you can discard them after use.) If you have purchased a new iron skillet, it may take a few times before it's seasoned enough to use. Health Benefit #2- Avoid Harmful Chemicals. Hang onto your hats, this is the scary part! The repellent coating that keeps food from sticking to nonstick pots and pans contains PFCs (perfluorocarbons), a chemical that’s linked to liver damage, cancer, developmental problems and, according to one 2011 study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, early menopause. (YUCK. And we're using this regularly?) PFCs get released—and inhaled—from nonstick pans in the form of fumes when pans are heated on high heat. Likewise, we can ingest them when the surface of the pan gets scratched. Both regular and ceramic-coated cast-iron pans are great alternatives to nonstick pans for this reason. We actually have a few nonstick frying pans still, but we're looking into replacing them for this very reason, and keeping an eye out at estate sales and yard sales for any unwanted iron skillets. :D Health Benefit #3- Solve Iron Deficiency! Did you know nearly 10% of American women are iron-deficient? (Neither did I, until I looked it up) Gloria (my dear mom and co-blogger) has struggled with iron deficiency, and I think cooking with our skillet has helped a lot. Her last blood-work report showed normal iron levels, even without her taking any iron supplements! You see, while cast iron doesn’t leach chemicals, it can leach some iron into your food...and that’s a good thing. :) Cooking food, especially something acidic like tomato sauce in a cast-iron skillet can increase iron content by as much as 20 times! Now, this isn't a health tip, it's a frugal one - using an iron skillet means you can decrease your pan replacement costs by 100%! THEY LAST FOREVER. :D So, what are you waiting for?! Dig out that iron skillet (or beg, borrow or snatch one from your Aunt Bea) and cook something great and guilt-free for yourself today. :D You will find us linked up at some of these fine sites. More info about skillets here. :)
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