February Prepping 2020

Our most recent Costco order arrived (barged from Seattle), about $650. All the components have been paid for and shipped for our 18 panel solar system. Stocked up on meds when we lived and worked in India. House paid off a couple of years ago. Second greenhouse footings went in the end of December. Need a break in the weather to make further progress. 14x20 pantry addition was completed summer before last, and is filled. Goats, chickens, ducks, geese, pigs all producing more of themselves. Crab traps, shrimp traps, halibut rods, salmon rods, three boats, three chainsaws, roof catchment water supply, hot water plumbed through the wood cookstove, gravity water supply backup, non-electric appliances backups for electrical appliances, smoke house, three canners, 3,000 canning jars/lids, firearms and ammo, three years of firewood cut, ever expanding garden/growing areas. Never done prepping.

A word to the wise.......   Prep food, water, fuel, sanitary products and pet food before anything else. These will be the mostly needed if things go south.


Food prices are up 20% compared to this time last year, Xinhua reported.


Catherine Thorbecke
10 February 2020, 16:40

Source and full article:   https://abcnews.go.com/Business/food-prices-skyrocket-china-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/story?id=68883484

For those looking to find a way to use canned tuna in different ways, may I offer a slightly adjusted recipe my Grandmother taught me. She used salted cod but tuna works just as well.

1 cup of mashed potato (flakes work)
1 egg (dried egg works)
1 -2 cans tuna fish drained
1/4 flour or potato starch
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for frying.

Mix all ingredients until well combined. Make into small patties (I make them thin but you could just as well do them burger size). Fry until crispy in about 1/4" of oil.

Feeds 4

Oh and everyone should have tooth floss in preps - all kinds of uses. A dentist friend on a canoe trip stitched his calf (torn wide open on rocks) closed with it (they were in timbuck3 - I wouldn't recommend trying that at home!).
Cheap, small... and strong!

Lonewolf wrote: Startimg to grow some food indoors. Not only edible but will occupy some quality time if i need to SIP. Accidently discovered this after puttimg an organic celery butt end in a dish with water and iy regrew celery. Found out a lot of food we buy can be regrown indoors.

I’ve been looking for some ideas on this also, to know what inside gardening preps to pick up. Maybe an indoor grow light? (No south facing windows). I’ve also seen where people open slits in a back of potting soil and directly plant. Things like lettuce grows quickly.

Also- please do some homework on sprouting your dried garbanzo beans/chock peas in water for more nutrients/enzymes, takes just a couple days. I added dried garbanzo/chick peas to my supplies especially for sprouting purposes!

Penham wrote: I always prep more of what we normally eat, then I do get some additional things like canned meats. Which I don't usually use a lot of canned meats I do use canned chicken for casseroles and chicken salad sandwiches, etc. So it won't get wasted, I just stock up on more. You can even buy a whole chicken in a can.

I bottle chickens, it's really easy to do and they last for up to 2 years at room temperature. They do look awful in the jars though - like laboratory specimens. I have also bottled an entire cow which took 174 quart jars. That was alot of work but at the time I had no freezer space.

Love this idea KiwiMom. Any brand seed that performs better in the pan than another?
Lonewolf great storage idea! How do you prepare them before freezing? Water tight jar? Sealer bag? Where do you order them?
(I’ve sprouted chick peas in a mason jar/canning jar before).

Some others earlier in this thread were mentioning things about health. I've been having issues with my gallbladder for a couple years, and just this last Sunday ended up back in the ER over it. The ER surgeon wanted to take it out, so I let him (in the past I've been resistant to having it removed). They did say I could go home and think about it if I wanted to, but I went ahead and let them take it. I figured it's best not to wait and have to go back to the ER later if they are overwhelmed with sick people from this corona virus. Thankfully it's not really here yet, and hopefully wont ever be. But it did factor in my decision to let them go ahead and take my gallbladder out. It turned out to be a good decision too, the surgeon said it was rotten. I'm home recovering now. And it's one less thing for me to worry about. Also I've been having dental appointments to make sure all my teeth are okay, and had all my old fillings replaced. Just sharing so others can think about these things too. It may not be good to delay getting things taken care of for your health/dental. It's probably especially good to avoid urgent care centers and ERs in the future if people start getting sick here. Sorry if this doesn't make much sense, I blame the pain meds.


EDIT: Also when I was in the ER my husband and I overheard nurses talking about people coming into the ER with large purses and stealing many boxes of their N95 masks! Kaiser Southern California. Usually Kaiser has masks available everywhere too in their waiting rooms, you can just grab one and put it on. None were found when we were there. All gone.

We have an indoor grow tent, currently have 10 tomato plants growing We also have grow lights in the kitchen.

Bought some winter clothes/boots. I could have lasted the rest of this winter, but need some more in case supplies were disrupted over summer next autumn/fall.

Good thing I went today, bought the last of the boots in my size. Already the shelves were full of spring wear. At least the winter underwear were at a discount price!

I am so jealous, FluMom. I want one!

Witchy, that is the best possible prep. The immobile suffer the biggest death rates of pneumonia sufferers.

OMG, your're right.

I have never seen a bottled chicken, much less a bottled cow before.

There is so much for me to learn and do about prepping.

http://www.utahpreppers.com/2008/11/canning-bottling-chicken/

It took 2 days of 12 hours a day, and then clean up on day 3 when I washed out the pressure cookers and washed the outside of all the sealed jars ready to put on the shelves. I minced half the cow and cubed the other half. I kept the fillets and best steaks as steaks and squeezed those into the freezer. I turned the offal into faggots.

I only bottled her because she broke her hip and she was a beautiful organic grass fed dairy cow and I didn't want to waste her. She was shot and butchered 20 minutes after the vet confirmed the broken hip. Thankfully she didn't suffer long.

The very best pressure cookers are the All American ones on Amazon. They are fantastic, last forever and have not rubberised gaskets to corrode. I have them in 3 different sizes. I really want the biggest one but to get it here including taxes and freight is over $1000 US. If any of us ever go to the States, we'll be bringing one back in lieu of a suitcase.

I take it all you Americans have discovered Lehmans.com

It's the most amazing store for buying off grid living items. If I lived in the states I'd shop there all the time. I've a shipment of books from them but can't bring over some of the really fun stuff. They used to sell a device call a Henry Washer which was an off grid washing maching. It was very expensive but looked so lovely. I envy you all your shopping opportunities!!!!

Techno lol I also bought two toilet plungers to do the agitation by hand they cost 4.00 ea. LOL been planning this washer for years hope I never have to use it.

Great minds bought a case of 5 reams but need to get ink too.

Thanks I will check it out and make mine like the old time ones. Easy I will drill some holes in my plungers, great suggestion...thank you big time!

Well....sprouting seeds added and hand washer plunger after the past few helpful posts! (My credit card has taken a beating as I am sure many of yours may have.) I started with water, then food, OTC medical supplies, lighting, paper products, cleaning supplies, in that order, just in the past few weeks. With the ongoing increase in numbers, I feel the need to start adding more volume to my food staples (sugar, coffee, rice) and try to add a few luxuries. Also, there will be a run in bleach I suspect next (and disinfectant wipes- I’ve bought cheap white wash clothes for disinfecting from a dedicated bleach water buckets ).   We do not eat canned foods with pumpkin and chili beans as the exception, but now that’s sort of my defcon 5 last add for convenience of the power goes out. Last on the list is non hybrid seeds for container gardening.

Any advice... or thoughts?
Living in a suburban/urban area, we should probably consider eating the foods that take the most energy to prepare, just in case there’s a power interruption? ie- dry beans versus canned. 60 minute rice versus quick rice etc.

When do you fill your water storage containers? I feel like that is one of the last steps also before SIP or risk for loss of services. Rotating the water possibly every few days-refilling each day a few containers.

8 drops or 1/4 teaspoon of bleach to a gallon, if the water is clear. That's for bleach that is 5.25-8.25% chlorine. Mix thoroughly and let stand 60 minutes before drinking.

Oh my gosh, I am so glad you started talking about water and bleach! We just refilled our giant 50-gallon container and 30-gallon drum that live in our garage. My husband bleached them before filling them to disinfect them, then rinsed them out well, but since they’ll be in the desert heat all summer, I feel that they should have bleach added to the hose water we filled them with. So 1/4 tsp per gallon? 12.5 tsp would be enough to keep 50 gallons clean?

THANK YOU!

Water, very important. See these lines for water in China now:

https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1227996598678016000

I bought a nice little Sawyer water filter, straw style, but can hook up to filter 100,000 gallons it says. Pretty cheap..$20