Final Prepper

Storage-Friendly Survival Gardening

When we sit down with the goal to be prepared and self-sufficient, we have to balance a lot. We already walk tightropes between work and home life in many cases. Adding a pursuit that could really be its own full-time job only makes things harder. The self-sufficiency arm alone could occupy a full work week, and for some, the future looms as a period when we may have to increase our physical vigilance on top of producing our own food, medicine, and supplies.

There are methods we can use to make gardens maintenance-friendly, and plant selections can ease it further. In some cases, there are plants that grow with few inputs and are specific to our regions. In other cases, we can also decrease our labors in a work-heavy and typically strength-sapping hot season by making selections that ease the other side of growing and harvesting.

Processing & Storage

Whether it’s annuals, an annual veggie garden, or perennials, whatever methods for production we choose, it takes time away from our daily lives. Then our produce needs to be processed, one way or another.

Even now when most lives are relatively easy due to power tools, refrigeration, and transportation, we tend to be pretty busy. I think most of us expect that even without the tug of paying jobs and some of the extracurricular activities that suck up our time, a life “after” will be just as busy and in some or many cases, even more labor-intensive.

When we examine that “labor” word in regards to processing food, don’t forget that it’s not only the physical act of shelling beans and field peas, and our chosen method for threshing and winnowing grains or stripping corn cobs, or stewing tomatoes and slicing up zucchini. Most storage methods – even the truly historic methods – call for supplies: canners, jars, copious lids, a dehydrator or outdoor netted racks of some sort (and cooperative weather), a cold smoker, or things like salt, sugar, pectin, and rennet we either have to stock or figure out how to produce.

When we process something, we also regularly have to provide fuel. Besides water and gardening, I think fuel consumption for household processes is one of the most underrated and underestimated aspects for preppers.

If we can eliminate some of the burdens of processing foods for storage, we can eliminate not only some of the draws on our valuable time but also limit some of the constant drains on supplies and give us at least a little bit of backup in case our supplies are damaged or consumed.

Happily, we can create those backups pretty easily, by adding traditional storage or “cellar” crops to our garden and orchard plans. They basically go from field to storage, poof, done.

I’ll skip over beans and cereals this time because they really need their own articles. Instead, I’ll stick with the veggies and fruits that are easiest to store without much if any processing.

Squashes

Squashes are among the best-known storage crops. Autumn or winter squashes are the longer-growing, thicker-skinned cucurbits. It’s those tough hides we have to work through that let us set them on a shelf and walk away, for weeks or months on end. There’s a long, long list from all climates that includes kabocha, spaghetti, Kuri, Hubbard squashes, the gourds, and pumpkins.

Squash is ready for storage when the rinds darken, and you can’t punch a fingernail through them. The plants sometimes cue us that they’re ready by yellowing and dying back a bit, and in many cases, the vines will go woody. We then cut them off with a stub of stem attached, brush any soil or debris loose, and let those thick skins toughen up more with a 1-2 week cure in a 75-80 warm, somewhat dry space, up off the ground. They can be cured in the field, propped up, but there are risks there that a barn or crib can help eliminate.

Then they go into a slightly humid space – the average basement, household pantry, spare bedroom or office, and dry cellar is fine. Some will store for 6-8 weeks even at 60-75 degrees, while others will only store that long even at the ideal 45-60 degrees. Some like Hopi and fully-matured tromboncino will store for a full year or longer.

The downside to the winter squashes is that they tend to take a full season to grow and only produce a few to a handful of fruits per plant, compared to the tender summer squashes that can be produced in 55-65 days and readily fill a laundry basket when they’re picked often and early.

Humid Sand-Box Crops

Some of our storage crops like it damp. It keeps them from shriveling up and browning, or wilting into rot. We can create humidity with damp sand or sawdust, layering in root veggies like rutabaga/swede, turnips, beets, parsnips, carrots, and celeriac. The root veggies are also ideal candidates for burying in a wooden crate outside once temperatures drop.

We can also use damp boxes to store cabbage, celery, and leeks.

For them, shallower trays work well, because we’re going to cut them with a section of their stems still attached, and “plant” those stems into the sand or sawdust. The veggies will then wick up moisture that lets them be stored for weeks or months.

They’ll store longer if we can keep them between about 35 and 45 degrees, but even 55-60 degrees can significantly extend their shelf lives. If we can’t come up with a damp box or pit for them, we can also individually wrap them in plastic to help hold in moisture. (And now you have a justification for keeping every plastic grocery bag that crosses your path.)

Tree Fruits

Nuts have to be the next-best known storage crops, and right there with them are apples and pears.

Modern supermarket apple varieties don’t store quite as long or as well in many cases, with the exception of Granny Smith that will sit on a counter for weeks and extend into a month and longer if we drop the temperatures.

There are still storage apples out there although we have to work harder to find them. Braeburn and Pippin are examples of surviving apples that were actually intended to sit around in storage for a while, sweetening and softening over time. We can also turn to the harder baking, cider, and applesauce apples like Winesap.

We’ll have better luck storing the tart apples than the sweets and the firm-crisp apples and pears over softer varieties. Mid-and late-season varieties are also more storage-friendly, usually, and can provide us with fresh fruit later in the season.

Apples will do best in a cool, 40-65 degree storage space, and will do better yet if we save some newspaper and phone book pages to wrap them in and stick them on racks with 0.5-1” of air space between each fruit and each layer.

Pears will be even happier if they’re given the same treatment but an even colder space – just above freezing up to about 50 degrees. Pears will also commonly benefit from a cure period after they’re harvested.

Both pears and apples like storage with some humidity, which makes them good candidates for storage above some of our damp boxes, but only the leafy veg boxes. The root veggies are pretty sensitive to the ethylene released by fruits.

Medlars that “blat” (rot) is another example of a tree fruit that we don’t have to rush around processing during some of the busiest times of the year. It’s an acquired taste and texture, ever so slightly reminiscent of apple butter, but especially if we want to keep our food production hidden in plain sight, medlars may be a nice choice for us.

Nuts are pretty easy, even soft-shelled peanuts. Pick, brush, stack in a dry place, move on.

One thing to note is that walnuts that are removed from their husks will be less tart/bitter than those that aren’t processed at all. On the other hand, one of the “cheat” ways to remove that husk is to just stack them up in a bag until it rots and can just be scrubbed, or to leave them in water until the husk rots and drops away.

Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes

Potatoes and sweet potatoes need to make it through our winters and in many cases all the way through the earliest parts of spring, so we have even more reason to start practicing with them as soon as possible. See, they’re not really flowering seed producers at this stage in evolution, and it takes a while for seed starts to get going, just like tomatoes. We’re going to have to cut potatoes and let them callous, and grow starts from them if we want to continue reaping potatoes and sweet potatoes in a world without Tractor Supply and Baker Creek.

After harvest, both sweet potatoes and true potatoes are brushed off, then cured.

Potatoes cure best at 50-60 degrees for 2-4 weeks. To be at all soft and palatable, sweets need to cure in a warm but not too hot space, 80-85 degrees, and usually don’t need more than two weeks.

That’s similar with Asian and African yams for the most part, although some of those need a little longer or will tolerate hotter cure temps.

We’re typically harvesting sweets and yams when it’s still pretty warm, but if we need to heat space for them, we can use coolers or insulate small pantries or closets and rotate in jugs and pots of hot water. We can also potentially use our vehicles or camper shells as a hot zone for curing sweets and yams, but we need to monitor the temps and be able to provide ventilation if it gets too hot during the day, and keep the temperatures up at night.

Once they’re cured, potatoes and sweet potatoes like the same moderate humidity we can find in most household basements, pantries, and spare rooms. Sweet potatoes really want to stay at 50-60 degrees for their storage, but potatoes will handle a dug-in pit that only gets as low as 45 or so, or can sometimes be stored in rooms adjacent to barns, greenhouses, or coops – reaping the body heat but not too much of it.

Storage Crops

Spring, summer, and autumn are already pretty busy seasons for a lot of us. Family obligations and things like fishing and hunting are already in competition with our gardens, orchards, crops, any livestock we own, or other projects. They’re also the seasons we need to get buildings and power sources repaired, and woodcut and stocked.

Summer, and in many places autumn as well, are also our drought seasons, which means unless we have reliable water sources and backups for them, we can expect to do some heavy hauling – and some of us may already be filling barrels and buckets and tanks to haul for livestock and gardens.

Add in the mega-disasters and regional or wide-scale hunger some expect, or even the increased risks of garden and livestock threats from desperate humans a la Great Depression, Venezuela, and some of the dissolution and wars that have faced Europeans in the last century, and we can expect to spend more time on defense, as well.

Those are all factors that make it worthwhile to consider crops that don’t need much processing. Autumn squashes, apples, carrots, nuts, and potatoes that need minimal work before being crated or stacked on shelves can save us valuable time. Maybe that’s time we’re harvesting livestock and grains, or maybe that’s time we’re shelling green peas, peeling tomatoes, and slicing crookneck for the dehydrator or pressure canner.

Even if our storage conditions aren’t ideal, the ability to produce crops that can sit for even just a few weeks can buy us time to get in precious hay and straw and deal with the more perishable yields of our gardens and orchards.

While there are some drawbacks to various storage crops, there are also a lot of benefits – both now and “if/when”.

0 Comments

When we sit down with the goal to be prepared and self-sufficient, we have to balance a lot. We already walk tightropes between work and home life in many cases.

26 Ancient Remedies That We Lost to History

Modern medical marvels are uncovering new ways of treating illness every day, while at the same time losing the realistic, simple, and inexpensive ways our ancestors used to stay healthy. The ancients may have just had to look for some remedies as far as the spice cabinet, and that information has now been lost to history.

All of these remedies were once used by our ancestors to treat common illnesses, and they would have been well known to the population.

Decoction is the technical term for a type of medicine made by boiling plant material to extract and concentrate its medicinal constituents.

Decoction

Today we make gentle teas in convenient bags, but historically medicinal plants, roots, and barks were often boiled whole in a pot and cooked down into a concentrated decoction.
Cayenne Pepper was used topically to treat pain and arthritis. A simple capsaicin salve can block pain receptors and dramatically reduce pain on the spot. Peppers were also taken internally to help digestion, warm the body and speed the metabolism.
Willow Bark has gone by the wayside as a natural pain reliever with the advent of synthetics, but some modern pain relievers are still made with the same active ingredients naturally present in willow bark. Our ancestors chewed the bark or boiled it into a tea to ease pains of all sorts.
Oxymels are a remedy that dates back to ancient Roman times. A mixture of herbs, raw vinegar, and honey was used to treat a variety of ailments depending on the herbs used. Elderberry oxymels, for example, are potent immune boosters. When herbs like cherry bark are used, an oxymel can be potent homemade cough syrup.
Raw Vinegar is naturally probiotic and helps to correct digestive troubles by balancing the body’s pH level. In its raw form, it’s a potent probiotic that contains millions of active microbes to promote health and healing throughout the body. Most preparations these days are pasteurized, but if you’re looking for medicine make sure you seek out the raw stuff.
Turmeric is a powerful anti-inflammatory, and research has shown that it can be just as effective at treating inflammatory pain as ibuprofen. Fresh turmeric is a rhizome, similar to ginger, that is grated into foods. More commonly known, ground turmeric is generally available in just about every grocery store spice section.
Black Pepper is great for topical pain relief in much the same way that cayenne pepper is used. Make a salve by infusing the oil with black pepper and apply directly or convert it to a healing salve by adding beeswax. Black pepper is also antibacterial, which is one reason it was so commonly used in recipes for salt-preserved meats historically.
Chamomile tea tastes great, but it’s also powerful medicine. It was used by Native Americans as a sedative when drunk as tea, but it’s also used in healing salves for skin irritation. Chamomile hair rinses are also great for conditioning hair and treating scalp issues.
Honey was taken by the spoonful for immune support, but it was also used topically to heal wounds. A bit of honey spread on a healing wound helped prevent infection. The high sugar content in the absence of water prevents microbes from growing in much the same way that salting meats prevent spoilage. Honey is also naturally antimicrobial due to enzymes made by the bees, so it works in two ways.
Garlic is antibacterial and antifungal. It’s used in oil extractions to treat all sorts of issues, including ear infections. Eating garlic raw helps with lung issues and promotes good circulation. Eating fresh garlic also helps prevent bug bites because the sulfur compounds that give garlic its taste are processed by your body and emitted through your skin.
Ginger helps support the immune system and promotes good circulation. It was used historically for stomach issues, and while crystallized ginger is eaten as candy today, it was once taken as medicine for nausea, seasickness, and morning sickness.
Poultice is a word you’ll see in ancient herbal texts, but not one you’ll find prescribed by a doctor today.

A herbal poultice

To make one, mash or chew up fresh herb material and apply it topically. They’re used for all sorts of issues from minor skin irritations to chest colds when applied directly to the chest. A poultice is an ancient way to prepare herbs, and its impact depends on the herbs used.
Bay Leaves are added for flavor to soups and stews these days, but historically they were used to detoxify the body and manage bacterial infections. Smoke from the burning bay was used to clear and focus the mind.
Yarrow is also known by the Latin name “achillea” for the ancient Greek hero Achilles. He was said to have carried it to treat wounds from his soldiers. It’s a powerful medicinal that stops bleeding quickly when applied as a poultice directly to the wound.
Infused Oils are used to extract and preserve the medical properties of herbs for both topical and internal use. Some infused oils, like calendula or plantain, are used for external applications to treat skin issues, while others like the rosemary oil you’ll find in the supermarket, were once used to treat nausea and stomach issues when consumed. While they’re used as flavorings now, they were once well-known medicine.
Pine Pitch is easily extracted from pine trees and it was used historically for extracting splinters and poisons. A “drawing salve” would have been made and applied, using pine pitch, to draw out a splinter or snake bite venom.
Aloe Vera was applied directly to wounds on battlefields historically, but it was also consumed. The gel within the plant leaves is consumed to help improve digestion, reduce inflammation and treat constipation.
Cloves are perfect for topical pain relief, and before dentists were commonly available to people, cloves would have been used to treat tooth pain. A cavity would have been packed with ground cloves to numb the pain, or whole cloves would be chewed.
Burdock is a garden weed these days, but it’s also a powerful blood detoxifier and diuretic. Patients would be prescribed a burdock root tincture, tea or told to simply eat burdock root as a boiled vegetable in much the same way carrots are consumed.
Red Raspberry Leaf is rich in minerals that help keep just about everyone healthy and well-nourished, but it’s particularly potent for pregnant women. Red raspberry leaf tea was drunk by pregnant women to promote easy labor and help tone the uterus.
Plantain was so well known for its ability to treat skin ailments, that it’s used as a joke in Romeo and Juliet. The entire audience would know that when they’re discussing plantain, it was to be used to treat skin wounds in much the same way that a modern audience would know what was meant if you said “band-aid.” Plantain was the band-aid of the day in Shakespearean times.
Medicinal Beer isn’t something you’ll find at your local liquor store these days, but historically, herbs were brewed into beer where the alcohol helped extract and preserve the medicinal properties.
Cranberry is mostly served for holiday meals these days, but historically it was used to treat all sorts of urinary tract health issues. It’s naturally antibacterial, and consuming cranberries help to purge infection from the body.
Maple Sap is tasty when cooked into maple syrup, but our ancestors drank the sap straight to help strengthen their bones and for cleansing. A group would get together in a heated room and each person would try to drink as much as 5 gallons of the sap while sweating profusely from the heat. The idea was to bring the medicinal benefits of the sap in while sweating the toxins out.

Rhubarb
Rhubarb is mostly made into pie these days, but the Romans used rhubarb for gas, convulsions, stomach issues, asthma and dysentery. Web MD even verifies this, saying rhubarb is useful for digestive complaints. It wasn’t even used as food until the 1830s, but when’s the last time you ate rhubarb for medicine?
Herbal Smoking isn’t something hear about these days. When someone smokes, it’s assumed it’s tobacco. Historically, all manner of herbs were smoked for their medicinal benefits. The smoke is inhaled and the medicine can be absorbed directly by the capillaries in the lungs.

0 Comments

Modern medical marvels are uncovering new ways of treating illness every day, while at the same time losing the realistic, simple, and inexpensive ways our ancestors used to stay healthy.

How To Cook In A Cactus

We all know how important it is to keep abundant food on hand to get us through a crisis. Stockpiling food is usually the first thing any of us do as preppers – and this is something we continue to do even after many of our other plans are in place. But having food and having a way to cook it, are two different things. Much of that food will be worthless without the ability to cook it.

We’ve all cookware in our homes, of course, as well as barbecue grills, fire pits, and other places to cook. But what if we get to bug it out? I carry in my bug-out bag a complete set of backpacking cookware, but I see a lot of lists that don’t include that. Rather, it seems like there’s a lot of people around who think a few bits of aluminum foil is all the cookware they’ll need.

Well, I cooked in foil made of aluminum. It does work. At least, the first few times, it works. Then the foil gets ruined and there’s nothing you need to cook in that delicious ramen box. So what would you do then?

One option is to make a cup out of birch bark and cook in it. Of course, that presumes you are in a part of the land where birch trees are growing. If you’re not – say, for instance, you‘re in the Southwest, then that won’t work. You’ll need another option, a cooking option like in a cactus.

The prickly pear is among the most common cacti around. I’m not sure how many different prickly pear varieties there are, but just 18 of them grow in the Sonora Desert. Many varieties provide the fruit of the tuna and others are consumed in Mexico as a vegetable, known as “nopal” although not popular in the United States, nopal has been widely recognized by the health food industry for its many excellent properties.

Because the prickly pear is edible, there is no problem using it to heat water for coffee making or cooking your ramen pack. For that matter, you can scoop out the inside of the pad once you cook it, and eat it as well. Though it may not taste like your favorite vegetable, it will give you some nutrition.

Prickly pear leaves or “pads” come in various sizes, depending on the type of prickly pear plant in question. Most have spines, but there are a few varieties, the nopal in particular, which do not. I was lucky enough to find one that only had small spines to use for my experimentation with this method.

Preparing the Cactus

You’ll need to use one major prickly pear pad as a cooking vessel. Make sure it’s an unblemished pad, no scars, and especially no holes inside. There is no real way to patch any holes, so if you harvest one with holes or put any holes in it, you are going to have to start over in the process of preparing it.

You can cut the pad at the joint, where it connects to the next pad, but if you do that, you will have to cut the pad again to make the opening for the top of your cooking pot. Only cutting across the pad works better, where it gets close to its full width, providing you with the gap.

Singe the spines is the next thing you want to do, so they don’t stick you. Be especially careful to singe the smaller spines; as they are usually sharper and harder to see and remove. You are probably not going to be able to burn off the bigger spines all the way, without running the risk of putting a hole in the surface. But if you can singe off the point at least, it can’t stick you.

When you cut the pad off at the joint instead of cutting a corner, you’ll now have to cut it off, leaving the gap at the top of your cooking vessel. Then you’ll have to put your knife down carefully in the middle of the pad, build a gap for it to open. Putting the knife’s point through the side of the pad at this point is extremely easy, making it useless and forcing you to start over, so you have to be extremely careful; cutting a little at a time.

The pad will be stiff, so it won’t be easy to open it up and make a vessel out of it; but if you wedge it in a stick’s fork, you can slightly push it to open. This will also allow you to hold a stand upright as you cook inside the pad.

Cooking Your Ramen

With the cactus pad now prepared, you are ready to start cooking. Ramen are cooked in boiling water, so the idea is to fill the cactus pad with water and then to get that water boiling.

If we were to work with that birch bark cup, we could put it over the fire. As long as the flames in the cup do not reach higher than the water level, it is not going to burn. I’m not sure if the prickly pear pad will work the same way since I’ve never tried it. Rather than doing that, we should place hot rocks inside the water to heat it up.

This naturally needs a fire, which is the first thing we should have done before we hunted our cactus leaf. There’s no need for a bigger fire, but it needs to produce some good coals because the coals are the fire’s hottest part. We’ll have to place some tiny ones, ideally smooth, rocks to heat them in those coals.

It’s important to use stones that have no cracks or fissures inside them. If they do, there’s going to be a chance in those cracks to have water. When heated, that water will spread and could cause the rock to break or even explode, dispersing pieces all over the place. Better not to use stones with cracks inside them. The stones you pick from a stream bed are fine, just as long as you search for cracks on them.

A few sticks can be used as “pinchers” to pick up the rocks from the fire and place them in the cactus pad to heat the water and bring it to a boil. You’ll probably only be able to use one rock at a time, enabling the heat to be transferred to the cactus water. Once it has transferred, remove it (after 20 to 30 seconds) and replace it with another stone. Repeat until the water gets boiling.

At this point, you’ll be glad you’ve got a couple of sticks holding up your cactus pad, as the boiling water inside it will make the pad hot and hard to hold.

With the water boiling, you can now break your ramen and put it and the seasonings in the cactus pad to cook. You will probably only be able to fit about half a pack at a time, but you can always reheat the water to cook the rest. Ramen cooks fast, so after putting it in the water, you’ll be able to eat it within a few minutes.

If you add any dry ingredients, such as dried vegetables or chopped jerky to your ramen, turn it into a heartier soup, be sure to add them before the ramen, as they will need more time to soften in the hot water. Even so, these additional ingredients can be a little chew, but they’ll at least be edible.

Talking of being edible, if you don’t have a fork or spork in your survival gear, you can also use the time while waiting for the boiling water to whittle a pair of chopsticks for yourself. That is the way to eat ramen anyway, isn’t it?

0 Comments

We all know how important it is to keep abundant food on hand to get us through a crisis. Stockpiling food is usually the first thing any of us do

15 Weird Foods Common During The Great Depression

The Great Depression was a time of scarcity-induced innovation: families had to do without many household staples and used their resourcefulness to come up with alternatives made from goods that were more readily available. From dying their legs with tea in lieu of stockings to mending shoes with cardboard, the families of the Great Depression used what they had to make up for shortages of practically every food and good.
Nowhere was Great Depression ingenuity—and desperation–more apparent than in the average American kitchen. Spurred on by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who encouraged families to save money and resources by practicing savvier home economics, the Great Depression produced some truly disgusting food combinations. Not all the dishes that came from this time were short-lived, however; mega food companies like Kraft used the new normal as a platform to make their products, like mac ‘n cheese, a household staple for generations to come.

Although most of the dishes on this list aren’t for the faint of heart—or the weak of stomach—these dishes represent the true American spirit of resiliency and, for better or worse, creativity.

1) Prune Pudding

This simple dessert was made famous when Eleanor Roosevelt persuaded her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to serve the dish to guests who were invited to the White House. Prunes were easy to store, widely available, and much less expensive than other fruits, while providing needed nutrients to the Depression-era diet: the fruit is packed with fiber and supplies almost one-third of your daily needs for Vitamin K.

2) Mock Apple Pie (No Apples)

Apples weren’t readily available in the Great Depression, yet Americans weren’t willing to give up their cherished apple pie. Enter “mock apple pie” which substituted apples for crumbled crackers sprinkled with flavored syrup and cinnamon, all baked into a crust. The most famous of these recipes appeared on the back of the Ritz cracker box in 1934: “Ritz mock apple pie” was an instant hit.

3) Spaghetti and Carrot Casserole

Casseroles were wildly popular in the Great Depression: by combining all sorts of leftovers into one dish, families could increase the variety of their menu without needing to incorporate hard-to-find items. At the time meat was, for most, an unaffordable luxury so in this spaghetti casserole, boiled carrots were substituted for pricier meatballs and the whole concoction was then covered in white sauce.

4) Vinegar Cobbler

This dessert substituted a large amount of vinegar for more expensive fruit, in addition to water, a small amount of sugar, vanilla and butter as the filling.

5) Mulligan Stew

“Mulligan stew” is a term used for stews created by the homeless during the Depression. As the recipe varied depending on what food was on hand, the “stew” can be thought of as throwing anything and everything you had in the pot to fill your belly. Some down-on-their-luck folk went so far as adding lint to the pot to make it more filling.

6) Loaves

When the food shortages began, meatloaf was already a diet staple. Another example of a food that had to be tweaked to accommodate the scarcity of the new normal, meatloaf became “anything” loaf… from meatless meatloaf made with everything from peanuts to raisins to liver loaf, families used their creativity and whatever was available to make this alternative to the weekly favorite.

7) Dandelion Salad

A dish that is a favorite of preppers and wilderness experts alike, dandelion salad is nutritious and can be made with simple greens foraged from any neighborhood. With salt, pepper, and vinegar to taste (when available), dandelion salad was both tasty and a way to add vital nutrients to the dinner menu without spending a cent.

8) Kraft Macaroni and Cheese

Kraft Foods introduced its iconic macaroni and cheese in 1937, selling 8 million boxes its first year of production. The simple to make pasta dish provided 4 servings of food for $0.19 each, making it a cheap and easy way to fill empty bellies.

7) Jell-O

Gelatin surged in popularity during the Great Depression, with Jell-O leading the pack as the most popular. Gelatin (and Jell-O in particular) was marketed as a way to treat yourself to something “fancy” and often gave its relatively simply recipes exotic names. Much more affordable than pies, a handful of peanuts or a cherished piece of fruit could be turned into a gelatinous masterpiece worthy of the holidays with little expense.

8) Creamed Chipped Beef

One of the most famous foods on the list, creamed chipped beef is affectionately known by many World War II veterans as “s**t on a shingle.” The chipped beef was covered in gravy and served on a piece of toast. When chipped beef was not available, other meats were substituted.

9) Poor Man’s Meal

Both potatoes and hot dogs were inexpensive and easy to find; both make an appearance in this Great Depression meal. By frying up potato slices and adding a few hot dog pieces, families could get a filling meal without using scarce and expensive ingredients.

10) Peanut Butter Stuffed Onions

Created by the Bureau of Home Economics, this dish was well-known only for it’s bizarre taste. Baked onions were “improved” with scoops of peanut butter as filling, resulting in a disgusting and much disliked period food.

11) Hoover Stew

Like many other stews of that time, this recipe changed depending on what ingredients were on hand. Hoover stews (named after President Hoover) were mostly given out in soup kitchens and consisted of very thin broth with hot dogs, pasta, and any vegetables available.

12) Italian Ice

Italian ice was popular during the time because of its similarity to ice cream, without the addition of costly ingredients like cream and rock salt. This frozen treat was inexpensive and helped stave off the heat during the long summer days.

13) Potato Pancakes

Because of the wide availability and low cost of potatoes, Depression-era cooks used potatoes as substitutes in other dishes. Potato pancakes, made with grated potatoes cooked or fried in a pan, was a common dish at every meal.

14) Tin Foil Hobo Dinners

Hobo dinners, named after the homeless who lived in shantytowns near the railroad tracks, were a favorite because they could be cooked over an open fire. A square of tin foil was filled with meat, potato, onions, and other ingredients and thrown on top of the fire to cook for approximately half an hour.

15) Great Depression Casserole

Last on our list is the Great Depression casserole, which features bologna as the prized ingredient. With other budget-friendly ingredients like pork and beans and onions, this casserole was filling and could be altered to fit any budget.

0 Comments

The Great Depression was a time of scarcity-induced innovation: families had to do without many household staples and used their resourcefulness to come up with alternatives made from goods that

Is Harvesting Rain Water Illegal in Your State?

It may be difficult to understand but in many states it is highly regulated to harvest rainwater, whatever the method. It seems a little insane that anything that could actually fall on your head and soak in the ground couldn’t be captured and used as you see fit, but there are many explanations for the regulations on rainwater that so many states have put in place.

Why Is Rain Water Harvesting Regulated?

Regulations surrounding rain water collection were for the most part not put in place because the average Joe collected a little rain from his roof using a guttering system and a rain barrel. Perhaps the rules are primarily intended to protect the ecosystem from large-scale rainwater collection. This does not mean, however, that rainwater collection in some states is no longer legal for individuals.

When large amounts of rainwater are diverted from where they would flow naturally, it can cause many environmental and human problems that rely on and have rights to these natural waterways. For example, if large quantities of rainwater are accumulated that would have poured into a river allowing a farmer to water his crops and or a rancher to provide his cattle with sufficient water supplies, problems can occur. Such changes will wreak havoc especially in areas that already experience drought and water shortage problems.

History of Rain Water Regulation

The history of some US rainwater regulatory laws goes back to at least the 1800s. Although large-scale collection wasn’t really feasible then, the idea that someone could cause ill effect on someone else by collecting rainwater was still a controversial idea in some cases.

States with Rain Water Harvesting Laws

It’s important to note that the degree to which the laws would affect the average homeowner varies a lot in many places where there are laws regulating rainwater collection. Some laws state that commercial collection is unacceptable, or that you can only collect so much rain water a year, or regulate how you use rainwater collected. Just because a state has legislation governing the harvesting of rainwater doesn’t mean it’s completely unlawful. Many cities do have strict rainwater laws in effect, outside state legislation, so be sure to check those out as well.

Having said that, here are the states that have rainwater collection laws on their books with a brief explanation of how those laws are in each place.

Colorado

A few years back, harvesting rain water in Colorado was simply illegal in any capacity, but thanks to new laws passed in 2016, harvesting rain water for personal use is okay in most areas. People are allowed two barrels with a capacity under 110 gallons. Collected water can be used for non-potable purposes, like watering gardens.

California

California has a mass amount of regulation surrounding rain water collection due to severe droughts in much of the state, but home rain water collection is mostly legal.

Oregon

There was a big story about a man who was arrested for illegally harvesting rainwater in Oregon that got a lot of attention on the internet a couple of years ago, leading people to assume it was completely illegal there, but that is not the case. The man in question illegally harvested rain water but not all collection of rain water is illegal. You need a permit to collect rainwater on a wide scale in the state of Oregon, but there’s also a law that specifies that collecting rainwater from surfaces like roofs or parking lots is perfectly okay.

Texas

There are some restrictions on the rainwater collection books in Texas but the practice as a whole is usually encouraged. The rules only cover those health requirements for collected rainwater. Apparently, there are regulations on the books in Texas that cover rain water collection.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma house bill 3055 established a committee to look into more efficient practices for water use and concluded that some potential rain water harvesting projects may be grant eligible.

Illinois

This is another state with a ton of legislation around rainwater harvesting and the regulations are very prohibitive when it comes to harvesting a lot of rainwater. Nonetheless, there are exceptions that mean rain barrels are okay and in certain cases do not need a permit as long as there is no part within a dwelling and it does not require permits under any other regulations.

Ohio

There are laws regulating what harvested rain water can be used for in Ohio, but collecting rain water here is actually encouraged and grants may be provided to set up rain water collection systems. So long as you’re not trying to consume collected rain water, you’ve got nothing to worry about in Ohio!

Arizona

While there are regulations regarding commercial rain water harvesting in Arizona, there’s nothing on their books that pertains to residential collection.

North Carolina

The laws on the books in this state are actually to promote the harvesting of rain water, not deter people from it. There are grants available for projects, like rain water collection systems, that help make the best use of the state’s natural water resources.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island’s law rewards residents for rain water collection with a 10% tax credit for the cost of their rain water collection system. Homeowners can get a credit of up to $1,000 for putting in a cistern or replacing a cistern with a larger one if they have not already received the tax credit. No rain water collection ban there, though!

Utah

Although rainwater collection is not completely illegal in Utah, it is still very regulated. Without registration, small systems which store under 100 gallons are allowed. If you plan to collect rainwater for personal use with a storage capacity of more than 100 gallons, you’ll need to register your system, which includes letting the government know how much water you can store. Only up to 2,500 gallons are permitted, and you may only use the water on the parcel of land where it was collected.

Washington

Though there is some regulation in Washington, it should be no problem, legally speaking, for the average citizen to collect rain water for their personal use.

Virginia

Virginia does have some usage regulations to make sure collected rain water is being used safely, but overall, rain water collection is encouraged in the state of Virginia.

The Final Word on the Legalities of Rain Water Harvesting

While in many states, there is a lot of legislation around rainwater harvesting, it’s not really completely illegal anywhere on a small scale. Make sure you obey all laws in your state, county, or city and you’re going to be all right.

0 Comments

It may be difficult to understand but in many states it is highly regulated to harvest rainwater, whatever the method. It seems a little insane that anything that could actually

10 Spots To Hide Your Food

For when SHTF, we all have our food storage. Without outside interference, some of us can survive on our supply for years. What happens, though, when our supply is threatened by an outside interruption? Hungry neighbors can try to force their way in to steal your surplus food in a desperate scenario.

We, as preppers, are ready for anything. It is nice for storage to have a dedicated space in your basement or root cellar, but it can have easy access to intruders. You would have to start building your surplus from the ground up, again, if a burglar discovers all your food in one place. If people have already resorted to stealing food in this case, that is an expensive hassle.

Instead of having all of your long-term non-perishables in one place, I personally prefer to spread out my food in various hiding locations. I keep a thorough list of my hiding places and what is stored there, in order not to lose track of my inventory. It is also beneficial to have expiration dates clearly marked on the list as well. Keep this list easily available but secured, such as on your tablet or computer, or inside a safe with a physical list.

Not to state the obvious, but when storing, please bear in mind obvious fire hazards. In addition to electrical wires, etc., cardboard or wood boxes of food would not fit well. They should be 100 percent critter-free whether your hiding spots are under floorboards or behind walls. Just make sure that you search your hiding places long before you store them.

Here are some of my favorite unspeakable secret places for non-perishable food.

A Hidden Room

Like me, maybe you know your way around a project at home. If the space is completely shielded, home invaders will never be able to locate a cache, and most homes do not come with secret rooms upon purchase (unless you’re lucky).

Tons of homes have “dead space” between the walls, leaving a few rows of vacant square footage here and there. It is possible to excavate, reframe, and add shelves to these rooms. A bookshelf or cabinet will mask the entry to your new secret food storage to conceal the space entirely.

Emergency Shelter

You may already have an underground storm shelter if you are living in a tornado area. In these areas, surplus food can easily be stored. Since they are underground, the humidity levels for food storage should be sufficient.

It should be stored under benches or on shelves. It is also a smart idea in your climate to have sustenance during increasingly dangerous conditions.

Related: 59 Long-Term Survival Foods and Supplies from the Grocery Store

Under Stairwells

There’s always a lot of empty space beneath your basement’s stairwell, or from the first floor to the second floor.

This is a great opportunity to store food, as this room is normally dry and regulated by temperature. At the very back of the stairwell, I like to store food and store household furniture and other stuff to hide the food behind it.

Survival Caches

You can dig some proper storage caches all over your property in the case of SHTF. Moisture, critters, elements, and temperature are immune to all cache containers. Remembering where you buried them is the hardest part!

Closets

Sure, it might be obvious to store food in a closet. But it’s the place you need to pay attention to inside the closet.

In your coat closet, boxes of non-perishables can be kept under hanging coats. On top of most closets, the high shelves often go unused, making them the ideal place to store lighter items, such as lighter bags or vacuum-sealed foods.

Rental Storage Unit

Just in case your home is destroyed or stolen, you can never store all of your food in one location at home. If your house is under pressure, getting some food surplus in a storage unit is a smart idea.

Rentals that are temperature regulated and reputable can be found. Some are even elevated in the off-chance the unit has a critter or two. The unit should also be well-shaded and facing away from direct sunlight.

Bug Out Location

If you are lucky enough to have a place to which your family retreats in a global emergency, make sure that you have a non-perishable rotation hidden in that location. This way, packing food is one less thing on their mind if family members have to run.

It is helpful to share this room with trusted family members and friends if anyone is in trouble. Both participants can consent to continue to add to the stock as they take it.

Galvanized Steel Garbage Cans

These garbage cans store some items very well, such as dried beans or grains. They can be stored in a garage, basement, or barn and will retain optimum temperature and moisture. This is also a perfect place to store extra pet food if you are a pet owner. Using brand new bins, with food containing oxygen absorbers in mylar packets.

In The Ground

How do you store food in a garden of your own? In cold weather regions, root vegetables can be stored immediately in the soil after harvest during the winter months.

Vegetables that can be stored in this way range from beets, to potatoes, to carrots. To ensure the veggies are free from rot or critters, check regularly.

Chamber

A perfect place to hide food is the guest bedroom/home office. N on-perishables can go inside a desk or be stacked inside the closet. Without being in plain sight, storage shelves may also conceal additional food.

Some Places You Should NEVER Store Food Are:

The attic – hot temperatures fluctuate during the summer, spoiling all of your food.
A crawl space – critters can easily penetrate these and crawl spaces typically get warm in the summer.
The shed or barn – again, temperature and rodent control is too difficult here.
Near chemicals or excess fuel. Just don’t do it.

In the event of an emergency, we all have excess food storage to support ourselves, so having some secret food somewhere will ensure that you have enough in a crisis.

It’s never fun to think about what if it was, like what if I was robbed? What if my stock of food is compromised? If that is the case, it will secure our safety by being prepared on all fronts.

0 Comments

For when SHTF, we all have our food storage. Without outside interference, some of us can survive on our supply for years. What happens, though, when our supply is threatened

6 Survival Food Recipes to Make and Forget

For farmers around the world, growing food and raising meat is becoming even more difficult. We are seeing more crop loss and livestock losses than ever between radical shifting weather conditions and disease. Since we have large populations to feed, the numbers are big. Such populations are only rising.

For many preppers and homesteaders, it is just part of daily life to grow and make our own food. It is extremely liberating and brings a new kind of liberty into your life. It is the secret to having a good life.

Cooking at home can be about survival and prepping, as much as it can be about dinner tonight. Since they have such a long shelf life, some foods you can make and forget. I have compiled 6 survival food recipes to make and forget.

If you don’t believe you have what it takes to make delicious fresh bread at home, give them all a try, but especially the peasant bread.

Virginia Ham

One of those skills that any prepper should at least consider is the preservation of ham. Whether it isn’t something you’ve done before. It’s a very easy process, but the seasons need a lot of time and some timing.

Ingredients

1 Pork Picnic
1 LB of Salt
1 Cup of Whisky

Directions

In most climates, you are going to want to start this process around September at the earliest.
In a large container or a large unscented trash bag place your pork and cover it completely with your salt.
Keep this in the refrigerator for 30 days. You may need to add more salt to the pork as the month goes on to keep it covered.
After a month you are going to wipe the salt of the curing pork and then pour the whiskey over top. Now wrap it up in a few layers of cheesecloth, a large kitchen towel or a chef jacket. You are going to hang this for the next 6 months in an area that is covered from the sun and has some decent airflow.
Therefore, it’s important to time things just right. You do not wanna be hanging a ham through the summer.
Unwrap your ham after 3 months to check the ham out. You might need to cut some mold off the ham. Wrap it again and let hang for another 3 months.

Estimated Shelf Life: 5 years if left wrapped and uncut.

Kimchi

This spicy fermented mixture of cabbage is a sweet and spicy treat as well as an excellent probiotic food for the well-being of your stomach.

Kimchi will be preserved underground in covered earthenware pots in the Korean tradition and allowed to ferment for decades! While you may do things that are counterintuitive to traditional cooking techniques, Kim Chi is simple to make.

It’s all part of the method of fermentation.

Ingredients

1 head of Napa Cabbage
5 Cloves of Garlic
1 Heaping TBSP of Korean Ground Chili
2 TBSP of Soy Sauce
1 Large Thumb Sized Piece of Ginger

Directions

Start by mincing your garlic and ginger.
Next, you are going to cut the core out of your cabbage and slice it in half. Slice the halves, starting at the top, in quarter-inch slices.
Place the cabbage into a colander and salt it heavily. Toss the cabbage to incorporate the salt and then allow this to sit and drain overnight.
The next day you are going to rinse your cabbage and add it to a big bowl Add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Place this mix in mason jars with the lid just lightly screwed on. Allow this mix to ferment for 4 days in the dark pantry.
You can store it in the fridge after this and leave it to ferment for as long as you like.
If we experience an off-grid situation you would need only remove these from the fridge and bury them underground.

Estimated Shelf Life: Indefinitely.

Fruit Leather

For preppers, dehydration is a great part of food preservation. One of the most essential aspects of bacterial growth is eliminated by the ability to extract moisture from food. That is why it deals so well for dehydration. You will find 50 foods here which you can dehydrate at home.

Fruit leather is a perfect way to use lots of fruit and make wonderful food that will last until you need it most on the shelf. Fruit leather, including granola and fruit bars, is also a perfect addition to many other recipes.

Making fruit leather is a fairly easy process and you can get there if you have some fruit and sugar.

Ingredients

I like ratios and I would rather people remember ratios than any recipe. If you understand ratios than you can recreate things easily. In this case, we are talking about the fruit to sugar ration.

2 Parts Fruit: 1 Part Sugar
4 cups of strawberries
2 cups of sugar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
In a large sauce pot place your ingredients. Simmer until you can smash the fruit and sugar into a smooth purée.
Using a tablespoon, smooth some purées out onto a sheet pan that is lined with good wax paper or a Silpat.
Cook that purée in the oven for about 6-7 hours until it is completely dry.
Let it cool and cut the fruit purée in the shape you would like to.

Estimated Shelf Life: 4 years.

Biltong

This is a South African meat preservation method that focuses on the use of vinegar. The word Biltong is Greek and means bed bug!

That is because the coriander seeds, a necessary ingredient, resembled little bed bugs.

Ingredients

5 LBS of Lean Meat
5 TBSP of Malt or Cider Vinegar
3 TSP of Coarse Salt
2 TSP of Black Pepper
2 TBSP of Coriander Seeds

Directions

Start by toasting your coriander seeds to bring them back to life. In a spice grinder or mortar and pestle bash them up a bit. You can even add the vinegar to this.
Slice your meat against the grain into 1-inch pieces and place it in a non-reactive container.
Now dump the rest of the ingredients over top of the meat and allow that mix to sit in the fridge for at least 12 hours. 24 hours wouldn’t hurt.
Remove the meat from the container and gently pat it dry on a plate. Be careful not to remove all the pepper and coriander.
Next, you are going to hang this meat, most likely in your fridge with some twine between racks. If you get a few days of cool temperatures, you could hang it outside, but you are gonna want to cover it with cheesecloth to avoid bug infestation. Fridge works great.
Check it every few days. You want the entire piece of meat to be hard. If it has some give or feels mushy at the center than you are going to have raw meat inside. Let it cure for a few more days.

Estimated Shelf Life: Approximately 10 years.

Peasant Bread

You know that I put an intense emphasis on being able to cook from scratch if you’ve read my posts in the past.

It does not carry the weight of things such as military planning or communications in the prepper culture, but it is a burden that someone would need to inherit 3 times/365 days a year in a SHTF situation.

This is the best technique for making bread dough and should be part of the recipe book of any homesteader or prepper.

Ingredients

4 Cups of Flour
2 TSP of Salt
2 TSP of Sugar
2 Packets of Dry Yeast
2 Cups of Warm Water

Directions

Start in a large metal bowl with all your dry ingredients. Mix them thoroughly before adding your warm water. Mix this all together to create a sticky ball of dough.
Cover the bowl with a damp towel and in about an hour your dough will have doubled in size.
Beat the dough down with the spatula and it will deflate.
Now transfer it to your baking vessel, most people use an oven-safe glass or ceramic bowl. Allow this mix to rise to the rim of the bowl before baking for about 20 minutes in a 375-degree oven. The top should be golden brown and delicious.

Estimated Shelf Life: Approximately 3 years.

Pilot Crackers

When you read about something called two pilot crackers you probably think two things:

1. They were made for pilots.

2. They are basically flavorless crackers.

The funny thing about pilot crackers is that they were actually created for seagoing by a man named John Pearson in 1792. The recipe is Nabisco’s oldest!

If you like crackers, you will find the pilot cracker to be a great vehicle for spreads and even preserved meats.

Ingredients

2 Cups of Flour
¾ of a Cup of Water
1 Tablespoon of Lard
½ Teaspoon of Salt

Directions

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly incorporated. This can be done in a mixer or by hand.
Rest the dough in the fridge for about 10 minutes to allow the lard to harden up again.
Roll the dough out to about ¼ inch and use a circle mold or a small cup to punch crackers out at the desired size.
Bake them for 15 minutes in a 400-degree oven and allow them to cool completely before trying to remove them.

Estimated Shelf Life: Indefinitely.

TIP: For even more extended storage, you can store them in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers.

There is no end on making many survival meals! For long term, these are 6 perfect foods to learn how to make and store.

These foods concentrate on many essential techniques of cooking, such as dough making, curing, dehydrating and baking.

You would certainly be prepared for the next disaster if you can load your pantry with food that you can make and forget. If you can master the techniques, however, then you will be able to eat for a long time.

Stuff like the biltong could be made with beef or with venison that you hunted.

Your stored wheat could be used to make these crackers or peasant bread.

Try your hand on the above recipes and let us know how things worked out in the comments below!

All storage methods are simple, but all foods can last forever if Oxygen absorbers & Mylar bags were used.

0 Comments

For farmers around the world, growing food and raising meat is becoming even more difficult. We are seeing more crop loss and livestock losses than ever between radical shifting weather

The Only Plant That Should Be in Your First Aid Kit

Mullein, commonly known as verbascum thapsus, is also referred to as the velvet plant or elephant’s ear because of the hairy leaves that are very smooth and supple, rather than being prickly as are most fluffy-looking plants.

This herb can be found abundantly in most ecosystems, including where it was not intended to grow by anyone, and like many plants that people call weeds, it has many uses in everyday life and particularly in survival. Looking back at how our forefathers used mullein, we can get a good idea of how it might help us if the world comes to an end, as we know it.

Practical Uses

Mullein‘s soft fuzzy nature gives its leaves a wealth of practical applications, both historically and in survival situations. In an SHTF scenario, the rest of the plant may theoretically also play a part.

Toilet Paper – This leaf makes for a smooth, fun toilet paper substitute before the advent of toilet paper or even in a pinch in the woods. In fact, this plant’s folk name is The Cowboy’s, Toilet Paper. The broad leaves and soft texture make it a perfect alternative, but you should be careful to wipe with the hair grain to minimize discomfort caused by shedding fuzz. Here are some homemade toilet paper alternatives.
Providing Warmth – They’re perfect just to provide extra energy. Whether you’re lining your clothes with these leaves to provide extra cushion and warmth, or preparing a blanket or small shelter from them to keep warm at night, the furry leaves are great for adding extra insulation.
Fire Starting – Mullein has many uses in fire construction. The stalks make an excellent tool for the methods of starting the bow or hand drill fire starting methods. The seed pods and dried leaves are excellent tinder for starting a fire. Dipped in any liquid fat, flammable sap, or beeswax, the seed heads attached to the stalks are perfect for torches, earning mullein together with the yellow flowers, another of their nicknames: golden torch.
Fish Tranquilizer – This plant’s seeds can be used as a paralytic fish agent. In a survival situation, this may aid in the selection of fish for food or other purposes.
Shoe Insoles – When conventional insoles are no longer an option the leaves can provide a cushion in shoes. Combined with the leaves’ medicinal properties, mullein leaf insoles can help reduce the friction causing blisters and keep feet free of infection.

Medical Applications

When conventional insoles are no longer an option the leaves can provide cushions in shoes. Combined with the leaves’ medicinal properties, mullein leaf insoles can help reduce the friction causing blisters and keep feet free of infection.

Chest Complaints – The mullein plant’s dried or fresh flowers are also used to improve cough and other lung and airway conditions, such as bronchitis, asthma, or croup. Traditionally, it has also been used to treat consumption or tuberculosis. Tea made with honey added from mullein provides a perfect remedy for sore throat. This is a well-known treatment for cold and flu. Because of its expectorant and calming properties, it is perfect for those things, plus its ability to combat infection.
Pain Reliever, Anti-Inflammatory, Soother – The plant is said to help relieve pain and swelling when used topically in the affected area or in a tonic or tea with aspirin-like effects, or modern-day NSAIDs and acetaminophen. The ability to apply this anti-inflammatory skin soother topically makes it an ideal treatment for hemorrhoids, too.

Infection Fighter – Cowboy’s bandages are called just that because they make a great bandage, even where there are more common alternatives. That is because its properties are antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal. This means that the leaves of the mullein plant, along with providing a soft, gentle barrier, can help fight off wound infection. Tea made from the mullein plant has also been used to treat mild infections as a sort of internal antibiotic. Clinical indications show that mullein, when placed directly into the ear as part of a herbal solution, can be an effective home remedy for ear infections.
Helps Heal Bruises and Other Injuries – A poultice of mullein leaves and flowers are frequently used to strengthen bruise conditions and damaged connective tissue or bones. This plant’s pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory properties make it ideal to help less painful broken bones and sprains, and strains. Here’s a DIY guide on how you can make your own healing salve.

Bladder Health Support – This herb, especially the root, is also used to aid in supporting the urinary system. For bed-wetting children and adults with bladder control problems, it is often used for treating urinary incontinence. Mullein may also be used to treat urinary tract infections.

In the Garden

Adding Plant Life in Areas Ravaged by Animals – Most of the animals avoid eating mullein, like goats and deer. It means that when these animals damage the ground, the hearty herb is a perfect way to prevent an area from being eaten down to the dirt. Retaining plant life in the soil can help avoid erosion and flooding in an area.
Adds Nitrogen to Soil – This plant returns essential nitrogen to the soil so that it can be used to enhance soil conditions for other plants, especially plants that need a lot of nitrogen. Since locating, detecting, and growing is so simple, it would be an ideal way to create soil in case you needed more food to produce in a small area, like an urban SHTF scenario.
Attracts Good Insects, Deters Bad – Mullein blooms lure pollinators that help plants grow, and it is repellent to many bugs that may do your garden harm. It is easy to plant, and it will thrive almost anywhere, so consider planting it around your garden to provide a barrier to insects.

0 Comments

Mullein, commonly known as verbascum thapsus, is also referred to as the velvet plant or elephant’s ear because of the hairy leaves that are very smooth and supple, rather than

50 Foods to Dehydrate for Your Stockpile

Our modern food system relies on trucks. It depends on transportation and on the ability to carry truck product loads into supermarkets and retailers. And, what if anything hinders those deliveries? How long does it take for the people around to live without the products coming in?

Among preppers, the common belief is that we are only 9 meals away from collapse. Three days of lunch and dinner breakfast will be putting the average citizen in a desperate situation. Beyond that, the stores would be picked clean by that time as well. The best way of avoiding this dangerous food source is to avoid depending too heavily on it.

The only way to achieve true freedom from food is by consuming more of your own food. This too, of course, poses problems. There is an increasing season when the food is ripe and delicious and then the opposite season. This is where dehydration comes in.

We are going to talk about 50 foods to dehydrate for your stockpile.

Fruits

Perhaps one of the best snacks you can get your hands on, dried fruit is the perfect thing to grab for when you are looking to avoid bad snacking habits.

Apples

Few things dry as well as apples. Now, there are several ways that apples can be dried. If they are merely dehydrated they have a little chew to them but if they are freeze-dried some crunch returns to them

Strawberries

These little morsels dry well, and they are great to rehydrate for topping sweet treats.

Blackberries

If you combine those strawberries with some freeze-dried blackberries you will have a great snack that travels well and can be combined with granola.

Paw Paw

The paw paw is a tropical fruit that grows right here in the United States. They grow as far north as Virginia, and they are like a banana meets a mango. There are big seeds in the paw paw, but they can be halved and removed.

Bananas

Probably one of the most notable dehydrated foods. Be careful if you purchase these bananas you assure they are not coated with a light sugar glaze. This helps with shelf life but adds unnecessary sugar.

Pears
Figs

Figs dehydrate well, and their unique flavor is intensified by the process.

Plums
Pineapple

Pineapple is another dehydrated food that can be coated with unnecessary sugar. Look for the best quality products you can or dehydrate them yourself.

Papaya
Grapes

Who could live without raisins? Drying grapes will create these shriveled little delicacies

Fruit Leather

Puréeing and dehydration of the fruit on a saucepan can produce a dried leather of fruit that is delicious to bring and store. It will also save you Mylar containers, rather than having to pack whole fruits in them.

Vegetables

Dehydrated vegetables may not make as great a snack as dehydrated fruits, but they are still delicious.

Green Bean

Though they can never be as delicious as a fresh bean off the vine these dehydrated beans add color and flavor to anything.

Celery
Onion

The dehydrated onion is one of the main ingredients in most recipes and is a perfect ingredient to have around. Diced, dehydrated onions are an essential commodity for many applications to store.

Carrots

Despite their fresh shape, the carrots are a perfect little snack. They are also another base ingredient that forms the base of French vegetables called mire pox. It is a major convenience to get them dehydrated in the diced form.

Broccoli

A versatile vegetable packed with calcium and sulphurophane, broccoli is a great addition to any good. This is a staple in most freezers at home so it would make sense to have some dehydrated too.

Peas
Asparagus
Tomatoes

There are few things that are as tasty as a fresh tomato. Though dehydration does not offer the same taste, I assure you that it is better for you to dehydrate from your fresh garden tomatoes than any fresh tomato from the supermarket in the hothouse.

Peppers

Peppers are one of those vegetables which aren’t well stored. They can be grilled and frozen or roasted and peeled. I assume sliced, dehydrated preppers are a perfect way to have them on hand all year round.

Okra

Dehydrated okra is such an incredible snack. It also grows like crazy!

Mushrooms

Dried mushrooms have been medicine for thousands of years. If you grow your own mushrooms one of the best ways to store them is dehydrating them.

Herbs

Herbs are both an essential flavor and medicinal thing to have around. The best thing about dried herbs is that they dry on a dry counter with only a little heat, or even. I like picking them up and hanging them upside down.

Rosemary

One of the most effective and powerful herbs, rosemary dries well and as an added benefit it also smells great when you burn it. It’s a Cuban tradition to rid a room of evil spirits.

Basil

One of the very best herbs to cook with, I cry a little each year when the first frost kills my basil plant.

Lavender

Dried lavender is an incredibly relaxing herb. You can dry it and put it into teas or even soaps.

Thyme

By far my favorite herb to cook with, thyme, is also a powerful anti-bacterial.

Sage
Lemon Balm
Yarrow Root

Dried yarrow root, when powdered, is great for stopping bleeding.

Chamomile

A great sleep aid and a powerful dried herb to add to tea.

Rose Hips

Filled with vitamin C the dried rosehip can help boost your immune system.

Roots

The power derived from roots is amazing. To show how dehydrated roots can be of use, I chose some very strong roots.

Ginger

Ginger is a powerful flavor for cooking. This is full of soothing properties, too. There is nothing better than ginger, dried cayenne, and honey tea when I am feeling under the weather.

Turmeric

Nature’s anti-inflammatory, turmeric has been rediscovered as of late and people are using it to deal with that today. It’s a great root to dehydrate and even to powder.

Dandelion

Most people don’t know the dandelion root can be roasted and ground to make a coffee-like beverage. It doesn’t have the caffeine but the taste is perfect.

Echinacea

The powerhouse of the immune system, the echinacea root can be dried and used in tea during that cold and flu season.

Protein

You have got to have protein in your diet. Whether you are talking about a survival situation or day-to-day life. Here are three examples of proteins that dry and dehydrate well.

Duck Breast

Salted and dehydrated duck breast turns into something like ham. It’s delicious.

Beef

Beef jerky.

Fish

Smoked and dried fish has been helping mankind survive for thousands of years. With the technology of today, fish can be smoked and dehydrated to create something great to eat later. I like to use smoked and dehydrated fish in chowders in the winter.

Powders

By dehydrating foods, you have the ability to run them through a spice grinder and create powdered versions of these powerful ingredients. Powders are great for adding to foods, teas, and even taking medicines.

Cayenne

A known anti-inflammatory this is a great powder for food and for dealing with things like sinus inflammation and even mild pain from inflammation.

Onion
Garlic

Garlic and onion powder are great additions to your culinary toolkit. They add great flavor to food and store well.

Ginger

Powdered ginger is one of those all-purpose powders that you must have around. When I am feeling down I always add ginger to my tea, I add it to my pumpkin pie, and it’s also great to mix with other spices.

Herb

Powdering herbs is another terrific way to add their essence to your food or to your overall health program. I like to make herb mixes in powder form. Herbs de Provence is a mix of lavender, thyme, savory, and rosemary. It’s a wonderful mix to add to tons of things.

Meal Makers

45. Homemade Pasta

Have you ever made homemade pasta? It’s incredibly simple. It’s also delicious. You can dehydrate your homemade pasta to get more life out of it.

46. Cheese

47. Potatoes

Cooked and dried potatoes can slash the cooking time on these starchy staples.

48. Sauces

Powdering sauces give you the option to begin packing up your own meals on the go. This allows you to create flavorful camping meals that you can rehydrate out in the wilderness.

49. Rice

50. Beans

Rice and beans that have been cooked can be dehydrated to carry and reheat efficiently. If you use brown rice with your beans you will be tapping into some serious nutrition with just two ingredients.

Start Building Your Dehydrated Stockpile

Rather than investing in products that have been imported and processed in areas and facilities, you don’t know about, start developing your own stock of dehydrated products. You learn all about the food that your family is consuming by growing your own food, dehydrating it, and storing it.

0 Comments

Our modern food system relies on trucks. It depends on transportation and on the ability to carry truck product loads into supermarkets and retailers. And, what if anything hinders those

23 Medicinal Plants the Native Americans Used on a Daily Basis

Native Americans are known for their knowledge of medicinal plants. It is rumored that after watching animals eat certain plants when they were sick, they first started using plants and herbs for healing. To protect those plants from over-harvesting, the men of medicine used to select every third plant they found.

They had a spiritual view of life and to be healthy, a person must have a sense of purpose and follow a righteous, harmonious, and balanced path in life. They claimed that certain diseases were life lessons that the person needed to learn and that they could not interfere with. Many modern remedies and medicines are focused on the experience of the Native American plants and herbs that they have used for thousands of years.

Here are the most versatile plants the Native Americans used in their everyday lives:

1. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

This fragrant, flowering plant has been in use since the beginning of Ancient Greece to avoid excess bleeding. The Greek hero Achilles is said to have used this on his wounds, hence the name. This was applied to open wounds and cuts by settlers and aboriginals as a poultice made from the leaves to help coagulate the blood. We also combined fresh yarrow juice with water to help stomach pain and intestinal disorders. A tea made from the stems and leaves can act as an astringent.

2. Sumac

This plant can be used for a variety of medicinal remedies, but it is one of the few plants used by healers to treat eye problems. A sumac decoction was used as a gargle to alleviate sore throats or as a diarrhea remedy. For tea, the leaves and berries were mixed to reduce fever or turned into a poultice to soothe poison ivy.

3. Blackberry

The Cherokee used that plant to treat stomach upset. Blackberry tea was used to cure diarrhea and to soothing swollen tissues and joints. An all-natural cough syrup can be made from blackberry root, mixed with honey or maple syrup to heal sore throats. They used to chew the leaves to soothe the bleeding gums. Also, this plant is perfect for improving the whole immune system.

4. Rosemary

This plant was considered sacred by Native American tribes. They often used it as an analgesic to treat sore joints. This herb enhances memory, relieves muscle pain and spasm, and strengthens the nervous and circulatory systems. It strengthens the immune system as well, and prevents indigestion.

5. Mint

The Cherokee used to make mint tea to ease digestive problems and to help a tummy ache. They also made a leaf salve to relieve itching skin and rashes.

6. Red Clover

The healers used this herb for the treatment of inflammation and respiratory conditions. Recent studies have shown that red clover seeks to reduce heart disease through improved circulation and decreased cholesterol levels.

7. Black Gum Bark

The Cherokee used to make a mild tea from the twigs and black gum bark to relieve chest pains.

8. Cattail

This is one of the most common subsistence plants used for food by the indigenous population but also as preventive medicine. Because it is an easily digestible food, beneficial to recover from the disease. It is called the supermarket of the swamp, as it can be used in several dishes.

9. Pull Out a Sticker (Greenbriar)

This root tea was used as a purifier for blood or to alleviate pain in the joints. Some healers made a leaf-and-bark salve mixed with hog lard, that was applied to minor sores, scalds, and burns.

10. Hummingbird Blossom (Buck Brush)

The Native Americans used this plant to treat conditions of the mouth and throat, as well as cysts, fibroid tumors, and inflammation. To help treat burns, sores, and wounds, it may be made into a poultice. The roots of this plant can be used to make a diuretic that stimulates kidney function.

The early pioneers used that particular plant as a substitute for black tea. Recent studies have shown that the blossom of colibris is effective in treating high blood pressure and lymph blockages.

11. Wild Rose

This plant was used by the Native Americans as a preventive and remedy for moderate, common cold. The tea is a mild diuretic and stimulates the bladder and kidneys. An injection of petals was used to relieve a sore throat.

12. Saw Palmetto

Florida’s native tribes, like the Seminoles, used the plant for food, however, men of medicine used it as a natural remedy for abdominal pain. It also helps digestion, decreases inflammation, and increases appetite.

13. Sage

Sage is generally used as a spice, but for many indigenous tribes, it was a sacred herb, as it was thought to have beneficial purifying qualities and to cleanse the body of negative energies. It was used as a remedy to treat medical conditions such as abdominal cramps, spasms, cuts, bruises, colds, and flu.

14. Wild Ginger

Healers used this plant to treat ear infections and earache. Also, they made a mild rootstock tea to stimulate the digestive system and alleviate bloating. Bronchial infections and nausea also help.

15. Slippery Elm

Using the inner bark, the Native Americans fashioned bowstrings, rope, thread, and clothing. Tea was made from the bark and leaves to soothe toothaches, breathing irritations, skin conditions, stomach aches, sore throats, and even bites of spiders.

16. Lavender

Healers used this herb as a remedy for insomnia, anxiety, depression, headache, and exhaustion. The essential oil possesses anti-inflammatory and antiseptic properties. Infusions can be used both to soothe bites from insects and burns.

17. Prickly Pear Cactus

This is another plant that was used both as food and as medicine. Native Americans made a poultice as an antiseptic and for treating wounds from mature pads, burns, and boils. Tea was made for treating infections in the urinary tract and for strengthening the immune system. Research now shows that the prickly pear cactus helps lower cholesterol and avoids cardiovascular disease caused by diabetes and diet.

18. Honeysuckle

The Native Americans used this herb as a natural remedy for the treatment of asthma, however, it has many medicinal purposes, including rheumatoid arthritis, mumps, and hepatitis.

19. Ashwagandha

Because of its many unusual medicinal uses, this plant was an important plant for healers. It addresses bone weakness, muscle weakness and tension, teeth loss, memory loss, and rheumatism. It can be used as a sedative, as well. It has a rejuvenating cumulative effect on the body, as it increases resilience. Also, the leaves and the root bark may be used as an antibiotic. When turned into a poultice, which helps to reduce swelling and to relieve pain. Caution when using this plant is recommended as it is poisonous.

20. Mullein

A tobacco-like herb, used primarily for treating respiratory disorders. To reduce swelling in the joints, the Native Americans made concoctions from the roots; feet, or hands.

21. Licorice Root

This root is commonly used to flavor candy, food, and drinks. But healers have used this to treat problems with the stomach, bronchitis, food poisoning, and chronic fatigue.

22. Uva Ursi

It is also known as Bearberry and Bear grape, because of the bear’s affection for the fruits of this plant. This plant was primarily used by the Native Americans to treat bladder and urinary tract infections.

23. Devil’s Claw

Although the name would suggest a poisonous plant, it was used by the Native Americans to cure various conditions – from fever treatment to soothing skin conditions, digestive improvements, and arthritis treatment. Tea will reduce diabetes effects, while a concoction made from the roots of the plant reduces swelling and helps with joint disease, arthritis, gout, back pain, headache, and sores.

Remember that knowledge is the only doctor that can save you when medical help is not available.

0 Comments

Native Americans are known for their knowledge of medicinal plants. It is rumored that after watching animals eat certain plants when they were sick, they first started using plants and

Prepping After 60

Ever wonder how you will live if the SHTF? Ever try to answer all the questions that you ask yourself about how you will survive as a single, senior woman living alone with no family, no spouse, no other support other than yourself? I ask myself everyday as I grow older and a little weaker in body and strength. I used to be able to lift fifty pounds of feed or move a bale of hay easily but now it gets to be a real trial. But, since I am alone, I have to do it anyway I can and I usually do. It is the same in prepping for just myself, my livestock, and the homestead.

I live on seven and a half acres in a rural southern California area which is like a mountain/high desert mix when it comes to weather and vegetation. My well is a good one and does the job of watering the livestock which consists of chickens, turkeys, goats, sheep, a llama, horses, and assorted dogs and cats. So, I have a good start on being self-sufficient. I decided to not bug out but to bug in if SHTF ever happens. So, I have devoted my time and meager income to this place.

When you are older and alone there are a lot of things that go thru your mind when the subject of prepping comes up. A lot of the questions such as what happens if I can’t get to town, how will I get my medications, what happens if the grid goes down, how do I function as an older woman alone in a non-functioning world, etc., etc., etc. Yes, there are hundreds of questions and sometimes the answers are easy and sometimes they elude us. Being older and alone does pose many unique problems for the one facing this uncertain world. When faced with these problems, I decided to sit down and access my situation and made a lot of decisions and lists. The first one was to bug out or not. Being that I have some disabilities such as arthritis and a bad back, there is no way I could walk out of here or ride my horse great distances to get to…Where? I don’t have a bug out place and if I did I would never make it there alive. I found that most of what I needed to survive was right here in my home.

I used to be able to lift fifty pounds of feed or move a bale of hay easily but now it gets to be a real trial. But, since I am alone, I have to do it anyway I can and I usually do.

So, I took inventory and started my first list of what I had in the way of survival gear, food, water, clothing, medications, tools, and a second list of what I needed to get. If I did bug out, I could not begin to carry what I would need to travel to an unknown destination. I would be a moving target for those who would like to take what I had. And, what would happen to all my animals? I have a pretty good start on being self-sufficient here with chickens and turkeys for meat and eggs, dairy goats for milk, butter, cheese and, a horse for transportation, a llama for packing, sheep for meat, wool and milk and in the spring I will be starting to raise rabbits, one or two cows for meat and milk and guineas for an alarm system. I have all I need here. Why leave it? I am comfortable here and feel a modicum of safety and I know some of the people and the area. That is a big thing to consider in deciding whether to stay or go and how you will get there. It is not very safe for older women to go out alone now so just think of how it will be if things get rough?

I made a third list of things I needed in the way of tools for survival, building supplies and weapons for protection. I bought a few power tools and two small gas-powered generators to run them and a little chest freezer. I bought that so I can freeze meats, cheese, and butter and make gallon-sized ice cubes to use in the antique icebox that was used by the previous owner for a liquor cabinet. I have tried it out and it works like a dream. I have also made a list of things I want to learn to do and can now scratch off such as learning how to can with a pressure canner, use a chainsaw for cutting firewood, and I turned my front porch into a greenhouse so I will have tomatoes and lettuce in the winter. I had to learn how to butcher the chickens and will have to learn how to do the cute fuzzy rabbits. But, if it means I will eat then so be it. We all have to do things that are distasteful but will do them to survive. I do believe that the older generation is better at getting it done than the younger and we don’t need a cell phone for that.

As for protection? I believe that in the future people will revert to old-time weapons for protection such as bows and arrows and spears and such. If the grid goes down there are only going to be so many bullets and no one to keep production up and not everyone is adept at reloading. So, my weapons of choice is the longbow, a cross-bow, and several pistol bows. I practiced a lot to become proficient in archery and can hit what I aim at. Even being 65 I can pull 40 lbs. And, it is a silent weapon. Pretty good for an old lady! But, I also have shotguns and pellet rifles. I learned almost all that when I turned 60. I made me a practice range on my place between the silage corn I planted and the wheat where I could and still do shoot regularly.

I have also made a list of things I want to learn to do and can now scratch off such as learning how to can with a pressure canner, use a chainsaw for cutting firewood, and I turned my front porch into a greenhouse so I will have tomatoes and lettuce in the winter.

I believe that if there is a will there is a way. Just because you are older and maybe not so strong physically does not mean you just lay down and die. I think that because I am older and alone it drives me to want to survive anything that is thrown at me. The instincts to survive are there and all you have to do is use your head, do the research, organize, learn, learn, learn, …and maybe, join a self-sufficiency /prepper group for moral support. When I needed gutters put up on the eaves of the house to catch rainwater for the livestock, I looked on the internet for DIY instructions and got it done. When I needed raised garden beds for my gardening, I designed one and got it built. Now I have many of them. It wasn’t too hard but still, there are things I wish I had help with but with a little ingenuity, I usually get it done.

After my dad died, I had to decide where to move my 84-year-old mother and myself. I have always wanted to move back to the country and live out my life in a rural setting, so that is where I landed. That was four years ago and since then the outside world has grown more violent, unpredictable, and totally dangerous with rumors of war, terrorists and possible financial collapse and EMPs. I have not been able to ignore it any longer. Something big is going to happen and soon. I feel it in my bones and not being prepared made me start making lists, reading about emergency preparations and being more aware of what has been going on around me. Then my mother was diagnosed with third stage dementia and since early this last year has had to make the transfer from here to a nursing home. I found myself turning 65, needing back surgery and losing income from taking care of my mom. I kept making lists of foods, household goods, clothes, weapons for self-defense, first aid and medical stuff, tools, livestock, and a lot of other things including what I already knew and what I wanted to learn about. I read, searched the internet, read blogs and always ask questions. As time has passed I felt overwhelmed with the stuff I needed to get done and for the first time in a while felt completely alone. It took a good talking to myself to set me right on the prepper path and now I find myself making great strides in becoming totally self-sufficient and ready for anything. And, I don’t feel my age is a hurdle anymore but actually has been a blessing.

I know that living in the country is very different from living in the city. I have lived in both and when the time comes and the grid goes down, preparing oneself with food, water, and the tools you need to have to survive are almost the same. You still need warmth, a roof over your head, a way to cook, and protection. You still need to be ready to hunker down where you are and have survival items unique to your circumstances. I know that it can be a bit overwhelming and lonely when having to make decisions concerning your safety and comfort especially when you are by yourself. But, if you have studied, learned and listened to the rumblings you will be prepared and will survive. After all, you have made it this far so you can be called a senior citizen.

Something big is going to happen and soon. I feel it in my bones and not being prepared made me start making lists, reading about emergency preparations and being more aware of what has been going on around me.

Not everything in prepping for one is dreary. One thing I realized while making my shopping list the other day for my food storage was that it contained foods I really liked and I got to pick and choose what to purchase. No one else had a say in what I bought. That was a bonus since I lean towards comfort foods and not gourmet stuff. The pros definitely outweighed the cons like not having to share my favorite candy bar with anyone. Do take an inventory of all the items you have now and build on that. Don’t forget to prep for your pets and do splurge on some good books, puzzles and crafts supplies to keep busy if you ever have any free time. Make sure to store up batteries so you can play your cd player and listen to music. It is a treat for yourself after a long day of working to keep yourself alive. This can be true today before the SHTF. And, don’t feel sorry for yourself for being older and alone. I don’t believe Karma gives us more than we can handle and hard work and challenge build character even in seniors.

As for being a senior, you should be able to draw on that vast supply of experience on keeping yourself healthy, active, sharp and for learning new things. Just remember, it is not how old you are or how infirm you might be, don’t think you cannot do it. You can if you believe you can. You will find a way. Even not having a lot of funds for purchasing items for your survival shouldn’t deter you. Get creative and go to garage sales, second-hand shops, Good Will and Salvation Army. I shop a lot at the dollar store and have saved tons of money on paper goods, canned goods, and other household items. Personal items are a good buy there as well.

I found out a long time ago, when my kids grew up and all moved away, and I divorced my husband that you only have yourself to rely on. No one is going to look out for you and it will be really true when the SHTF comes around. I found out there were things I didn’t think I could do but found out that I can. Being alone lets one really get to know yourself. Being older doesn’t mean that your world has come to an end. I believe I have every right to survive as the next person. Maybe more. That I have worked harder, learned more, done more and have earned the right to live with my own two hands by being more creative, smart, knowledgeable and resilient than the younger generation who can’t get the cell phone out of their face. Sit back at the end of the day and think of all you’ve accomplished all by yourself and be proud of it.

So, let’s get busy and quit thinking about how old we are and how much those joints hurt and start getting ready for that uncertain future and let’s survive. After all, we’ve lived this long, I’m game for twenty more years…are you?

34 Comments

Ever wonder how you will live if the SHTF? Ever try to answer all the questions that you ask yourself about how you will survive as a single, senior woman

What to Do in the First 60 Minutes of SHTF

Many people are convinced that civilization as we know it will collapse or, at best, experience a prolonged interruption. Very few of those people are actually planning for it and even less are preparing for it in advance. For those of us actually preparing we have forums, books, videos, and meetings to help us get ready for SHTF.

A few are even likely hoping for it for various reasons. What if this collapse occurs in a matter of minutes as well it might in various SHTF scenarios; nuclear war, terrorism, EMP, pandemic, conventional war, civil unrest becoming civil war? I am sure you can add a few to this list. Using the Golden Hour concept from trauma medicine I am proposing a few unusual ways of handling the first hour of SHTF.

In this Golden Hour, things you do and do not do will have a profound effect on your chances of a decent survival outcome. The Golden Hour is getting a major trauma victim to a trauma center within an hour. Survival rates plummet by minute 61. What will you do in the first 60 minutes of a sudden SHTF? I expect disagreement and hope the comments will give me some good ideas.

SHTF Happens and you are at Home

Reacting rather than data gathering is the key to all of these situations. As humans used to experience normal conditions the sudden ending of the normal is a shock and many react to it by standing still and trying to find out what is going on. The lights go out, you check your phone, you look out the window, and you try to find your battery radio and the flashlights. You are in bed and the loud bang shakes the house violently and the power goes out. You use your phone, you turn on the TV, and you go outside to find out what is going on. You might even go through these actions several times!

WaterBob Emergency water storage holds up to 100 gallons

I am not saying these responses are always wrong. Geography etc. has an input into your plan which is a pre-written plan. If you are hundreds of miles from cities then your response might be different especially if you have large volumes of water stored. What I am saying is get moving early and start using the Water Bob, the clean rain barrels from storage within minutes of any alert that normal no longer might exist. Finding out what has happened is a secondary concern for preparing to survive. Who cares if Russia has attacked the USA or if it was a terrorist bomb? Listen to your gut, not to CNN.

Even worse is leaving the home to collect wife (or husband) and kids. During the opening hour, you have to prepare the home for a possible prolonged end of normal life. The wife (or husband) and kids have a plan and they will use it. It might be to hunker down and wait for you knowing it might be a day or two or come home immediately but they know it and you know it. Fight the very human desire to gather the loved ones immediately at the time of crisis unless is your plan and they know it. If you (or they) are at home then the preparing of the home is the best thing you can do for them in the opening hour. You have no idea how long the water or electricity will last.

Obviously, if your children are young you need a plan to collect them but do you need to go immediately? If yes, then go. But the decision is a logical one not an emotional one. Emotional reactions to sudden shocks often lead to faulty decision-making. It might be best to protect your food and water supplies while the electricity and water remain on before heading out to collect your child from school. An hour or two’s delay in setting out means they get to eat and drink for sure.

If it is a temporary thing you have at worst wasted the water bob and will have to buy a new one (people say you can reuse it but I am not sure water safety is worth the risk). Other things you may consider doing during the first hour is nailing tarps over your raised garden beds and moving supplies into the house or bug out vehicle. What you do not want to be doing is chatting to neighbors or wasting time trying to get information. Something bad seems to have happened so deal with it. How much you know about it is a human desire but preparing is the essential thing in the first hour.

SHTF Happens and you are on the Road

This is the hardest of all situations to experience sudden SHTF yet it is the most common one in society. Motor Vehicle Collisions (they are not ‘accidents’) kill and maim many people each and every day. Plan for this in advance and have a seat belt cutter stored.

However in a sudden SHTF of major local, national, or international scope what is your plan if you are in the vehicle? If the vehicle works get fuel as soon as possible and buy food and water in the first gas station you see using cash but only if it is safe and uncrowded. Then get home or to the preplanned bug out location using the vehicle. Do not delay at all. In sudden SHTF people literally drive miles in one direction, usually to collect family, and then end up being directed the opposite way by Police. When they finally get home it is burned down or looted. As ever everyone in your family knows to stay in place or come home in an SHTF and when to do so. You are not their savior. Your role is to trust them and the written and discussed plan. Get home or to the bug out location and get busy.

mass-evacuation

Roads in major cities will quickly become impassable.

Some SHTF scenarios will see the vehicle fail or be blocked in its progress. Abandon the vehicle immediately gathering all useful supplies and get moving away from people and towards home or the bug out location. Drive alternative routes if possible but a vehicle is not going to last long in a major SHTF so try not to be attached to it! Again chatting to people, trying their phones, and wondering what is going on is pointless. It is bad and that is all you need to know. Use the sides of highways to move away from the groups of scared, annoyed, and confused people on the road. No need to walk up the exit ramps as you have the physical ability to use less usual routes. You always have a paper map however basic and a get home bag in the car.

Transit by boat, plane, or train in a sudden SHTF is problematic. In your Golden Hour gather supplies, learn exits, and start thinking how best to get out and home. Water in train, boat, and plane washrooms is not drinkable but empty a recycling bin and fill up those bottles with it. You should have a few water purification tablets on you at all times. Do not bother washing out those bottles. People are not really that infectious (this advice is NOT to be followed in a pandemic) and you can easily get 10 liters or more of okay water stored up in the first few minutes of the SHTF while everyone else is shouting into dead phones. By Day Two you will be very happy you did this in those first few minutes.

As a rule I never travel by boat other than short ferry rides and I cannot see a good outcome in SHTF on a cruise ship but if you cruise at least carry your own flotation vests and survival kit.

Experiencing a sudden and dreadful SHTF on a plane might be interesting. If it falls out of the sky then all the prepping you have done will hopefully be used by your loved ones. However diversion and being kept in an airport is more likely in a sudden SHTF. Carry cash in large amounts and try to carry some cash that can be used in the countries you are flying over or near. If the power is on and you can use credit cards to immediately start an alternative route home. In 9-11 people were stuck in Canada for up to four days when they could have got home via train and bus if they had started immediately. A few hours later and there were no seats available! If a small nuclear war is the cause of air travel suspension imagine how long you might be stuck somewhere and how likely is it you will be well treated?

If a SHTF is likely I’d advise you to call sick and stay at home even if you have a cruise booked but SHTF can happen with almost no warning and what you do immediately can make or break your survival chances.

SHTF Happens and you are at Work, School, or the Mall

Ideally using your preplanned route(s) and get home bag you will immediately start home. If the car park is a mess or the car will not work immediately abandon it after getting the supplies. In a sudden and serious SHTF roads and car parks likely will be both slower than walking and less safe.

If it is a chemical or nuclear SHTF you might need to shelter in place. Know where the washrooms are especially those deep in the building and infrequently used. If mushroom clouds bloom on the horizon people will mainly rush to their cars and attempt to flee home not that home is a magically safe place. Go to the nearest couple of recycling bins, open them, and carry the trash bags loaded with cans and bottles to the washroom (preferably one on a lower level). Dump them out and start filling them with tap water. Don’t bother cleaning them out. Try to get 50 liters or more. Do this immediately and you can store up 4 weeks’ worth in minutes. Store it in a cubical, lock it, and climb out. At this point try to buy food as you head for the car but do not if it will take time. At the car grab everything useful and back to the washroom. Bunker in and trust your loved ones are similarly safe.

It is unlikely people will use the washrooms in Malls and schools in these scenarios especially those out-of-the-way ones. If they do all your stuff is in a locked cubical. Food and warmth are not the priority in the Golden Hour but water and security are. Consider breaking all the lights in your washroom after securing the water and jamming the door. Consider breaking all the lights in the corridor outside and pulling stuff into it. Initially, people will not take hard routes.

Looting supplies is reasonable once people have gone and Security has left. Before then the chances of getting into trouble makes it not worth the risk. Most fast food places have the food (such as it is) in the back. Mall, workplace, and School offices have lockers and many will have something to eat inside if you take your time looking through them. At work know who keeps food at their desks (you do I hope!). Most people will grab their keys and bags and flee towards home leaving behind a lot of food and useful items.

Many people think about using coins to raid vending machines. Maybe this is a good idea but water is from the washroom taps and the recycling bins and lining up slowly buying chocolate bars might make you a target. In a sudden SHTF, it is more than likely you can use your small crowbar from your get home bag to access the vending machines the next day. You are going to be sitting in dark for at least a week but I’d try to do this for four weeks. Then you go home. Radiation will hopefully not kill you in four weeks but likely will the first day.

Many places have drapes and carpets that you can cut up to make sleeping ‘bags’ and this is the sort of re-purposing you need to do in SHTF. Keep active and do whatever you need to do to optimize your survival chances.

The hardest part is not fleeing but thinking, planning, and acting. Prepping is a state of mind as much as anything and I hope this article gets you thinking a bit. Much of it is arguable so please argue!

Other self-sufficiency and preparedness solutions recommended for you:

The vital self-sufficiency lessons our great grand-fathers left us

Knowledge to survive any medical crisis situation

Liberal’s hidden agenda: more than just your guns

Build yourself the only unlimited water source you’ll ever need

4 Important Forgotten Skills used by our Ancestors that can help you in any crisis

Secure your privacy in just 10 simple steps

0 Comments

Many people are convinced that civilization as we know it will collapse or, at best, experience a prolonged interruption. Very few of those people are actually planning for it and

Preparing the Cactus

Cooking Your Ramen

&amp;lt;img loading=&#8221;lazy&#8221; class=&#8221;alignnone size-full wp-image-14882 alignright&#8221; src=&#8221;https://www.finalprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/prune-pudding.jpg&#8221; alt=&#8221;&#8221; width=&#8221;300&#8243; height=&#8221;202&#8243;/&amp;gt;1) Prune Pudding

&amp;lt;img loading=&#8221;lazy&#8221; class=&#8221;alignnone size-full wp-image-14885 alignright&#8221; src=&#8221;https://www.finalprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/mock-applie-pie.jpg&#8221; alt=&#8221;&#8221; width=&#8221;300&#8243; height=&#8221;199&#8243;/&amp;gt;2) Mock Apple Pie (No Apples)

3) Spaghetti and Carrot Casserole

&amp;lt;img loading=&#8221;lazy&#8221; class=&#8221;alignnone size-full wp-image-14891 alignright&#8221; src=&#8221;https://www.finalprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/mulligan-stew.jpg&#8221; alt=&#8221;&#8221; width=&#8221;300&#8243; height=&#8221;266&#8243;/&amp;gt;5) Mulligan Stew

6) Loaves

&amp;lt;img loading=&#8221;lazy&#8221; class=&#8221;alignnone size-full wp-image-14893 alignright&#8221; src=&#8221;https://www.finalprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/Dandelion-and-Apple-Salad.jpg&#8221; alt=&#8221;&#8221; width=&#8221;300&#8243; height=&#8221;225&#8243;/&amp;gt;7) Dandelion Salad

8) Kraft Macaroni and Cheese

7) Jell-O

&amp;lt;img loading=&#8221;lazy&#8221; class=&#8221;alignnone size-full wp-image-14894 alignright&#8221; src=&#8221;https://www.finalprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/creamed-chipped-beef.jpg&#8221; alt=&#8221;&#8221; width=&#8221;300&#8243; height=&#8221;235&#8243;/&amp;gt;8) Creamed Chipped Beef

&amp;lt;img loading=&#8221;lazy&#8221; class=&#8221;alignnone size-full wp-image-14896 alignright&#8221; src=&#8221;https://www.finalprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/poor-mans-meal.jpg&#8221; alt=&#8221;&#8221; width=&#8221;300&#8243; height=&#8221;225&#8243;/&amp;gt;9) Poor Man’s Meal

&amp;lt;img loading=&#8221;lazy&#8221; class=&#8221;alignnone size-full wp-image-14898 alignright&#8221; src=&#8221;https://www.finalprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/hoover-stew.jpg&#8221; alt=&#8221;&#8221; width=&#8221;300&#8243; height=&#8221;168&#8243;/&amp;gt;11) Hoover Stew

&amp;lt;img loading=&#8221;lazy&#8221; class=&#8221;alignnone size-full wp-image-14899 alignright&#8221; src=&#8221;https://www.finalprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/ice.jpg&#8221; alt=&#8221;&#8221; width=&#8221;300&#8243; height=&#8221;200&#8243;/&amp;gt;

12) Italian Ice

13) Potato Pancakes

15) Great Depression Casserole

Why Is Rain Water Harvesting Regulated?

History of Rain Water Regulation

States with Rain Water Harvesting Laws

Colorado

California

Oregon

Texas

Oklahoma

Illinois

Ohio

Arizona

North Carolina

Rhode Island

Utah

Washington

Virginia

The Final Word on the Legalities of Rain Water Harvesting

A Hidden Room

Emergency Shelter

Under Stairwells

Survival Caches

Closets

In The Ground

Chamber

Some Places You Should NEVER Store Food Are:

Virginia Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Kimchi

Ingredients

Directions

Fruit Leather

Ingredients

Directions

Biltong

Ingredients

Directions

Peasant Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Pilot Crackers

Ingredients

Directions

Practical Uses

Medical Applications

In the Garden

Fruits

Vegetables

Herbs

Roots

Protein

Powders

Meal Makers

Start Building Your Dehydrated Stockpile

1. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

2. Sumac

3. Blackberry

4. Rosemary

5. Mint

6. Red Clover

7. Black Gum Bark

<img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-12124 aligncenter lazyload" src="https://www.finalprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/black-gum-bark.jpg" alt="black gum bark" width="600" />

8. Cattail

1) Prune Pudding

2) Mock Apple Pie (No Apples)

5) Mulligan Stew

7) Dandelion Salad

8) Creamed Chipped Beef

9) Poor Man’s Meal

11) Hoover Stew