Tag: Prepper

Turkey Day Dinner
Prepping · Recipes

Turkey Day Dinner

Sarah

Turkey Day Dinner is an easy recipe that is shelf-stable and ready to cook at home, on the road, or on the trail. To be prepared for power outages and other emergencies, seal the recipe in a glass mason jar or a mylar bag. You can add the boiling water directly to the Mylar bags, meaning no dirty dishes.

Turkey Day Dinner

Pack in a mylar bag or a sandwich bag for one pot:

Bag Method:

Add 1¾ cups of boiled water to the mylar bag. Stir well, seal tightly, and let sit for 15 minutes. Stir again, and eat.

One Pot Method:

In a small pot, bring 1¾ cups water to a boil. Add dry ingredients and stir well. Place the lid on and turn off the stove.

If cooking outside:At a cool temperature or at altitude, put the pot in a pot cozy.

Let sit for 15 minutes. Stir and eat.

Serves 1 large appetite to 2 smaller ones.

~Sarah

5 Months To Prepare Your Garden
Gardening · Homesteading · Prepping

5 Months To Prepare Your Garden

Sarah

October slips in. The temperature lowers, and quickly we lose daylight on both sides. Summer crops are done and it’s easy to go hibernate for the long winter. Or….maybe you don’t have a garden yet.

And I am here to tell you to not hibernate yet. It’s not time to go to sleep yet. Do the work now, while the ground is warm, but the air is cool. If you do it now, in October, come the first of March you will be ready to go.

The need to be self-sufficient grows by the day. You must not let your guard down. It doesn’t matter if you live in an apartment, or on acreage. You can, and MUST grow something. Even if it is a few pots. Below are topics to get you started on.

Your grow zone: It is the engine of gardening. By understanding it, you will know when the first and last frosts usually occur. What kind of weather to expect in summer. The highs and lows, which determine if you have a long enough season, or that plants will survive the winter. See here for the USDA maps to determine your zone.

How much daylight: That you receive all year. Learning what is in the shade during the day. Not only in summer, but all year. For example, one bed of ours, is in the sun only in the morning from September to April. This causes grow issues for fall crops.

16 hours a day at the Summer Solstice in Late June has plants primed to grow.

But in late December not much is growing without artificial lighting, though with greenhouses you can still have some things growing, but it depends on how North your land is.

Choose your location: If you have land to grow food on, be it raised or in ground beds, there are considerations. If you live in town, and in an HOA, you will most likely need to grow in the backyard. The less eyes that see your garden, the better. One can hide edible plants in front yards (blueberries are a great example). If you live more rural, you will need to consider fencing to keep out deer, elk, rabbits and so on. The second is figuring out the sunniest areas in your yard, if in town. Fences can help extend warm weather crops, as they reflect heat back. If you have ample land you will want your garden area(s) to be well drained, away from acidic trees (evergreen trees) and to receive ample sun.

Being near a water source: One issue when we started over at our homestead here is we had a lack of water. We were farming down low, and there was no water hydrants at all down there. The nearest water was over 2 acres away, at the house. We had 800 feet of rubber hose I had to move around daily. 2 years ago we got water hydrants installed all over the land – and it is a huge difference I can tell you. It freed up my days.

Planning the Garden: This is figuring out do you want raised beds? In ground beds? Pots? It also is determining how much square footage you need.

How much to grow: We recently wrote a piece on how much to grow per person in your garden. This will help you figure out how many seeds and plants you need to acquire.

What to grow: It’s this simple – grow what you like to eat. If you hate kale and you don’t have animals to feed it to, don’t grow it! But also, grow things that cost the most. For example, dual season red raspberries is a great investment, as raspberries are always expensive in stores. Where as potatoes are not (though they are worth growing for the taste, but you get my point). Those with less space will need to really think it out.

Harvesting: Learn to know what is ready. You don’t want to grow food, and then have it rot on the vine.

Preserving: Learn to can and dehydrate food. Read up on how to cure garlic and onions for long term storage. See here for all the posts.

Buying Supplies: Growing a garden isn’t as simple as running a tiller over land, though that does make life easier. Having basic tools on hand now will make it much easier. A shovel, a hoe, a good garden rake. Gloves. Tarps to kill off weeds and grass naturally (yes, you can buy high end farming silage tarps, or you can buy cheap ones from Harbor Freight as well). If you have the back for it, you can do everything by hand. We use our BCS tractor to only break new land open, to kick up the rocks. After that, and the rows are shaped, we don’t use the tractor anymore. Our land, being on an island is hard often, filled with rocks. Once opened up, the land can be made better.

The Prep:

Once you have it all in your mind and plotted out, it is time to get to work.

Mark out where you want to do it, be it on paper, or better, on the ground.

If you are doing raised beds you will want to lay down a very thick layer of cardboard (remove all tape) to kill the grass/weeds so they don’t grow up. Be sure to do 4 layers or more thick. Plain is best versus colored. After that, assemble your raised beds however you are doing it, and get them filled with soil. Then you are done! If concerned about weeds starting from blown seeds, you can cover each bed with a tarp over the winter. This will also keep the beds drier from winter rains. (See here for articles on all the raised beds we have built over the years)

If you are doing in ground, mow the land if needed (or weed whack), then till the land now, pull out rocks you bring up. After you till, let the land sit for a week or so, so seeds can germinate, then cover with a tarp to kill the seeds. You will want to weight it down heavily on the edges (bricks, sand bags and such). Black or dark colors is best. You will leave the tarps on over the winter and pull back as the light returns in March so you can shape the land into beds.

In late winter/early spring we shape the beds in ground, with a walk way between each bed. Then we put an inch of well-aged compost on each row. For weed suppression, we do a thick layer of wood chips down the walk ways.

Pull any weeds that it through the winter.

And then…it’s time to plant. And it is Spring, and 5 months have slipped by.

Seed Prep:

By January you will want your seeds in front of you. It won’t be time to grow yet, but don’t wait. Seeds for the most part can last many years if stored in a dry/cool environment. You might lose some germination, but overall seeds want to grow, and will. But keep track of what you have and order what you don’t. And don’t think of just spring crops – think about what you will plant multiple times, and what you might plant in late summer for fall.

Find out if there will be a seed swap nearby, and join in. You might get seeds you didn’t know existed!

Starting plants in pots is a good start. Tip: While I buy my 4″ pots often on Amazon, if you have a Dollar Tree nearby, look in late Winter and they often sell them in 10 packs for a $1. They last multiple years if you are gentle on them and store them inside when not in use.

Wondering when to plant? See here for when to plant seeds in grow zone 8b.

Have a potting area that is dedicated. It can be out or inside. I keep mine outside, because space but also mess control. Mine sits in the orchard. I store our pots nearby for ease in it.

Greenhouses:

We use popup/portable greenhouses often (though we have a dedicated real greenhouse as well). This allows us to grow a LOT of starts in the early months. Enough to protect at night, and to keep animals out – and out chickens I might add. I take the covers off and store so they don’t get UV damage until needed. The key is you must weight them down (see the heavy paver stones?) and we attach them with zip ties to the fence behind. Keep them zipped tightly if wind is predicted and they last. But always weigh the frame down!

Until Spring…stay busy and get those dreams going.

~Sarah

Can You Get Home?
Prepping

Can You Get Home?

Sarah

Living rural is a wonderful thing. It’s quieter, more relaxed, a way to be more in tune with nature. But it has a drawback. Eventually you have to head to more populated areas to restock food, supplies and to run errands needed. Where we live, it is a 50 mile long island. The majority of the island is rural, with the north end hosting the one large town and a military base. For us, if we leave home, we drive at least 30 miles one way to shop. If we go off island, it is 50 miles one way at least, and involves crossing another island and 2 bridges to get back via the north end. The other end is a ferry ride.

Now let that sink in.

We are 30 miles from home, just to get groceries. Our children are at home, with their Uncle. But we are far away. It doesn’t feel far away of course, because we drive it often. In a vehicle. Where the miles fly by at 50-55 mph.

What happens if we are out shopping on a Tuesday night, after work, when the fault line that crosses the island rips open? I was working in 2001 on the island, with a young child at home, when the Nisqually Earthquake hit. We were fortunate it wasn’t worse. Roads were OK. We live 2 miles from the fault line now, and having felt its power, I respect that it will happen again, and when it does, we have no idea how bad it will be. However, the local gas station went out and jacked up the gas prices to over $6 a gallon (it was $2.50 or so then). This same horrible place did that on 9/11 as well. I was also at work, with my son at home, 15 miles away from my work for that event.

But if the single highway home were to be ripped up? What would we do? (And that is important – do you only have one way home where you live?)

How long does it take to get home? For strong people that will take 2 to 3 days to get home if you had to walk 30 miles. For those not, it could be 4 to 5 days. When we lived on the mainland Kirk worked that far away and took the bus to work, into Seattle. The fastest route home involved the massive bridges over Lake Washington. For him it could have been a 4 to 5 day walk home though urban hell nearly the entire way.

And you have to think about what would your disaster in your area. Earthquake? Volcanic explosion? Sudden flooding? Social unrest? Forest fires? Sudden winter storms where people pull over and leave their cars on the highway? Where we live all of those apply.

Are you prepared to get home?

It seems simple, right? Just start walking. But before that, you need to consider things. Have a bare plan thought out. The mental game is a lot of it – staying focused, not giving up. Knowing routes home. Mental mile markers that show you how far you have gone.

Shoes.

If you are leaving your home to go anywhere, and are wearing flip flops, or worse, heels, do yourself a favor. Carry an extra pair of shoes and socks in your trunk. Just leave them in the back and forget about them. You won’t get far in poorly supportive shoes and worse if it is winter and you have thin useless shoes on. You might make it a couple miles till you are in absolute pain. Walking barefoot is even a worse decision.

The Bug Out Bag.

I could lecture this one all day. If you have to find your way home, you need to have gear on you to survive. People tend to become less civil when things go wrong. They won’t help strangers. They are likely to want to hurt you. And you will be thirsty, hungry, you will need to use the bathroom. You will need to sleep.

That doesn’t mean you need a literal bug out bag (a backpack), though it is better if you do have something dedicated that is on your back for ease in moving. Just as with shoes, toss a lightweight backpack in your vehicle.

If you read up on prepper sites, you will end up with a military style backpack and it will be loaded up heavily with gear. Do you need that? Well, it could come in handy. But no, you don’t. Even if all you do is fill up your pockets with gear, or fill up a shopping bag, and start walking, that is better than nothing.

What to walk with?

As get ready to abandon your vehicle, go through it, if you have time (and it is safe to do so). Having a backpack already loaded makes it easier, safer and quicker.

  • Backpack
  • Water bottles. Water is heavy, but you NEED it to survive. And 30 miles hiking you will need a lot of it. Take as much as you have on hand. But be mindful how little you have. How to drink less…I will discuss that below.
  • Snacks – keep in your backpack individual snacks, granola bars, meat sticks, jerky, nuts, candy. You can survive a long time without any food, but you will do far better if you have something to eat. I’ve hiked 19 miles in a day on 900 calories. It sucked. A lot. I was stumbling near the end.
  • Other food – whatever food is in your vehicle, take it with you.
  • Glasses – if you wear prescription glasses/sunglasses, make sure you grab them.
  • Keys for home.
  • Hat and gloves – think seasons, sunhat for summer, winter hat for cold months.
  • Any warm clothing you have in your vehicle, or a blanket. Even in summer take it.
  • Toilet paper or napkins – carry zip top bags in your backpack to put it in to keep dry.
  • A mylar emergency blanket.
  • First aid kit. Most of us have one in a car, gut it and take most of it, especially pain killers and stuff for foot blisters.
  • Grocery shopping bags – in rainy seasons you can line your shoes with them, for mostly waterproof shoes. If it is bad out when you start, do this first. So you don’t end up with wet feet that are going numb and risking frostbite.
  • Umbrella – sounds odd, but if you have one, take it. It can provide shade, block rain, wind and cover you while you rest

Weather:

How and when you walk can depend on the weather. Your desire will be to plow straight though, to get as far away as you can. But you have to pace yourself, but also pay attention to the weather.

It’s summer? Walk as the sun settles (5 pm and after) until deep dark. Then rest. Get up and start walking as soon as first light occurs, as soon as you can just see enough to be safe. Walk till it hits the hottest part (often around Noon), then find shade and rest. If you can walk at night, and feel safe doing it, it will be the easiest, as you won’t deal with heat, and neither will you have to try to stay warm when it is the coolest. And often at night there will be fewer people out. But if it is in an area with wild animals, such as bears and cougars, this may not be safe.

It’s winter/fall/early spring? Is it raining? Snowing? Walking in daylight will be more limited. It will be warmer during daylight hours, and less risky on ice/snow in daylight.

Other threats:

Will it be safe walking in the open? Or do you need to be careful? In an urban setting it may well feel unsafe to out in the open. Walking on a highway may also not be safe. If you are a female, or a smaller man, will you feel safe? Carrying something for self protection is a good choice, even if all you have is a multi person tool you find in your car’s glove box. But as well, what time of the day you walk will depend on how safe you are. Staying in shadows at night can be good if you need to slip through. It will be up to the situation.

I will say this: Daily carrying, so you are used to it, goes far. I think you can figure out what I mean.

Resting/Sleeping:

You will need to stop and rest at some point. You will want to take your shoes off, air your feet out, check for blisters, and such. But think about where you stop. Look for somewhere out of the elements, but that is safe where you won’t be seen. This could be a building, a barn, even into a forest. Stay out of sight of others and remember, a fire shows others where you are.

If it isn’t safe, walking non stop may be your best choice. If cold, moving may be how you stay warm.

The key is: stay strong mentally, have a plan, and just keep moving. Pity parties only slow us down.

~Sarah

It’s Time For Fall Crop Planting
Gardening · Homesteading · Prepping

It’s Time For Fall Crop Planting

Sarah

Last year when I posted about growing fall crops, we were in the midst of the Covid Pandemic, but a year later I will tell you I feel this is so much more important this year. Take the time to do fall crops if you can.

Faced with what is happening in our states here in the United States, and in our global world, a fall garden is a wise choice for food security. It doesn’t take a lot of time to get it going, and you can eat till first freeze, when the days are getting short. And frankly…watching and tending a garden is good for the soul. It gets you outside most days, you get fresh air and sunlight. Enjoy the end of summer as it slips into fall.

And about that food security thing….a single English Cucumber is selling for nearly $4 at the grocery store 2 miles away from our homestead this week. $4. Insanity. In summer! And a small Kale bunch for $3.49? Sigh.

Food security is getting worse by the month. Every time I go shopping I wonder what will be the next thing that isn’t in stock. And I have noticed the fresh produce quality is lagging this summer, when it should be in its prime. It’s up to US to make sure we are set. Don’t rely on the system to do it for you.

Fall Is Coming:

It’s July 23rd and the living is easy right now, with the beds lush with green, but “We need to get planning for fall”, this is the week to get going. If you are in a temperate area, you will want your fall crops in the ground or in seed pots by first week of August for best results.

We are zone 8A here on the south end of Whidbey Island, in the Olympic Rainshadow, though we used to farm in Zone 7 when we lived on the mainland, so below will cover much of Western Washington.

This isn’t a huge list, but recommendations for some of the more popular seed choices.

Depending on where you live, you may want to invest into frost cloth if you have early freezes (we don’t here, we usually don’t freeze until early November as the Salish Sea protects us).

A side project:

If you have children and you have open pollinated (heirloom) (but not hybrid F1) crops going to seed right now, consider doing seed saving for the next spring, and get the kids to make some seed packets! They can decorate the packets and get “ownership” in the garden. To save seeds easily, have them place the seeds in brown paper lunch bags, label and set aside to dry in a cool/dry area till Fall, then package up.

What to get working on this week:

Chores:

You knew I would say that, right? But it is true. Chores lead to a happy garden or homestead.

  • Go out and walk your gardens, pull things that were sapped by heatwaves and won’t make it back (for example, lettuce that is bolting). I feed this to our ducks and chickens. They love those days.
  • Weed, even though it sucks to do (I hate weeding so much but it feels great after I do it). Figure out what you will be harvesting soon, such as onions and garlic, and figure out what can be sown in those spots for say the next 60 days. You could do peas or beans, and then be ready to put in garlic for the Fall…..
  • Check fences for damage.
  • Look at trellising you might have up, that needs repairs or changes.
  • Prune your tomatoes if you haven’t, to promote the energy to the fruit.
  • If you need to fertilize, do it soon.
  • If your wood chips in your walking aisles are gone, add in more. They suppress weeds and keep moisture in.
  • Walk your land and look for noxious weeds to pull. We have to deal with Tansy, Thistles and those nasty blackberry runners that rip at your legs. Pull often and they decrease over time. Where we live if you put noxious weeds in black bags the local dump takes them for free.
  • Think long and hard about if you would like more garden space. This is the time of year to start planning. If you have to lay down sileage tarps to kill weeds/grass you want the hot sunny days to do the work. It’s a good 6 to 9 months time for it, so get started for next Spring.

Seeds In Soil – 

Beans:

Sow every 2 weeks direct seed, bush beans can be seeded up to early to mid-August for fall crops. Bush bean varieties grow faster than pole, and are preferable for fall.

Beets:

Last week of July to mid-August for fall crops. Seed every 1-2 weeks till then.

Broccoli: 

Transplant first week of August. Get into pots now as seeds. Like today!

This crop grows best as a fall crop. It can bolt to seed in early warm springs. Protect late summer plants from summer heat with shade cloth if needed.

Carrots:

Seed August 1st for fall crops. Seed every 2 weeks for continuous harvesting.

Cauliflower:

Certain varieties are planted in fall, to be harvested the next year.

Chard:

In most summers grow it continuously, when it’s too hot for lettuce. Seed every 2 weeks for continuous harvesting through mid-August.

Garlic & Shallots:

Direct plant October to November, before hard freezing. Buy now, or when you pull this summer’s crop, save some for fall planting.

Kale:

Plant by mid August for fall crops. Seed every 2 weeks for continuous harvesting.

Kohlrabi:

Plant by August 1st for fall crops. Can sow direct or start in pots late July.

Lettuce:

Resume seeding end of July to plant fall crops through mid August. Can direct seed or start in pots.

Onions, from seed:

Green onions can be seeded every few weeks for a continuous crop, through mid August.

Peas:

Direct seed from mid-July through first 2 weeks of August for fall crops.

Bush takes less time than tall climbing varieties, and are preferable for fall.

Potatoes:

Plant July and on for fall crops. Grow smaller varieties for best results (save the russets for summer). Ensure they get plenty of sun, fall grows well in large containers. Keep them in as much sun as you can.

Radishes:

Resume in August for fall crops. Seed every 2 weeks for continuous harvesting.

Spinach/Bok Choy/Other Greens:

Direct seed or start in pots by second week in August. Seed every 2 weeks for continuous harvesting.

Squash (Zucchini):

Can be seeded through late July.

Turnips:

Sow every 2 weeks direct seed, through mid-August.

~Sarah

Prepping For Everyday: Water
Homesteading · Prepping

Prepping For Everyday: Water

Sarah

Water. Everyone needs it. You won’t last long without it. And yet, it is easy to overlook having it on hand. During the early months of Covid, it was easy to laugh at those who blindly stocked up on bottled water. The media mocked them endlessly, after all it was a virus, not water born and the cities were not failing.

Yet….as part of a good prepper plan, you MUST have clean water on hand. For literally everyday use. End of the world? SHTF? Well, that is just a bonus. Just buy it before hand, on sale, and mark it with the date bought as you stock it.

We live rural, on a private well. Life is great, the water is free…right up till you have the electricity fail, or the well/pump decides to quit working. (And yes, having a generator is great for tying in, and running the well pump, however it isn’t a long term solution. YOu must maintain your generator, have it wired up, and not run out of fuel. Having passive water supplies removes this issue.)

And that is how we look at prepping in general: To be ready for every day issues, rather than a big event – and that if an event happened, that we’d be prepared as well. For us, a genuine concern is earthquakes. I went thru the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake on the island we live on, and our homestead is 2 miles from the fault line that crosses under the island. Had the Nisqually event gone just a bit longer, wells could have cracked and failed. Not where you want to be, when on an island.

And that is what has happened this past year. Multiple times of everyday issues. But due to our preparations, we were OK.

  • Winter storms: Neighbor down the road, their rotten Alder forest took out the power yet again. It happens at least twice a year one of their trees falls. Power goes down for a day or two on average, as we are a secondary road. Some years it is 3 or more days. Just depends on how bad the two state highways and the towns are first.
  • Spring storms: We had a good one come in, and the winds did a lot of damage. Took out winter damaged trees. See rotting Alder forest above.
  • The well pump control box went out. Water was fine and suddenly it went out. Kirk had to drive to the far end of the island to find one in stock to replace it. It wasn’t a hard fix, but without it, no water.
  • Leaking pipes off of the well head. This fun disaster I discovered when I noticed the well head area was filling up with water at evening one night. Our well head sits in a concrete box in the ground, but wasn’t covered. It apparently had a huge chunk of concrete on top of the pipes (who does that?? The previous owner apparently….). We had to fence it off to keep the ducks out of it. Meanwhile, we were digging irrigation trenches with an excavator….so great timing. For days we had to turn the water off at night while we waited for the repairs to be done (this one we couldn’t do, we have a company we used for laying water hydrants come in to do the fix). All fixed…and then 6 days later the fix broke and we had water shooting out everywhere. Again, water turned off. Thankfully they came the next morning and decided second time around to use brass, not plastic. So far, no more issues.

Knowing I could go grab 1 gallon jugs of water for drinking and cooking is huge. A huge relief that is. That we could flush our toilets with water from our water tanks. That we could still irrigate our crops with the water tanks. That the chicken and ducks had water.

How much water?

We keep 1 gallon per person, per day, on hand. For a family of 5 that is 5 gallons a day. You should have at least 3 days worth, so for us 15 gallons.

Include your animals in this as well, for cats and dogs. Our cat and one of the dogs sip water, but the big Golden Retriever we have, he can easily suck down 4 cups water at a sitting. So a gallon a day for the 3 of them is part of it.

Having water tanks to flush toilets with. Being sanitary is very, very important, and human waste is a real issue. We have a gravity septic system, so all we need is water to get it where it needs to go. On sewer systems, this will work until it fails, so keep that in mind (for example, flooding can cause backup, so can power failures). But knowing you have options, that is everything.

Water to wash hands. The fastest way to get sick is to not wash hands after bathroom use – with soap, and then to prepare food for others. Having water on hand, by sinks, goes far.

Final Thoughts: 

Even those living in HOA’s with tiny backyards can have a water source – a 50 gallon water tank will flush toilets quite a few times, especially if you have low water toilets installed. Rain barrels can be easily installed and hidden by using decorative ones. We have 2 1100 gallon water tanks we fill off the roof of our home, with 1 tank lower than the other (so it can be refilled using gravity). See here and here on how we did it. In most states in the United States it is legal to use rain water off a home’s roof. It doesn’t take long in the rain season to fill them either.

When buying drinking water, buy the sturdiest gallon jugs. Store them in a cool and dry area, out of the light, to preserve them. Sunlight degrades plastic jugs.

Have a way to treat water, either a water filter or pills for it, in case you must treat storage water for drinking (to make potable).

I consider 3 days of water on hand to be the bare minimum. If you live where help coming will take longer, plan for a week or more. That is for drinking water, if you have water tanks, then a lot less worry.

Work thru water supplies throughout the year. By marking the date when bought, you can rotate. I try to keep them under 6 months, for best taste.

~Sarah