storing potatoes for winter

Apparently a lot of people don't know you can store potatoes all winter long.  Every time I'm working on mine someone stops & asks me what I'm doing.  So here it is.  You need them pretty cold, but not frozen.  I live in an area with winter, & I put them in the garage.  I take them out of the bag, & pack them in sawdust in buckets.  I take them out as needed.  Around March if I have any left, I dehydrate or can (or make potato chips) out of what's left, saving a few to grow potatoes with.  They keep well all winter (although red potatoes only store for about 3 months).  One thing I had happen the first year, is when I'd open the garage, water & snow dripped in 1 of the buckets.  This did cause some of those to go bad.  They need to stay dry, so keep that in mind.  A cool basement or root cellar would work too.  So I'm off to Kohlers for 50 lbs of potatoes for $7 this week!!

Post on why to get food now!

We're having some personal crisis's here, so for a bit I'll just share some great websites with you, & then get back to writing about our experiences!

http://survivethecomingcollapse.com/

Great site

Great Frugal Sustainable living website!  So much wonderful information!

http://frugallysustainable.com/

Canned goods expiration dates

http://survivethecomingcollapse.com/1970/the-mother-of-all-food-storage-myths/

Free food storage videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOLuIApyNPc&feature=related
This is split into 9 segments.  Wendy Dewitt is great!

Work free way to do bees

http://www.beehivecondominium.com/index.html
This is very interesting.  You buy the hive, they do the labor for $25 a year, & you buy the honey from them for a reduced price.  They replace the bees if they die.  I may have to consider this!  I've long wanted bees but I'm very allergic to bee stings.

160 uses for coconut oil

I do have coconut oil in my food storage, but this sure makes me want more!
http://www.hybridrastamama.com/2012/01/160-uses-for-coconut-oil.html

Article on starting food storage

http://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/03/everyday-home-storage?lang=eng
This article has some great tips on starting small, & where to store if you don't have much room.

Great deal on Immodium generic

Found these in the clearance section at my Walmart today.  It has 3 doses of a generic for Immodium.  This was one of the highly recommended medicines to store in the Survival Medicine Handbook & I've been keeping an eye out for a deal.  I had a bad virus this winter & was amazed how quickly you get sick if you have bad diarrhea.  I got 12 caplets for $.80.  A 12 caplet box of Immodium at Walgreens is $6.49.  I spent $4 total, & got 10 boxes!  You may want to check your Walmart!

Sugar for healing wounds?

I had read of honey healing wounds in several places, but reading this about sugar was new to me!
sugar to heal wounds link
This is one article, & below I'm pasting info from another one.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- We all know that sugar makes
good foods taste better, helps breads rise, creates cookies' crunchiness or
chewiness, and protects the safety of jams and jellies.  But, did you know the
same preserving power sugar brings to jams and jellies can also help heal
wounds?

Sugar is one of Mother Nature's most miraculous creations.  Many of the same
properties that make sugar an excellent food preservative also bestow it with
its healing powers.  Sugar has been used to treat wounds according to records
dating back to 1700 B.C.  Today, scientists here and abroad are rediscovering
sugar's wonderful healing powers and reporting surprising success in the use
of sugar to treat serious wounds and especially burns that fail to respond to
conventional therapy.

When sugar is applied to an open wound, it absorbs the wound's moisture
necessary for the growth of infectious bacteria.  Physicians also believe
sugar supplies the very nourishment damaged tissues require for healing and
re-growth.

From the Microbiology Infectious Diseases Journal, Vol. 7, 1998, p. 524-25: 
"Sugar is thought to exert an antibacterial effect by lowering water activity;
the desloughing and debridement that is achieved with the paste is in part
related to an osmotic effect on necrotic tissue and in part to mechanical
cleaning." 

From the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Vol. 78, 1996, p.
82-85:  "Granulated sugar has been used with success in treatment of open
mediastanitis after cardiac surgery with the bacterial contamination of the
wounds being eliminated in a few days.  This study also suggested that sugar
treatment leads to faster healing of infected wounds than conventional packing
methods."

From the Southern Medical Journal, November 1981:  "Over a 56-month period we
treated 605 patients for wounds, burns, and ulcers with granulated sugar and
povidone-iodine. Rapid healing ensued... The requirements for skin grafting
and antibiotics were greatly reduced, as were hospital costs for wound, burn
and ulcer care."

So, maybe Mary Poppins wasn't wrong when she said a spoonful of sugar helps
the medicine go down.  Science is showing that it helps wounds heal, as well
as preserve the safety of our foods.



SOURCE  Sugar Association

Foods without refrigeration

no fridge foods link

This is a very interesting article about keeping some foods fresh without refrigeration.  I'm going to have to consider some of these!  And I'll definitely be printing this off for if the day comes I don't have a fridge!

Cold storage option

I've often wished I had a root cellar.  I'd love a way to store my harvest all winter without refrigeration.  But digging a whole root cellar is quite a daunting task!  So I was quite interested in this idea of making a kind of small root cellar out of an old chest freezer.  You could probably find a broken one free, since you won't need the motor.  I'm wondering if a smaller cooler could work too....
http://www.windward.org/notes/notes70/lindsay7021.htm

Kelly Kettle review

I was blessed to get in on a group buy of kelly kettles, & get a great deal!  So I decided to give it a try.  I love my solar oven, but I still wouldn't mind an option for cloudy days.  What appealed to me about these is they are simple, & almost anything can be used for fuel.  I'd even heard that dried animal droppings can be used.  (makes sense, buffalo chips were used for fires).  I have a lot of rabbit droppings, so that would be nice to have that option if necessary.

The kelly kettle holds the water all around the outside of the kettle.  That makes it boil pretty fast with a smaller amount of fuel.  You can add more fuel through the hole in the top while it's heating.  And there is an optional stand & pot accessory (shown in the pic above).

I was pretty sure wood would burn (although you'd need small pieces), so I decided to try something else.  We got long, dried pine needles that fall in our yard from our neighbors big tree.  These burn hot & fast.  I wasn't fast enough adding them at first, so had to restart the fire once.  Shoving them in the top was a bit hot, so I got out my heat gloves I use for solar cooking Heat gloves post.  These helped a lot.  The needles worked great!  We ended up using a pretty big pile of them, but did get the water to boil.  And there are plenty of these around!

Next we tried rabbit droppings.  We couldn't get them to light, so we tried adding some dryer lint as starter (see free fire starter post).  The dryer lint lit right up, but didn't light the droppings.  Then we tried with the needles, with same result.  Our conclusion was that even though these were old droppings, they simply weren't dry enough to light.  This summer I will experiment with really drying some & try again.  I'd love to know if I had that fuel source.

Then we tried our firestarter.  This was given to us as a Christmas present.  firestarter link  (this is what we have, but I believe emergency essentials carries the same thing in different packaging).  Soon there was a vortex of flame inside the kelly kettle.  It boiled the water in about 6 min, without our adding any more fuel.

Last we tried the little pot on top.  A very small pot came with the stand, but you could use some larger pots or fry pans with the stand, you'd just have to experiment.  But my once dislike of my solar oven is I can't fry anything.  No scrambled eggs, cooking onions, browning beef.  So I decided to try scrambling the egg.  I put the pot on as soon as the water was boiling.  I had a scrambled egg in no time at all!

In this pot, or a slightly larger one (I think a thin sided pot, such as are in camping sets would work better), you could cook rice or pasta.

Overall, I'm quite happy with my kelly kettle!  It supplements my solar oven for cloudy days.  Almost no matter the weather I could boil water, have hot chocolate, or make oatmeal, pasta or rice.  And I can use it to fry which I can't my solar oven.  Even better, I have much better options for fuel.  I have some small camp stoves that use propane or other things; but the question always is how much fuel to store.  We don't know how long we might need them.  And the fuel is pricey.  I love how fast, simple & versatile this is.  The stand also goes flat & can store inside, & there's a storage bag for the whole thing.  For more info you can look at their website http://www.kellykettle.com/.  Maybe you can even set up a group buy to get a good deal like we did!  The next post will have more on the firestarter.  I think the firestarter is IDEAL for this kettle, if you want the easiest time.  But I love all the other options this gives me.  I'll be sure & post as I experiment with the manure later!

water storage PDF

http://www.connorboyack.com/drop/water.pdf
Some great info here!

food storage instead of a wedding ring?

http://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/03/follow-the-prophet?lang=eng
Here's an interesting article about a couple who chose to buy food storage instead of an engagement ring.  Sounds extreme!  But then again...you can't eat gold or diamonds.  Worth reading!

I've made some similar choices in my life.  My dream since I was about 8 years old was to go to Egypt.  At one point I had the money saved to go.  But I had no food storage.  I made the hard decision to buy food storage instead.  And now it looks like I'll never get to go to Egypt!  But I can take care of my family!
Another consideration when I bought that food storage was having room to store it.  We lived in VERY tiny married student housing.  It was easy to justify & say we didn't have room.  But I decided it would be better to give up the couch than food storage...you can't eat the couch!  So we crammed it in every corner & space.  I've never yet had to live off my food storage, but I still think it's been worth it!

Zaycon deal on ground beef!

Zaycon foods is having a deal on very lean ground beef. This is lean enough to can. Besides it being great in our food storage, I love having ground beef already cooked to throw in spaghetti, tacos, etc. Such a time saver! And canning it is easy! I also love how easy it is to get the meat from Zaycon, you just "drive up" & they put it in your car!
http://www.zayconfoods.com/refer/zf76778

Prep expo in Utah

http://www.freefood2go.com/expo.php
April 6-7 UVU event Center
$12 for preregistration for both days.

Shelving for your #10 cans

The next question after you have your #10 cans is how to store them.  I bought some supposedly heavy duty shelving to put ours on.  3 days later, we heard a loud sound that went on & on as part of the shelf broke & the cans came cascading down!  We had to haul all the cans back upstairs, build new shelves & haul them all back down again!  Frustrating after thinking all the work was done!  The next shelves started to bow outwards after a few months.  We caught it before everything fell off, but again had to haul everything upstairs, start again!
We did find one set of shelves that work (so far) at Lowes.  The vertical pieces lock into not just the shelf but the vertical pieces below it.  This must give it extra strength as I haven't had any trouble with those.  However I didn't think to anchor them to the wall for earthquakes before I filled them, so at some point I'm going to have to take everything off again!!
My brother on the other hand built some heavy duty wood shelves that are securely anchored to the wall.  He has had no trouble & they will probably be great in an earthquake too.  The materials cost was comparable to buying shelving.  If you have somewhere you don't mind permanent shelves, this would probably be the best option.  I may have to go back & do it that way myself!

food storage deals this week

If you live in Utah, many stores are having food storage deals this week.  For instance Macey's has a lot of things on sale, including 55 gallon water containers for $29.99.  Or a 50 lb bags of oats for $22.99.  So keep an eye on your ads!

Putting your food storage in #10 cans at home

Have you sealed any of your food storage in #10 cans?  If not, here's some information!
One way to do it is make an appointment at an LDS cannery (you don't have to be LDS), buy bulk food there, & can it there.  It is non-profit & they have a some great basic food items.  Here's a current price list:
http://www.providentliving.org/pfw/multimedia/files/pfw/pdf/123141_HSC_OrderFormUS_EngNov2011_pdf.pdf

The other thing you can do is "check out" the can sealer for a few days & seal cans at home.  This is what I've been doing once a year.  I let family & friends know too, & they schedule a time to come seal their cans while I've got it.  The cans with a lid & oxygen pack come out to about $1 each.  The cannery can help you figure out how many cans you need for what you have, but an example is, 5-6 cans for 25 lbs of flour.  I do it at home because I can work for a few hours, stop & then do more.  I can also put in things I've bought myself out side the cannery (the cannery can't let you bring in outside food because of government health regulations).  So I can put in the chocolate I bought on clearance, or our favorite noodles, or what have you.  It also is easier to get friends & family to participate if I have the cans for them & they just have to come over to my house.  They will show you how to seal the cans when you check it out.  It's not hard, my 8 year old sealed all our cans last time, & loved doing it.
I had some friends who were just starting on their prep efforts.  In all they spend around $100 on the cans & things like flour & rice from Costco.  When they plugged what they had into Emergency Essentials food storage calculator, they were excited to find out they had 3 months worth of food!  It took them about an hour to can it all.  Now that flour & rice will keep for around 30 years, in earthquake proof cans!
I collect food on sales, etc all year, & then get the canner once a year.
A couple of tips:  sugar doesn't need oxygen packs in.  Salt doesn't have to be preserved in cans, it's a preservative itself.  And be sure & "shake" the cans after you fill it.  The food will settle in & leave you a lot more room at the top to put more in.  This is especially true of flour.
So start getting food before prices go up more & then go get some cans!!