2020 - JANUARY - Prepping Updates

Happy New Year to all!

Started the new thread.

Husband is doing some organizing in the LTS. We had a sort of organization going on, but we still missed a few things that never got rotated. So he's designing a better system to rotate better.

The homemade Christmas gifts went over quite well - I had made extra potpourris and people asked for more. Made a plywood painted barn quilt for a good friend, they loved it. It will be hanging on their garage/barn in the new year. The sugar cookie fudge was OK, but no one asked for the recipe, so I guess it didn't go over as well as the raspberry truffles I made last year!

We went to the commissary some 60 miles away, just to check things out. We haven't been in a couple years. I found several items I've been looking for locally. Stocked up on Nivea lip balm, some canned veggies, strawberry jelly (can't find JELLY, only preserves/jams),some Bear Creek soup mixes for camping, tuna and beef. We'll be going more often now.

I've been doing some experimental cooking, some with leftovers, some with new recipes. Husband is enjoying most of it.

I did do some last minute sewing for gifts - made a laundry bag for my daughter and some bowl cozies, too. I have requests for more, too.

My goal this year is to learn a new language, so I decided on German. Starting today, I watched a German language video for about 30 minutes that showed the word and how to speak it.

Grocery shopping was restocking all we used. Husband wants to halt buying until we get the LTS better organized. The long term food is well-stocked, it's the short term stuff we will be re-supplying.

The weather has turned cold again, but not enough to start the wood stove, yet. It's good for us, as we've not even used a cord of wood yet.

Other than that, we've just been doing our routines, watching the news and movies, playing online, hobbies and even doing some new cooking.

Bought a small wire shelf for my kitchen counter and moved some of my plants to the east kitchen window to take better advantage of the sunshine. The lime trees and coffee plants were struggling where they were. They have perked up and have new leaves and it's only been 3 days.

Planted some scallion ends from the fridge 3 days ago, they've already got 4 inches of new growth!

The scallions are about 8 inches high now. The coffee plants are putting on new leaves. The limes are starting to perk up more, there are a few new leaves on some. The smallest tree is holding its own, but no new leaves.

Grocery run was routine - stocked up on what we used.

I also bought another 4 foot plastic table, needed it for art. I took a few art classes many years ago and have decided to start learning to draw and paint again.

Good thing we have the emergency fund.

I was taking my Mom to town. It was 21 degrees outside. I had gone out and turned on the car to warm it up some (she's 85 and gets cold easily). As we drove down the road at a snail's pace, I heard a slight ping and then the windshield cracked all the way across. No rocks were kicked up, I was going very slow and no cars in front of me. Turned around to switch cars, I wasn't sure if highway driving would cause it to collapse inward or something.

Got it replaced the next day. The specialist showed Husband the slightest ding in the windshield down near the vent. The heat from the vent/cold outside weakened it enough to break.

Cinnamon wrote:Good thing we have the emergency fund.

I was taking my Mom to town. It was 21 degrees outside. I had gone out and turned on the car to warm it up some (she's 85 and gets cold easily). As we drove down the road at a snail's pace, I heard a slight ping and then the windshield cracked all the way across. No rocks were kicked up, I was going very slow and no cars in front of me. Turned around to switch cars, I wasn't sure if highway driving would cause it to collapse inward or something.

Got it replaced the next day. The specialist showed Husband the slightest ding in the windshield down near the vent. The heat from the vent/cold outside weakened it enough to break.

Isn't that covered by insurance? I thought it was. Hope it is for you.

Things are looking up here my shoulder is healing nicely and my new electric meat grinder came today..

I am going to try and make sausage this week-end..

Sorry to hear about the windshield. I had one do that before...

Did my usual, ran generators for about 15 minutes, rotated 5 gallon of gas and cleaned the solar panels. Did some matainance on the batteries in the garage, they're the deep cycle ones.

I've been taking the one grandson hunting (muzzleloading season) after school and on saturdays. The youngster has missed 3 deer so far, he has a bad habit of flinching when the flash pan powder goes off. I told him he may want to take up rock throwing instead.

ReadyMom - You know, Husband mentioned that inusrance might cover the windshield, but I only have liability on this vehicle, so I figured it probably wasn't. I'll call the insurance co. and check. Thanks for reminding me!

Dave - good to hear you're on the mend!

Rick...oh, boy! Maybe he needs a slingshot!

We had an ice storm on Friday, so waited until some melted to go into town. We stocked up on the stuff we used, and bought some new computer peripherals.

Husband had to take his computer in for repair, fortunately, it was simply a matter of a cord. However, while in there, he saw one of those older, military rugged computers for $200 (retailed for around $4,000). We decided to buy it to put all the prep stuff we've gathered over the years (photos of how to do stuff, recipes for wild game, etc), our own important papers, and our photos. He's pretty happy with it - the place we bought it from cleaned it up and updated programs. It will never go online as we don't want it cluttered with junk.

I bought new ink for my printer, which has been sitting idle for a while. My MIL gave me a box of her and FIL's WW2 war time letters to each other. Other members of the family want copies. My plan is to scan the letters in chronological order, put them into a computer file, make printed copies for some people, and flash drive copies for others to print out on their own. I also want to copy over his war time photos from foreign ports to mix in with the letters. I'm hoping to have it done by end of May, for a specific person's birthday.

We started the wood stove again, temps dropped below freezing. Husband changed out one light bulb in the well house, it is tiny enough that two lit bulbs keep it above freezing in there when it gets cold like this.

Our son just moved out. It's official ... we're empty nesters. Don't know if his pro soccer career is done, because he just had hip flexer surgery. I'm thinking probably. He's thinking maybe. It was a significant surgery, but he's young, healthy & healing really well. Time will tell. But this season he's out.

Now I have another room to redecorate and I'm looking at his closet thinking I might move all our medical preps into it.   That included going through any medicines we have and get rid of the old stuff. We needed aspirin, a few days ago ... rarely use it and realized ours is 10 years old!    I've really neglected keeping up with that!

Went to a flea market Monday with the son in law. Picked up a mess of various sizes of nails from 8P up to 16P, about 15 pounds total. Also got another ruger 10/22 and some 12 gauge, 00 buck shells.

Son in law got 2, 5 gallon gas cans, 2 cycle oil, chainsaw and a maul.

Congratulations, ReadyMom on being an empty nester. Keep yourself busy, busy, busy while you adjust.

We didn't go to town yesterday, ice and snow storm, and we have plenty of food and things to keep us busy, so why bother when the weather is icky, ya know?

I delayed taking down the Christmas stuff because one of the kids was still trying to get time off to come home. Had the leave, but then an emergency cropped up at work and they're still dealing with it even now!

But it's time to take the Christmas stuff down. So...in my on-going effort to organize and de-clutter, I realized I needed to plan things out for stuff the kids want to keep. I have a lot of vintage ornaments, plus the kids' things we always put on the tree.

I decided to divide the ornaments out by child...each kid now has a box of ornaments for themselves. The ones not in their own storage boxes are labeled according to their origin/year and are protected in plastic bags. Now the kids each have their own box of sentimental ornaments from great-grands, grands, good friends, and myself, plus ones they made/bought, too.

I will keep everything as I plan to decorate until the day I die (a long time from now), but when that time comes, they have it all sorted out. And if they choose to take it sooner, I still have my own decorations.

Husband and I did order more N95 valve masks and nitrile gloves in various sizes for the medical kit we are refurbishing. A lot of the stuff in the old kit was at least 10-15 years old. I'll be keeping some, but I'm tossing old meds, especially the liquids, and anything that looks odd.

Did an audit of my preps, and discovered that, since my wife handles all of the Fresh Produce, much of it had bypassed my thought process, and we needed to increase our stocks of canned produce, in case the supply of fresh produce gets interrupted.

In addition, every January, I do an audit of my Pharmaceutical Preps, and this year I found that, over the past year, I had used some of my supplies without replacing them, so I did some purchases a few days ago.

(Also added Tea Tree Oil, since fungal infections are common in this region.)

Bought some more hand sanitizer since I expect supplies to vanish once the US population gets nervous about the newest Coronavirus (and the media has been beating their drums trying to get folks very nervous...)

Also bought some more flats of energy drinks and bottled water.

Double-checked my supply levels and looks like wife and I are good to go if we have to suddenly hunker down. Although I probably should order some more mung beans for sprouting. I have two pounds on hand, but if we have to hunker down for a few months I may be craving some fresh crunch to go with the canned food....

Going to head out to the grocery for a few things if I can catch the Briskit on sale I will make more ground beef it has an amazing taste...

Wife and I went threw the preps yesterday and I think we are good to go.. Time will tell

If this all blows over it will be a good wake-up call for the sheeple

I finally figured out the recipe for sausage... pretty excited been trying for a while.. Just wanted to share

Freeze dried meats are SO EXPENSIVE on line!

We have been vacuum sealing ours and freezing it or canning it .. Chicken is very easy to can