Preppy Prepping

All of us are interested in projects we can accomplish for free. One of the best things you can do for your family is to begin composting. Instead of throwing out vegetable peels and scraps, add them to your compost pile. Over time, these scraps will break down and provide lovely organic fertilizer for your gardens. It will cost you nothing, as opposed to store-bought fertilizer, and will decrease trash going to the landfill. What can you compost? No meat and no dairy. But any vegetable or fruit scraps and egg shells can all go in your pile. Think potato, squash, and carrot peels, onion skins, the ends of your celery bunches, pineapple cores, crown (spiky parts on top), and rind, apple cores (unless you save them to make vinegar), orange and grapefruit peels, old salad, and nearly anything you’re putting down the disposal or throwing in the trash except . . . meat and dairy. You can also add grass clippings, leaves, and anything that will decay over time. I started composting a long ti...

Every family should do a threat assessment. This is important so you can prepare appropriately for the most probable emergencies. You can begin by reviewing historical records of your area. For instance,  our city has struggled with flooding in the past due to a river that flows through it. However, another serious flood in our area is unlikely since the known hazard has been addressed with high embankments along the river. But we still have problems with flooding in low-lying areas around the city during heavy rains because the drainage system can’t deal with large volumes. Additionally, we live near a military base and several nuclear facilities. These are all possible threats. In addition to historical data, you should consider things like tornados, hurricanes, droughts, earthquakes, and other acts of God (or nature). The top 8 natural disasters are tsunamis, droughts, floods, earthquakes, heat waves, volcanic eruptions, tornados, and hurricanes.  Volcanic eruption is rare,...

Years ago, I started dehydrating bell peppers and storing them in jars. I find that I use a lot of bell peppers but I’m not going to pay $1 for a single pepper. My father-in-law grows them every year, as do I, and I dehydrate all the excess. All year rounds, I have bell peppers without having to pay a premium. For most things, it’s unnecessary to reconstitute the diced, dried peppers. I can simply add them to soups, casseroles along with the meat, or omelette fixings and they reconstitute really well on their own. Yet, I use them so often, I still have run out of dried peppers a time or two. For every full jar I keep available to use throughout the year, I try to have another stored for long term. Several times recently, I’ve been making something, like a roast with potatoes and carrots, when I really needed celery to add another taste profile. Celery is something I almost never buy, primarily because I use it rarely and, in between uses, it just rots and has to be thrown out. But, on ...

Because we live in the South, where we are happy if we have 1 day of Winter, we do not have a fireplace. We know lots of people who do, but many more that don’t. If you’re one of the lucky families that has a fireplace, you probably have firewood stored up somehow or have a reliable source. If you have a fireplace, but it has fallen into disrepair or you just don’t use it, now is the time to call a chimney sweep. Get that thing up and running; at the very least, get it to where it CAN be used. You have a cooking source and a heating source already in your home. You’re lucky. When my mother was growing up in the frozen north of Alberta, Canada, they used coal oil lamps for light and a single wood-burning stove for heat. They had a huge old farmhouse kitchen that housed their big cast-iron cook stove. This was the only heat source in the house. After chores were finished for the day and dinner had been consumed (in the kitchen), evening life for the family all took place in the one heate...

I’d like to talk a little bit more about water issues. A human can survive for weeks without food, but only 3 days without water. Other than shelter, this is the most basic of needs and should be the absolute first task tackled when trying to prepare for the future. Start by ensuring you have at least a 3-day supply of water for all your household members and pets. From there, continue adding to your storage with the ultimate goal of having 2 months worth of water stored for your family. Keep in mind that you can get by with less than 1 gallon of water per person per day for drinking, but you also need water for cooking, sanitizing, and bodily care. That’s why the CDC recommends 1 gallon per person per day. For a family of 4, you should have stored, at an absolute minimum, 12 gallons of water. But 2 week’s worth, or 56 gallons, would be even better. If you have any warning of a potential loss of water, you can fill bathtubs. This water should last you several days. If you don’t have ba...

I wrote previously of the need for every family to have a supply of all medications regularly taken by family members. But you might want to consider expanding this supply a little more. Are there frequent ailments that attack your family members? For years, every March, I would develop Bronchitis. It was like clock-work, documented in my medical charts. This was primarily due to allergies, change in weather, and the amount of time I was spending outside since March, in Georgia, signals the beginning of warm weather. The best way for me to avoid bronchitis is to treat the allergies before they develop into a sinus infection and the sinus infection before it results in bronchitis. In order to protect my body from bronchitis, a much more serious and debilitating illness for me, I have to be sure to stay on top of my allergies. We keep Benadryl around the house in large volumes. We live in an area that is easily in the top five for worst allergies in the country. I’ve been told by several...