Preppy Prepping

In my continued search for high protein foods to add to my Stores, I ran across another unique piece of information. A common pond plant, known as duckweed, is currently being researched and is quickly moving into the position of our newest “superfood”. It’s packed with protein, far more by volume than almost ANY other protein source, doubles in volume every 24 hours (making it very plentiful), and can be eaten fresh alone, added to other foods such as salads or sandwiches, or dried and made into a powder to be sprinkled on eggs or any other food to add extra protein. It also can be fed to ducks, as it’s name suggests. I was fascinated! Since we have a backyard pond, I did more research. Turns out, it won’t work on our pond, which has a waterfall. It doesn’t like moving water. But it will grow in any nutrient-rich standing water. It reproduces asexually, like cloning, so it typically doesn’t seed. Some studies seem to indicate that, while it dies off at first frost, some particles drop...

Two weeks ago, I was talking with my son about the possibility of a catastrophic emergency. Recently, he told me that he believes we will have a financial collapse and a regime change in our country within the next 2 years, so this is a topic we visit periodically. He pointed out that if the worst happens, he’ll have to stop working out because I won’t be able to provide enough protein to fuel his muscles. Of course, that got me thinking. If we lose the power grid, life will require all family members working hard from sun up to sundown just to survive, like in the Pioneer Days. We will need my son’s muscle and it would be in our family’s best interest to be able to supplement his food allotment with additional protein. With that in mind, I began researching high protein sources. I believe I’ve mentioned before that my father’s family were pioneers in the part of northern Alberta where they settled. They were the only non-Indians in that area. The Tribe that peopled that area were the ...

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...

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 ...

 Regardless of how much food you store, it will never be enough. If there really IS a catastrophic emergency in your region of the country, such as inter-state commerce shutting down or the power grid going off-line, or even the failure of our economy, you will be doing extraordinarily well to have stored up enough to provide food for your family for a full year. The real goal of Stores is to provide for your loved ones for long enough to establish a food-collection system for the future. What that means for everyone is a little different. But the most important thing is to have given this whole idea some mind space and thought. This isn’t something that should send you to a mental health specialist or a cardiologist! We have held multiple family meetings to discuss these issues. We included my father-in-law, who now lives near us, and our grown children. We opened the floor to any tangents one of the attendees wanted to head off down. My father-in-law was very concerned about the ...