Let them drink milk

We went on a tour of a local dairy recently, and my children loved it. I am considering starting home delivery for milk, but the big thorn there is that a gallon is probably usually going to be about twice the amount we would pay at the store. Of course, it is delivered to our door, and there is the aspect of impulse buying, where you go out for milk and come back with $50 of additional purchases, but I'm not a big impulse buyer. (Please note that I said not a big impulse buyer--I have been known to indulge in the occasional non-necessary and totally extravagant small purchase(s). ) Hence, the impulse buyer aspect wouldn't necessarily make the milk pay for itself in our case. But the fact that we would have a local supplier if there was disruption in the milk supply/food transportation industry makes the home delivery option somewhat tempting, plus we like to support our local economy when possible....

Anyway, I was thinking, non-farmer that I am, that even in an emergency cows would have to be milked, so it should be available, given that you had the means to preserve it. Thing is, during a guide's informational talk, it came out that every cow provides 9 gallons of milk per day, and to do so, every cow drinks 60 gallons of water a day. As you may have noticed from my last post, I have been worrying about water storage lately, and this didn't really do anything to make me feel better about it.... If you have dry milk, you will still need water to drink it. If you think that you may get your hydration from fresh milk from a local supplier as part of your storage plan, it might be good to know that the cows need water too, and a bunch of it. Since they won't even let me raise a chicken where I live, I hadn't given much thought to the needs of larger livestock. Quite eye-opening, for me at least.

There are other options for milk--evaporated and condensed come to mind--but if part of your plan for your circle of responsibility is to "let them drink milk", please consider how much water must come into the equation to do so. I know I am...

I don't think you could ever have too much of that...

I recently attended a food storage presentation, but due to conflicts in schedule, I was very late and only caught part of it. When I came in, the speaker was asking about how many in attendance had toilet paper in their storage. I turned to the person next to me, and said, (yeah, you guessed it) "I don't think you could ever have too much of that in storage..."

This is true for me on at least a couple of levels--for one, even if you were to meet a goal of, say, a year's supply of toilet paper, it is the kind of resource that is in constant rotation, and it would be difficult to keep it at that level if/when an emergency hit. But there is also the fact (as I think I mentioned to my neighbor) that it has the potential to be a great barter item. In an idea that is not original to me, (thank you, whoever put this on their blog) you should never barter a supply that the person you are bartering with could use against you--a good example of which might be ammunition. So, in my opinion, it can never hurt to have a little (extra?) toilet paper around.

I was also reminded earlier this summer that it would be difficult indeed to store too much water, especially depending on weather conditions (except, of course, when it's raining... :). I was at an amusement park out of state, and we were doing the rounds of rides, when I went on one that didn't quite agree with me. Something to do with spinning around at relatively high speeds, most likely, but in any case, when I got off the ride, I was very overheated and not very happy about it. We had water and we had ice, but it didn't seem to help much. I did not feel very good, and after seeing myself in a mirror and my red-dark red-purplish hue, I was kind of concerned. A person who saw this (who herself looked like she had just arrived at the park fresh from an air-conditioned atmosphere) commented on the heat, and I said, "It looks like you are handling it better than I am." She replied that they (I'm assuming her family/group) had been hitting the water rides. I told her that was probably where we were going next. Then I had a better idea.

Somewhere near the middle of said amusement park, there are a bunch of fountains that spurt up at random times, and people stand in the middle to get a soaking. It appears that usually this activity is pretty much enjoyed by a younger crowd, (i.e. children) but I felt that getting soaked immediately would beat standing in line in the blazing sun some more before getting an unspecified amount of wet, so the square with the fountains was most definitely my best option. I talked to my husband, and off we went. As I said, the fountains appear to be random, but they're very effective, and I was soon pretty soaked. And as a result, I was soon pretty much feeling a lot better. (No matter that the majority of the other people enjoying the fountains seemed to be three and under, or something.... :)

Yeah, it's pretty much a no-brainer that getting wet will cool you off in hot weather, but what was striking to me was the fact that it took a lot more than drinking water and eating ice to cool off in this scenario. In an emergency situation, it seems likely that water would be monitored very carefully, and there wouldn't be fountains to cool off in. Any "extra" water that can be put aside to just cool off in this manner would be much appreciated in a hot-weather scenario, and might be needed even in places that are not known for being hot climates. So, yeah, using water to get soaked with might not be the first choice for use of the storage, but if it's needed, it would be hard to imagine a case where you felt like you had stored too much...

Food would obviously also be something that it would be hard to have too much of, considering that there will likely always be people that you could share it with if you didn't need it yourself, but what else comes to mind for you when you think of emergency preparedness? Is there anything you store or something else that comes to mind when you hear, "I don't think you could ever have too much of that..."? You never know how many people you may help with your ideas...
Hope you are enjoying your summer!

Food storage can be a balancing act...

As can water storage, if you have more than one of these to fill up:

And we do have more than one of these, thanks to my dad, who used his vehicle to run some up to us from Utah last week. These are barrels used for drink concentrates at a company down in Utah, and my mom picked up a few for $10 each, and the best guess is that they hold about 50-55 gallons. So we bought some from her, and the "fun" began--at least for the children.

Because these are used barrels, and we want to use them for water, the first thing we needed to do was to wash them out and get all the residue from the drink concentrate out. We put in a few drops of non-toxic cleaner and some water, and then the children pushed the first barrel around and around the yard. This ensures that the barrels are entirely washed out. At one point one of the children was on top of the rolling barrel with a sibling pushing said barrel around with glee--an activity which basically ensures that their mother is probably going to have heart problems if she has to watch for very long... So my husband watched, and I went to the library to get more books out for the family. (I was planning to go to the library anyway, but it makes for a better story this way, doesn't it? :) And you may have noticed that my husband worries a lot less than I do anyway...)

Well, everything went pretty well, and now our barrels are sitting in the backyard soaking some more before rolling again and filling with water. This is a good continuation of water storage for us, but what we will be working toward is getting a water purification system, about which I have received a lot of great comments before, both on the subject of portable and longer-term systems. I am leaning toward a Berkey, which Kymber writes about in this post at Nova Scotia Preppers Network--I recommend looking at their whole water collection/ storage system--very impressive, if you are allowed to collect your own water.

The next challenge for us is to find the room to store more than one of these circus-barrel stand-ins.... :)

How to write a better blog: Water purification part 2

Well, the long and the short of writing a better blog is to have more and other people write it--in this case in the form of comments. Just in case you are not a comment reader, I will share some of the comments on my last post, "Water, water, everywhere" (though I won't include all of them--you have to leave people wanting more, and maybe this will turn some non-comment readers into comment readers... :) which were basically full of more information than I gave out. Thanks everyone! Now on to further information, since that is what we are all craving (besides water, of course):

---The McKeachnie Family shared the following link and information: " http://www.amazon.com/First-Need-Deluxe-Water-Purifier/dp/B0009RP8T2

It's a compact, light weight (less than 1 pound), award-winning water purifier. We have one that we keep in our 72-hour kit and we love it! We store water as well, but we feel much better having this product."

This product, or one like it, now that I have a starting point for researching this kind of thing, is going on my list as a must-obtain item. Less than one pound is hard to beat if you can only take what you can carry in an emergency situation. I will probably get a couple of replacement filters to go with it, seeing as how I'm a worrier... :)

--Carl in Wisconsin added this information, especially important to remember because he stresses that you need to use bleach with no additives for water purification:

"Marie, I have to toss my 2 cents in on the water issue. When using bleach even clorox bleach you must make sure it additive free, no scents, no nothing, but bleach. I buy Farm bleach at my local Farm store in 4 gallon cases for under $5.00. I went over to Wendy's excellent site and noticed that the warning about additives is kind of buried at the end.

I add 13 drops to a 2 litter pop bottle or 25 drops to a gallon.I have 4 55 gallon food grade containers in the garage ( probably frozen right now) with only bleach as a preservative. I would use this water for Non-potable applications like the toilet...etc

I would check again with my original Clorox link for amounts of bleach/ water you are planning to use for human consumption--they are considerably less than those Carl cited, and as mentioned, the water he talks about is not intended to be used for drinking water.

---Stephanie came back more than once, and answered my question about using bleach past its prime potency with this excellent link. In her original comment, she mentioned pool chemicals, which are dealt with, along with numerous other methods of water purification (including solar!) via a comment left later...

-- ...in a six-page document put together by Connor. He has kindly included a link to his information in his comment and said that I could share, so I leave you to access it through the link provided there--his is the last comment besides mine in the comments at this writing. ( I wasn't sure how to transfer it correctly here....sorry. But believe me, it is worth checking out.)

Thanks again, everyone---I learned a lot (as usual) from the information you were willing to share. Hopefully Connor won't mind when I add one of the final sentences in his document here:

"Please do not consider this information to be comprehensive; you should still do your own homework!"

Please be sure that you use any kind of water purification system carefully--it's better to learn now so that you will be able to use them safely later. Some of the systems (such as chlorine /pool chemicals) would likely be my very last choice for water purification if they made my list at all, because they scare me, (there's my worrier side again) but I still like to know all my options. Please research thoroughly and use carefully any method that you decide to use.

I could probably find a way to add that phrase about homework to just about any blog post that I write--there is still so much out there that I need to learn, and the information that I do put out often leads to comments that teach me a lot. Thanks to everyone that comments--I really appreciate it. Sometimes, I find out that you have done a little more of my homework for me--at least in this case it's just helping, and not cheating.... :)

Water, water, everywhere...

and not a drop to drink. Or something like that, as the saying goes. What do you do if you are in an emergency, and you don't know if the water available is good for consumption?

My first choice would be to boil it, but what if, for whatever reason, (temperature outside, no/ low on fuel sources, etc.) I don't want to boil it? One option is to use bleach, but do you know the bleach/water ratio for safe drinking water? The directions for using Clorox bleach to purify water can be found on the Clorox website here. They can also be found in my emergency notebook, seeing as how they are the newest addition.

Wendy, over at iPrepared, has many posts on water storage, two of which can be found here, and here, where bleach is also mentioned. (The information about water storage on her site is even more extensive than these links, so I recommend that you look thoroughly at her water storage posts...) She recommends storing 28 gallons/person. Having water in storage is important, and will tide you over in the short term, even if the emergency you're facing turns out to be one of long-term duration. Using bleach is one alternative for purifying water if/when your water storage runs out, and I need to research other water-purifying alternatives, because somehow I just can't see a gallon of bleach making an appearance in our 72-hour kits if there are any other options. Yeah, still so much to learn....and when I figure more out, I'll probably post about it.

Also, this reminds me that bleach is a good addition to emergency supplies for other reasons, too--cleanliness is essential if you want to minimize the chances of illness in an emergency--illness that can come from many causes. You might want to check out the Clorox website for other uses and dilution information--it is highly likely that such information will find a home in my notebook as well. (Insert usual disclaimer that no one I know works for Clorox, and I am supplying this information as a starting point for doing whatever other research you think necessary in your situation.... :)

Please get some water in storage for you and/or the people for whom you would be/feel responsible for in an emergency situation. If you have it in storage, you don't have to worry about what is coming out of the tap, at least not initially. As noted, I need to do more research on water purification methods, because you can live longer without food than you can without water...

Something else to think about

Well, we recently went to the store/supermarket again, and their bakery French bread loaves had gone up 53 cents! They had been 88 cents for a long time, and then they were suddenly (at least it felt like "suddenly" to me) 97 cents, and now they were $1.50! Not really the kind of thing you can stock up on-- just another reason to learn how to make bread.
Another thing--when we went to get more wheat at the emergency preparedness store, my husband saw that the 55 gallon water drums were now around $60. According to my best source (Mom), they are likely to go up to $80. I realize that many people are in a more enviable position in regards to water supply, (i.e. water source on a farm, etc.) but for those like me, who just live in a neighborhood in town, it will be necessary to have usable water on hand. We already have 2 of these drums that we got somewhere around 2000, but we have added to our family since then, so we will have to "bite the bullet" and get some more for emergency storage, despite the rise in cost. I am thinking we paid around $30 when we bought the ones we have now, but that was over 8 years ago...
Yet another point--we have to make some kind of wooden platform or other structure to put these drums on, because the plastic should not be on the concrete. It is my understanding that all sorts of impurities will leak into the water if you leave it on the concrete. It seems like I knew that at one time in the past, but as I write my water supply is indeed on concrete. Fortunately, we have them stored in the laundry room at the moment, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal to drain them and refill them once we have a platform in place. So much to do, with who knows how much time in which to do it.... we just need to actually do it. :)