A tale of two coupons...

Well, more accurately, two types of coupons, but I thought that way the title sounded better....

First, there is the tale of the cheese. Readers may remember that I have had sticker shock about buying cheese for a while now anyway, but I had found a grocery store that put out coupons for cheese in the Sunday paper every couple of weeks that I was pretty happy with: 2 lbs cheddar cheese, 2/$7.00, limit 2. I would go and take advantage of this deal when it came up, and it seemed to be pretty consistent.

Then, not too long ago, there weren't any coupons for what seemed like quite awhile. I would look for the cheese coupon, but alas and alack, it didn't seem to appear. Then one day it was back, but it was different: 2 lbs cheddar cheese, 2/$7.00, limit one. Ok. Sad, but similar.

Fast forward to yesterday: 2 lbs cheddar cheese, $3.99, limit one. $.49 increase per package, and you can only get one, now. The prices are going up everywhere, and while cheese may not be on everyone's list, I hope that everyone is getting some food into storage while the prices are even as low as they are now (read: not very low, and rising....)

Ah, and then there is the other type of coupon alluded to in the title: the Walgreens coupon. I must admit to a certain type of glee when I would peruse the Walgreens ad on Sundays, and they would have a particularly good deal, limit (insert number here), followed by the words, except in ID or NM. (Idaho or New Mexico) Imagine how I felt yesterday when (yes, it started yesterday, because I still have last week's ad to rub it in...) I saw this change: great deal, (insert number here), followed by the words, except in NM. Yes, the days of gleefully going through their coupons and thinking I can get more than the stated limit if I so desire are gone, gone, gone. And that is sad to me...and perhaps a little irritating, as I don't know why it changed....

Well, before I get any negative comments (please be kind), I realize that it doesn't seem fair that Idaho got the exemption in the first place, but here's how I look at it--take advantage of the great deals you can find, whatever they are. As I read other blogs, I hear about stores that we don't have in our area where they are doing a promotion that I would love to be able to take advantage of, or prices that are much better than what I can find around here. Every place has its advantages--here, in an emergency in the dead of winter we wouldn't have to worry about power outage of the freezer because we could put things in a cooler in the garage, but say, down in Florida, I would think that they could use more firewood as a cooking fuel rather than to survive below zero temperatures, for example--so it's different everywhere. One of the things that isn't different is that everyone's gotta eat...

Yeah, sad for me, but also another indicator that prices are going up, coupon or no coupon....

Some noodle ideas

My thoughts and prayers go out to the people affected in the recent events in Japan. I hope that all the help needed gets where it is needed as quickly as possible.

In terms of food storage, I thought you might be interested in this link, which gives a large variety of recipes so you can vary your instant noodle meals. Variety can be wonderful when using your storage items, and you can never have too much variety when it comes to your 12-week rotation...

A matter of supply....

Just a quick link to this article on food prices going up. Um, yeah, not good news, and another reason to get some food into the pantry before the prices go up even more--wheat, sugar, and rice prices are mentioned specifically. The article also talks about supply and demand of nations, weather and crop issues, etc., so thought you might want to take a look....

Does your road look/feel/damage your car like an ice rink??

Sorry, couldn't resist the post title. It is cold here, (as in -21 this morning, with no windchill) but watching the news it appears that elsewhere there is mega-snow, so we (almost) all have weather issues to deal with in the winter... :) Unfortunately, I wasn't really kidding about the "damage your car" issue--our road is iced over and the lack of adequate plowing earlier in the season has led to huge ruts, and where there are no ruts, there is usually a really thick and inconvenient layer of ice. When it's warmer, there is the occasional standing puddle/pond/bottomless black hole of water, but that's not today. Fortunately, our road is right off a more valued road that is better plowed, so as you are driving out, you can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel....

Anyway, in terms of emergency preparedness, I made enough different kinds of breads recently that one of my children commented on it. When we had spaghetti last week, I made Herbed Bread Sticks, a recipe I found over at Harried Homemaker. They were really good, and so much more substantial than frozen breadsticks that we have had in the past, but I have found that in general it takes me longer to actually make the recipes than what is expected. Ah, well. That's what practice is for, right? :) It is great when practice makes perfect, but absolutely convenient when it makes a task go more quickly....

Also wanted to share this link about first aid from SurvivalBlog.com, that I received and read about in an e-mail sent to my inbox recently. Makes me realize (again) that there is so much more that I have to learn, and more supplies that would be good to have in case of an emergency. Knowledge and supplies are a great combination for emergency preparation....

I hope that everyone has had a great start to February, and that your road is in better condition than ours. Speaking of cars, I would suggest, as has been suggested by many before me, I'm sure, that you attempt to keep your tanks as full as possible. For one thing, there is concern that the prices of fuel may go up, up, up in the near, near future. And more money used on fuel means less money available for other emergency preparation activities...

Ah, banana bread and winter outerwear...

Well, in this case at least, the title of the post pretty much says it all when it comes to my emergency preparedness efforts last week...

First, as promised, comes the banana bread recipe. The time was ripe (pun totally intended) to use the bananas we had, so I looked for the simplest recipes with the most common on-hand ingredients that I could find. It may have been the very first time ever I had made banana bread, because if I had ever made banana bread before, it was apparently long ago and not very memorable. This banana bread was tasty, although not all of my children wanted to actually taste it. And, despite the fact that Idaho is not exactly the place to expect great access to bananas in an emergency situation, in normal circumstances I figure it would be cheaper to make this recipe than buy a loaf somewhere....

And then came later in the week, when I saw in a flyer that one of the major clothing chainstores in the area was having a sale (if I recall correctly, 60-70% off was advertised) on winter outerwear. I was basically looking for coats for next year for my quickly growing children. Apparently I was not alone, because on the first evening of a three-day sale there wasn't that much to choose from on the racks. Then I figured I would check out a few other stores to see if they had things on sale, and they did have some items on clearance racks, or items on sale that were still too expensive for my taste and/or wallet. So not an entirely profitable outing, but I did get some shopping done. I'm just sharing this info because you might have a better selection in your area, and apparently the best time for winter outerwear sales is now. I gather this from the fact that one of the cashiers, when asked if what they had out was all that was available, replied to the effect that what was out was all there was, that now was the time for Spring merchandise, and they already had some Spring items out. One of the (really disappointing) things that I saw in the outerwear selection of items is that many of them didn't seem to offer that much in terms of warmth. Even if the price is right, if the item is not going to accomplish the desired goal of actually keeping you warm, it doesn't really interest me. That kind of criteria can greatly affect your range of selection... :)

Lastly, and really as an aside, has anyone else noticed that the price of tortillas has gone up? I made tortillas last week (the recipe I use is here) but when I saw more recently that a large package was closer to $5.00 than $4.00, I didn't buy them. Mine aren't as pretty as the ones in the store, (or as uniform in shape, quite frankly) but it's hard to rationalize that they're worth that much more....

Wish I had written those down...

I am talking about recipes that should be in my emergency notebook. Like the recipe, Extremely Easy Peanut Butter Fudge, that I found on one of the first blogs I found that talked regularly about food storage, and which had some of the best food storage recipes I found then, or since. The author of that blog went on to put up the food blog, Friday's Food Fancy. Regular readers may have noticed that there is not the usual colorful linkage in this paragraph that can be found in many of my posts.

That is because those blogs are no longer to be found, so there is nothing to link to.

Granted, peanut butter fudge would not be a food staple, but it would be an easy way to provide joy in an emergency situation if those you are responsible for like peanut butter and sugar, and dessert-y goodness. And who doesn't want to provide some desserty-goodness and joy in an emergency situation?

I write about this now because we really liked including the peanut butter fudge on our Christmas plates for neighbors. But among the other things that I wish I had written down in terms of food storage from the mentioned blog include the recipe on homemade noodles where you didn't need a noodle machine, just a knife....the food storage information on the sites was great.

So, just putting in a plug for keeping your emergency notebooks updated. You never know when you may need the information that is so plentiful on the internet, but then find yourself without power or the blog(s) no longer accessible. That's one of the reasons the time to prepare is now....

Just as an aside, I do remember the computer name of the author of the blogs, but didn't know if the author would want that name mentioned, so have not mentioned it. I did notice that the link no longer worked some time past, but being ever-hopeful, check it occasionally to see if it is back up. Ah, well. Hopefully, I will have learned my lesson on this and will either write out or print all emergency preparation information I think I may need earlier from now on...

Anyone else sending out anything food-storage friendly out on their neighbor plates this year? Gotta love food storage-friendly goodies...

More incentive to stock up...

...in a major way, if people at this website (for the National Inflation Association) are correct. Most recently, I received information in an e-mail that appears to have been taken from this article on predicted food prices, and the news isn't good. Please read it. Among other things, it talks about how much they expect food prices to go up, one example being that the price will be "$23.05 for a 24 oz loaf of wheat bread". Apparently, they also think that it is not only food prices that will go up--also predicted in said article is that "a plain white men's cotton t-shirt at Wal-Mart will cost $55.57". They think that we will see these kind of prices soon--from what they say, in 2011. Yeah, next year-- and it's already November.

I hope that prices won't go up like that, but what if they do? I don't know about you, but I still have a lot of preparation to do. Please do what you can to get the things you need into storage, if you are in the position to do so. If it's not prices like these, it may be something else, and it can't hurt to have some extra supplies on hand...

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!

How much is it, really?

A food storage expert I know that lives in Utah sent me an e-mail last week about a sale on some food storage items. It was one of those sales where you had to be there in person to take advantage of the prices, and it looked like a great sale. Not long after the sale e-mail, another e-mail was sent, reproduced in part here, with permission from the author:

"It is always wise to be cautious and thorough when you purchase anything, but especially something you will some day need to rely on totally. Here are some pointers for special sales shopping.

Check for dates and don't buy if there is no date on a can of dairy products in particular. If there is no date it could be possible that older product has been re- packaged for a special price sale. Ask questions and get the storage/use time in writing. Save your receipts.

Shake cans of freeze dried foods to determine how many inches of food is probably in there. Check for amounts by weight and by servings on EVERY brand you buy. Sometimes some companies do "special" packaging for sales and the ounces will be correct on the label but the can will only have a couple of inches of product in it. We have all seen the amounts in some store brands shrink over the past few months while the packaging stays the same size. Knowing the number of servings will help you decide if the price is a good one.

As you know I just try to get the best info possible and don't guarantee anything. It is up to you to determine for yourself what you purchase. I hope these pointers help. "

Thank you, food storage expert from Utah! I thought these were some really good things to think about no matter what kind of storage you are doing--especially since my children seem to eat more and more all the time, and I want to make sure that I have enough to feed them. :) It sometimes surprises me how quickly I go through normal and routine supplies, and I would be really unhappy (read: distressed and distraught) to find that what I had thought would last longer had already disappeared, especially if I was totally dependent on what I had stored. I know that sometimes even when I read how many servings there are in such-and-so product, when I look at the size of what they consider to be a serving it doesn't always add up to what I would consider to be a serving size--it always seems that I like my servings a little larger. In any case, it can't hurt to ask, how much is it, really?

The answer might surprise you...

Well, not this answer: I had a reader ask where my post was on the subject of diy mixes for your food storage, and think she was referring to this one. If not, let me know. It appears that my comments and I are still having a love/hate relationship--they love to disappear, and I hate it. Sometimes they show up later, but I haven't noticed a pattern yet. Ah, well, if the comment ever shows up on my blog page, I will publish it. And thanks for asking!

While we are still talking about the food aspect of storage, you might want to head over to the Harried Homemaker website and sign up for a chance to win a yogurt maker--diy can be a wonderful thing! And if you live near a Safeway or another one of the stores she has listed, you might want to enter to win a $25 Safeway card + goodies as well. Alas, we don't live near any of the stores mentioned, but I will be happy for you if you win....

The answer I was referring to in the post title, however, was quite different. We heard about some people who were planning to travel to Chile after the earthquake there. They called ahead to ask about the area they were planning to visit and to ask what they should bring that would be most beneficial to meet the needs of the people there. The answer, as I understand it, was this list:

--Adult diapers
--Baby diapers
--Wet wipes

I have heard suggestions on more than one blog to store things like adult diapers in the event of a pandemic, because you might be involved in nursing bedridden adults. I am sure that in just about any emergency where there would be babies that it would be hard to have too many diapers. I guess I was just surprised because it wouldn't have been the first thing I would have thought to store up on. The people in question accepted donations of these items, and I have to say that I thought that the adult diapers were quite expensive, especially considering the number of diapers there were in a package. (In the package that I purchased, there were only 18 for a price close to $9.00).

It's at times like this that I wonder what else I just haven't thought to put into storage. Some things I would like to have and are on a wish list, so that we remember to save up for. Now that I have heard about this, I am thinking about getting some adult diapers in storage--even if no one in my immediate circle of responsibility needs them, there might be someone else who does. If anyone has other ideas that wouldn't immediately come to mind, feel free to share (and I'll try not to get overwhelmed... :) You won't store what you haven't even thought of.....

I hope that the wonderful people going down were able to take the contributions down, and my thoughts and prayers are with all the people affected by the earthquake in Chile.

Is anyone else having problems publishing comments?

Ok, weird, but here it is: yesterday I published a comment from Carl, and it didn't show up in the comments section. Then today, I went to publish a comment from Asphyxiated Emancipation, and it wasn't even available to publish in my blogspot account. I get the comments in an e-mail account, however, so fortunately I can reproduce Ashyxiated Emancipation's comment (which is full of great info) here through the wonder that is copy and paste:

Ammo. Ammo has been non available in my area since around August of 2008. Oh sure, you can find some oddball calibers here and there, but 9mm, .40, .45? Forget about it. .22? No way. I managed to score the last 8 boxes at a gun show Saturday, thankfully, since I have a training class next month.

Since Walmart has rearranged their stores, the choices aren't there anymore. Seems they wanna be like Costco when they grow up. Problem is, the are facing the shelves, and not actually keeping them full. So, when I go in and buy a case of beans, the shelves are left empty.

I've been running into the same problem you have with shoes since late last year. Finally caught an online sale in December, and ordered two extra pairs of shoes.

The more I prepare, the more experience shows me it is better.

End of comment.

Thanks, Asphyxiated Emancipation, you bring up a lot of good points. I had noticed that there just doesn't seem to be much choice anymore for products on the shelves, and it may just be me, but it seems that store brands are taking a more prominent place, with prices that seem pretty close to other brands, in at least one example I can think of.

Well, don't know what's next with the comment problem--hopefully I will at least keep receiving them by e-mail. Hope that it doesn't turn out that I won't see them at all, because I really appreciate comments--lots of times there is more information in the comments than what I put in the posts... :)

There doesn't have to be an emergency for there to be scarcity...

Ah, reason number (insert large number here) to stock up on more than food for emergencies. I went shopping for shoes again recently, and my experience was even more disturbing than it was almost two years ago....though it was similar:

I went to our national chainstore of choice first, and the choices were extremely limited, and the prices were considerably higher than I wanted to pay. Extremely limited=there was one pair of shoes in the size that I wanted, and a salesperson told me that the only shoes they had were the ones on display. So I went to choice 2 on the chainstore list.

Wow, the displays in chainstore 2 were impressive. There were even some shoes that were 50% off. I was very happy to see the display, but from there it went downhill. These shoes were mostly display only, so a sales associate had to go check one by one for the shoes I requested. To make a long story short, she went back again and again, and there were no shoes in the size I was looking for--except for one pair that for some reason (color I guess) was $10 more than another similar model. I declined and went to look at store 3.

Again at chainstore 3 choice was very limited, but I did find one pair that would work. If memory serves, it was about the same price as the lone pair that was in chainstore 1. So I reasoned that since we get a coupon occasionally for our membership in a kids club at chainstore 1, that I would spend our money there. The shoes were a necessity, and stores were about to close, so I headed back to chainstore 1....

...only to find at that point that the one pair in the size I needed at chainstore 1 was actually wide width. So they had no shoes in the size that I needed. I ended up taking yet another trip to chainstore 3 and buying the pair there.

So, okay, I don't sew, and I should work on that, but I pretty much am sure that aside from wrapping together something with twine and/or duct tape under dire circumstances that I won't be successful at making anything even vaguely resembling shoes. I asked the salesperson at chainstore 1 how often they got shoes in, and she said that honestly, they didn't get them in very often. (You can compare this to the linked post in 2008, when I was told that they got shoes in weekly.) She did say that you could order just about anything online, but that will not help in an emergency situation, when you need the shoes now because one of your children has failed to mention that hard work/play and resultant shoe holes + melting Idaho snow make it necessary to purchase shoes asap...or any other emergency, for that matter.

So, one of my goals is to save up and buy shoes ahead, online or otherwise, because shoemaking is not one of my talents. I also am going to try to find out if there are other items that I will need to take notice of--the scarcity of items is not always immediately apparent. For example, in chainstore 3 there were rows upon rows of shoes, but not much of what I needed. There were even clearance shelves, but again, full of pairs that were of no use to me. I don't know how many pairs of ultra-expensive pairs there were in the size that I was looking for, because they weren't an option. Not an option is not an option, whether it's due to price or unavailability, so it seems to me that storing ahead would be a wise practice.

What about you? Have you noticed a scarcity in any items, food or otherwise, that you are now planning to add to your emergency supplies? The more we get the word out for each other, the better prepared we will all be able to be....

Sometimes you just can't tell...

We love baked potatoes around here. In fact, we use them as the main star of the meal when we put chili and various other toppings on them, or as a side for meatloaf. After buying some oatmeal in the sale mentioned in the previous post, I was in the mood for meatloaf, which I learned to make growing up, and the recipe for which used to be found on the back of the Quaker oatmeal box. Someone has kindly posted the recipe online here. Easy, with few ingredients, and delicious. I usually use tomato sauce and ground turkey--beef or turkey, it's all good.

Ah, one of my favorite foods. And, as an added bonus, if you put baking potatoes in 1/2 hour before the meatloaf, they will be ready at the same time.

So I had the oatmeal. I had the egg, the tomato sauce, and the turkey. And I had lovely, huge, beautiful baking potatoes--after all, we live in Idaho. So I started scrubbing potatoes, and cutting off blemishes, and as memory serves, the first potato was only lovely on the outside. Just under the skin there was black throughout. Bye-bye, potato.

Ok. Well, we usually buy at least one extra baking potato in case something like this happens, but by the time I had wrapped one for the oven and thrown away a total of three, I was done. One potato made it into the oven before the meatloaf, and the remaining potatoes went into the refrigerator for another day. One person ate the baked potato, and the rest had instant mashed. Not as good, but tasty enough.

There is no way the farmers could see this particular problem before they sold the potatoes, and no way that the grocer could know either. And there is no way that we could know until I was in the process of preparing them for dinner. In some situations, you just can't tell ahead of time that you are going to have a problem, no matter how carefully you plan. Everything looked good. But sometimes, even if it is not an emergency, your food supplies can provide you with a Plan B.

Gotta love having a plan B, even if it you were looking forward to Plan A......

Sometimes you just need other people--or at least someone else's jeep

A couple of weekends ago we found ourselves in a scenario that perhaps many people find themselves in, especially in Idaho. It snowed. This is fun when you have no place to go. It is not fun when the accumulation on the road is such that you and just about everyone else on the road is in danger of being stuck. One of our neighbors told me she got stuck three times before she got out of the neighborhood. Another told me that she got stuck in the driveway and promptly went inside and told her husband she was taking the truck. That morning my husband got out while he was driving and helped someone who was stuck in the middle of the road. While we were together as a family, we did not get stuck. But conditions were a little worse when my husband was out in a neighborhood helping a moving party...

Our neighborhood was not the only one in bad shape that day, and my husband said the neighborhood where he was helping load furniture, etc., was in even worst condition than ours was. When he was ready to go, things were not looking good because the snow was so high in the road that he was getting stuck just trying to leave. So someone else there offered to tow him out to one of the main roads with his jeep. My husband accepted. I'm not sure my husband had even met that gentleman before that morning, and I don't remember hearing his name, so it is unlikely that I know him. In any case, if he is reading, I say thank you!

I have been thinking about that situation (because, obviously, I have not been writing about it :) for awhile. There are times when you are just going to need other people. I suppose that there are scenarios where you could do all of the heavy lifting/pushing/ trying to extricate your vehicle from a snowdrift all by yourself until you finally got to where you were going. I suppose. I'm sure that there are some people that have situated themselves so that they really wouldn't ever need other people, and they have the self-sufficiency aspect down to an art. But I think that most of us would need other people in at least some ways in certain emergency situations, and those situations are different depending on where you live.

Who will you call if the power goes out and you have no alternative source of heat when it is -14 with a windchill of -26? (Ah, Idaho.) What if you have an earthquake, and have to evacuate? What if your probable weather emergency is a hurricane? A tornado? A flood? A mudslide? A heatwave? What if your probable emergency is of a financial nature, and you find yourselves in need of shelter or other basic necessities? What if the probable emergency has to do with a situation that requires defense of property, and you need strength of numbers to protect you and yours? I'm sure that there are more emergencies that could occur, but those are the ones that come to mind.

There are many ways that we can prepare ourselves so that we need minimal/no help during emergency situations, but there are also many emergency situations that are likely to eventually lead to our seeking help from other people. My husband and I have discussed some of the scenarios that might lead us to seek out other people (most likely family members) but we still have work to do in this area. For us there would likely be a plan A and plan B at least. But we do think that it would be best to have a plan with the people we would seek out in an emergency situation, so that there would be less confusion and better transfer of supplies, etc. if an emergency were to arise.

What about you? What is your most likely emergency situation where you would need the assistance of other people? Do you have a plan? We're still working on one here, and are so grateful that we still have some time to do so, and are hoping that we would never have to put such a plan into action.

Just so you know, don't come to us if you need to be towed by a jeep. However, if you get stuck in the snow in our neighborhood, don't be surprised if my husband shows up with a snowshovel. Hey, you do what you can... :)

Don't let "Dorito dogs" happen to you....

Well, at least not unexpectedly....

My husband went camping on Friday a distance from home with our children that would be old enough to enjoy the experience. The experience was enjoyed, though not entirely without its glitches...

The good:

---Those who have been reading this blog for awhile may remember that we purchased a tent last year for emergency purposes. This was the first time it had been used outside of our backyard, and reportedly everything went well.

The not-as-good:

--My husband left home without the hot dogs they had been planning to cook over a campfire. Hence, there were hot dog buns, Doritos, juiceboxes, and the makings for s'mores. But no actual hotdogs. What to do?

Well, in this instance, there were "Dorito dogs" for supper. My children liked them a lot, actually, so taste and appetite fatigue don't figure much into this particular experience. Nutrition does (please don't tell me what's actually in hot dogs--I like them and don't really want to know... :) in terms of protein, though I figure one night of "Dorito dogs" isn't going to hurt anyone, and we don't eat that many hot dogs around here anyway--they are more of a campout treat. What really struck me was the thought, what have I forgotten in terms of food storage?

I know what I need more of, (stored fruit comes to mind) but is there anything I just have actually forgotten about, that would lead to some really weird substitutions if I didn't have it long-term? Doritos aren't a long-term storage item for us, but if we had some in storage they would be a comfort food, and we do have some comfort foods in storage, though there is probably room for improvement in that area as well. (Could there ever be enough comfort foods in storage? :)

Is there anything you have forgotten about? Personally, I think it's time for me to check the store room....

Things are tough all over...

Apparently even in the schools.

Was surprised recently to find out that there was a request for donations on top of regular school fees. I know that the people in schools work really hard with fundraisers, etc., to get "extra" money, but I don't recall ever having a straight-out request for donations sent home. Granted, at this point the "extra" money being requested was not a requirement, but a bit disheartening all the same.

And money needed for any other use doesn't go into food storage/emergency preparation supplies...

On a related subject, there is a collection going on to gather supplies for children who may not have been able to acquire everything they need for school. Since I knew about this beforehand, I was able to get some extra "generally-needed-in-just-about-every-class" supplies for said collection at the really cheap back-to-school sales. Now to get the stuff to one of the announced collection sites before the collection ends this week. Things can be tough all over, but when we help where we can, things can be a little easier...

A challenge, and fuel preparedness

Already mentioned this on my other blog, but there is a Food Challenge over at Preparedness Pro. Started on the 1st of this month, and runs all month long, and is basically a challenge to stop shopping for necessities for a 2 week period. Just in case you are interested, the clock's a-tickin....


We went out recently into the wilderness (alright, it was a campground, with a firepit, but it was aways away from home, and wilderness sounds so much better when you're telling a story :) and cooked an outdoor meal. It was prompted by a requirement for an organization that one of my children is participating in, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Since it was sort of short notice, I ended up going to the local national chainstore for supplies. Some of the things I learned from this experience:

--Buying campout supplies on short notice, when everyone else is out buying similar items for campouts/reunions/ insert weekend activity of your choice here is not my idea of a good time. Would definitely not want to be out trying to gather supplies in an actual emergency situation. Already knew that, but having a real-life reminder can be a really good thing...


---My husband and child planned the meal (the child was involved in the planning as part of the requirement being fulfilled) and I took the list. One of the items on the list was charcoal briquets. I spent time wandering around the store looking for charcoal in places I thought it was likely to be, or for an employee to supply me with such information, before I found someone who informed me it was in the home and garden section. If you have to wait until the last minute to purchase items, (it would be wonderful to purchase all of your emergency items in one shopping trip, but one's expenses don't always permit such a shopping trip) you would do well to know where the items are located and at least take care of that portion of the mad rush....

---Know ahead of time which kind of fuel you will be needing for heat, cooking, etc. When we got to the campout location, my husband took out some wood (left over from our last winter's wood storage) and left the charcoal in the car. I asked him why charcoal had been on the list, and he said that it was in case the cooking facilities at the campground required charcoal, and not wood. Since it was just basically a firepit, we used the wood. So know ahead of time what you will be using for your purposes, or just plan for every and anything....

*Bug spray would have been handy. The mosquitos only really seemed to be interested in me, however...
**Glad we carried in water to put the fire out.

So now we have charcoal, which we really should have had before. Need to get some more in, just for variety and options if/when it's needed. Cooking out can be fun if it's planned, so I guess it can be fun to cook out even in an emergency if we do the planning now, and not so much on short notice....

Procrastination does not pay, or the importance of using an emergency notebook

Well, I could post about the paprika/cream of chicken soup/canned chicken recipe that I made last Tuesday, I think it was. Or I could talk about the importance of printing out /and or writing down recipes/info/tips that you find on the internet when you find them.

Oh, right. My procrastination doesn't leave me much choice, because the recipe that I made last Tuesday, I think it was, was on a blog that when I went to go find it this morning had been removed. And I don't think I ever printed it out because that recipe was posted in like June, and it was going to be there forever, right?

The blog was The Emergency Preparedness Bug, (sorry I can't link to it because it is no longer there) and the recipe was easy to make. It was more appreciated by the adults than the kids in the family. They liked it well enough, however, that we would try it a couple more times to see if it would be more appreciated with further exposure--those who have read my earlier posts may remember that rice and beans were not wildly appreciated when we first introduced them, and we eat them regularly now...

The good news is that the recipe was adapted from a Campbell's recipe that the author had linked to, so if I look hard enough I may be able to salvage something from it--I just loved the adaptation on the blog. Pictures and everything. I didn't use peppers, but I would have put the recipe in my notebook as it was posted, if I had written it down....

Ah, Preparedness Bug, I miss you. Please avoid the mistake I have made, and write and/or place printed copies of pertinent information in a notebook. If you haven't started one, I highly recommend it. You may need a written copy of whatever information you are seeking because of power outage, evacuation, or hey, someone just might close down their blog...

What a difference a week makes....

Following a long tradition...

on my blog of having people leave great comments, as well as just plain old linking to other people's blogs when they post wonderful preparedness information, I present the following:

A huge thank you to Stephanie in AR, from over at Sooner or Later, for leaving this link from Down to Earth about making oil lamps in a comment on my last post. That looks like something I could do, and will probably try it soon. An oil lamp has been on my list of "things to have for emergency preparation" for a while now, and if I can do it like this, it will be crossed off a lot sooner. If you are interested in making your own oil lamp, you should check that link out....

Well, things are growing in the garden---the corn, as my husband says, looks "anemic" in terms of height, and in comparison to some corn fields we saw over the weekend, but hopefully we'll get something more out of the crop this year. The potatoes look like they are doing alright, but having no comparison because it is our first time growing them, we will just have to see. The beans look like they are doing well, and the pumpkins, a family favorite, appear to be on track. Time to think about late season planting, if memory serves--and to actually plant whatever we decide on very, very, soon....

Hope everyone is having a great summer--and that if you have a garden, that it's growing well!