Camping...interrupted

We have had a pretty busy summer with family get-togethers and such, and last week we thought we'd take out the tent and do some camping. Got some cookout appropriate food (i.e. hot dogs) and headed for a campsite sufficiently far away that it felt like we were out in the middle of somewhere, as opposed to the backyard...

It started well enough, except that I might add that Friday late afternoon/early evening is not the ideal time to go in search of camping supplies, unless you want plenty of company, and the accompanying longer lines at the store. By the time I returned home, it was starting to cloud over a little, but we hit the road anyway. What's a few clouds, right?

Having arrived at our destination, we got a fire going and while I took over the culinary responsibilities, my husband set up the tent and our children took off and climbed a tree, etc. It was interesting to me that in the bordering campsites there were mostly campers complete with electricity, dining rooms, and all the comforts of home, and few to no other tents. (I suppose I may have missed some if they were blocked by the larger campers.)

The clouds were darkening, but we managed to get through dinner for the most part before it started to rain. The problem was, the wind picked up as well. The children ran into the tent, but as my husband started to put the final cover over it, he said we might have to call it quits, not because of the rain, (we had our vehicle, and set-up on the tent was nearly complete) but because of the wind. The way things were going, it looked like there was a great possibility that the tent would end up being blown over, and that was not a pleasant prospect. So, to everyone's disappointment, while the children sat in the vehicle, my husband and I put out the fire, packed up the tent, and drove home pretty much drenched. The weather got better the closer we got to home, but what can you do?

We chose to return home because we had that option. If we hadn't, and the tent had blown over, we could have taken (likely uncomfortable) refuge in our vehicle, and ended up packing up either in the middle of the night or early the next morning. But here is my question to anyone who is willing to offer some advice--what could we have done to better weather out the "storm", and lessen the chances that the tent would blow over? Are there any practices that we don't know about that we could have utilized? It would not be pleasant to have no other options than a tent and not know how to make the best of the situation. Like HermitJim from Coffee with the Hermit commented on my last post, "knowledge is power!" So feel free to share... :)

Check your Spaghetti-Os

Just saw this article about a Spaghetti-Os recall. If they are your canned comfort food spaghetti of choice, you may want to see if your stored cans are among those affected. It won't be much of a comfort food if it makes you sick in an emergency....

In other news of the more local (to me) variety, we finally had to resort to the more expensive option of internet service, and for now it is working well. Nice to have the internet work and work quickly at that. Yeah, the smile is there. :)

On the garden front, it is finally planted. Still looks pretty bleak out there, and that's not really a surprise, considering that there was a frost warning for last night and 42 degrees out the night before. For plants that like warmth, not much of an incentive to come out and check what's going on... And we insisted on planting corn again, because we're basically optimistic about things like that--can't see it being knee-high by the 4th of July, but hey, if it is, I'll take pictures! :)

Hope your garden is going well--our biggest producer at this point is rhubarb, which grows like a (very large and unruly) weed. Planning to hit the Farmers' Market tomorrow and may try to grow even more things. You don't know until you try.....

Two weeks already?

Yeah, sometimes I think, "Wow, I could post about that!" and then put it off and put it off--not very healthy for my post numbers, and the further I get away from an event, the more I think that it's too old to post about...

--For instance, on April 6 we had a snow day--as in they actually closed the schools!! Ah, Idaho. I did not see that one coming, even though I have lived here for awhile. :) I was glad that we still had some wood left for the trusty old woodstove. You never know when something unexpected is going to happen... I don't think that it was the snowing so much as the blowing, but the result was the same, and the day's plans changed in a moment (or at least as long as it took to realize that there was no one else at the bus stop, and for someone who must have been watching the right news (or the news at the right time) to share the information. Funny thing, it was hard to get official information anywhere--it wasn't on the news when we went to check, and we only saw the list of school closures when we went online--I'm sure that there must be something to be learned from that alone...

--I had already procrastinated about writing about the snowstorm when I found this recipe for Do-Si-Do cookies over at the Harried Homemaker website. Ordinarily, I am not much of a baker, but it was Monday, and I saw that I had everything I needed on hand in storage for this recipe, so we made it. That day. They are sooooo good, although we skipped the frosting for the middle because I just wasn't sure how old my powdered sugar was (did I mention I don't bake that often? :)--again, I'm sure that there must be something to be learned from that alone... It was nice, however, to be able to just bake something without running to the store.

--Sometime between posts I saw something I hadn't seen/noticed before--there are big displays of food storage items in our local national chainstore, and there are cans of things like instant/dried potatoes on the shelves in the lanes as you wait to check out. I am hoping that this means that food storage is a big concern/purchase item right now. Is this happening anywhere else?

Just a few things happening around here--hope all is well with you and yours, and that if you have a later snow day than we have (so far... :) that the snow melts as quickly as it did here. No complaints here--we need the moisture....

Yet another reason to do something...

Well, look here for more reasons to get something in storage. We already have the prices of both food and fuel, but there have always been the weather reasons to store wisely. The article linked here talks about the flooding in the Midwest, but there is also drought other places, and where I live personally it has been cold--so cold that my husband just planted the corn, etc. in the garden last night. I was worried about the raspberries, but apparently some look like they are on the way.
There was a magpie outside our door this past week just screeching and screeching. It was probably our cat that bothered it, but whatever the reason, it was in the front yard basically yelling its head off. I looked outside to see what the commotion was, but that was the extent of my involvement. I just turned around and went about my business.
Sometimes I feel like I come across like that magpie. This blog has been all about "Get food storage! Get food storage!" over and over again. Maybe I haven't come across the right equivalent of the "cat" for a reader (if there are any readers of this blog :) )---the problem that would cause him/her to get excited about the problem and see the danger of not having food storage and do something rather than just turn around and just go about his/her business. I guess worrying about that is something that motivates me to continue posting articles and reasons, in hopes that more people, or maybe just one person, gets prepared and suffers less because of it.
I am seriously concerned about the food situation in our country. We got a letter recently from the state food bank asking for donations, but they weren't really asking. They were really pushy, from my point of view, but they asked for a summer donation, with a really high (at least for us) minimum donation to start. There was nothing along the lines of "we would appreciate anything you would be willing to give...", (although there was a space marked "other" after the high amounts) but there were 3 envelopes for the months of June, July, and August, and the "invitation" to make a certain donation each month, or just one huge (again, huge to us) donation all at once. The thing is, I can kind of understand why they are being so demanding (my word). The demand for help is increasing, and the donations of help are declining. I would assume that the people that sent the "request" for help (with something to the effect of "Please reply by June 30" splashed across the front) are probably the ones who have to send people away with less food or none at all, according to the supplies.
If you haven't started basic food storage at all, please start with my posts in May, where I list the bare minimums to start from scratch --I am no expert on this subject, but I try to follow and source those who are. There are so many good sources on the internet. Please start your food storage, so that you or you and your family will not be one of those that finds yourselves without. (Maybe I should rename this blog the magpie :).
Anyway, I don't live where some of these problems are, but they affect me. And believe me, when people go hungry, we will all be affected. My best source (Mom) always says to store a little extra to share, because there will people that will not be prepared. I hope that people will always find themselves with a little extra to share rather than with a little too little to eat.