What did you do today to prepare?

[NapalmMan67]

Yesterday I started clearing out a room (roughly 8 x 11) in the basement to make a new food/canning supply storage area and consolidate everything in there, instead of having it scattered throughout the basement as it is now.  Still debating on if I'll build shelves or buy some pre made... 

[Crosscut]

Yesterday I started clearing out a room (roughly 8 x 11) in the basement to make a new food/canning supply storage area and consolidate everything in there, instead of having it scattered throughout the basement as it is now.  Still debating on if I'll build shelves or buy some pre made...

Just something to consider on the shelving, but if you built your own out of dimensional lumber and screwed it together it could be dismantled for the lumber later.  Dual use/dual purpose, shelving now and could be used to board up a broken window or make hasty repairs to the roof after a storm if needed, and it doesn't take up any additional space. 

[NapalmMan67]

Yesterday I started clearing out a room (roughly 8 x 11) in the basement to make a new food/canning supply storage area and consolidate everything in there, instead of having it scattered throughout the basement as it is now.  Still debating on if I'll build shelves or buy some pre made...

Just something to consider on the shelving, but if you built your own out of dimensional lumber and screwed it together it could be dismantled for the lumber later.  Dual use/dual purpose, shelving now and could be used to board up a broken window or make hasty repairs to the roof after a storm if needed, and it doesn't take up any additional space. 

Yes, that thought had crossed my mind.  But how things are at the moment-  One, we have several other shelving units I built with that in mind (not that it would be bad to have moar!)  and two-  with the price of lumber the way it is right now, I can buy the required shelves for less than 1/3 of the plywood I'd need for built in.

Now a rub with the premade is, there would be gaps in the shelving and they would not connect.  The room is a small "U" shape, longer on one side than the other.  So custom built would provide one continuous unit along the entire wall length.

So, I continue to ponder...     


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[Mr. E. Monkey]

Today, I get the rest of the PPE I need to clear out the nasty bugs on the ol' homestead.  That way, we can actually use the property (for something other than raising ticks, chiggers, and spiders).

The monkey child wants to raise chickens, so we may look into that. 

[Crosscut]

Primary 500 gallon propane tank refilled today, always makes me feel a little relieved when I'm topped off.  Asked the driver to fill it as much as possible, but said that I understood it's the hottest time of the year too. 



I'm good with that 

Emergency tank (disconnected).

[Mr. E. Monkey]

Nice!

[NapalmMan67]

Decided to go with a hybrid of shelving units.  So last week I cleaned off the units we already have, moved them to the new room and reorganized everything back on them.

This past weekend I started building some shelves to accommodate the home canning goods. I'm utilizing all free reclaimed wood I've accumulated over the years.  When I'm done, besides time, I'll only have a couple dollars worth of screws in the project.

Shelf measurements are 80"W x 18"D, overall height and how many shelves I get TBD yet depending on how much more wood I have.


.

[Crosscut]

Topped off the gasoline in the truck and refilled a six gallon can with premium, our small engines and the motorcycle like 93 octane better than 87/89.  And a Amish country feed store trip for 45 lbs of Dog Chow, 8 lbs of dog biscuits, 2 pigs ears as backseat treats for my traveling companions, and 2 packages of DuraMectin (veterinary ivermectin paste).  The last was an impulse buy, $3.99 each where I see Amazon is selling it for $12.  Noted they had 5 different brands that included ivermectin along with other active ingredients like praziquantel on the same shelf.  The other varieties were all untouched and fully stocked, I'd say 16 each of the others, where there were only 4 DuraMectin left before I grabbed 2.   

[Mr. E. Monkey]

I bought a few pounds of feed plot seed (stuff like this) that I'm going to try on the back half of the property.  I'm less interested in bringing in deer (wouldn't mind, of course, but neighbors are probably closer than is prudent for hunting) than I am in getting some decent ground cover, maybe giving more noxious weeds from spreading, and if it leaves some potentially useful plants to forage, then that would be pretty nice too.   I would guess that chickens would like it, too.

[NapalmMan67]

Decided to go with a hybrid of shelving units.  So last week I cleaned off the units we already have, moved them to the new room and reorganized everything back on them.

This past weekend I started building some shelves to accommodate the home canning goods. I'm utilizing all free reclaimed wood I've accumulated over the years.  When I'm done, besides time, I'll only have a couple dollars worth of screws in the project.

Shelf measurements are 80"W x 18"D, overall height and how many shelves I get TBD yet depending on how much more wood I have.

Ended up with 5 shelves total.  All 80"W --- 4 are 18"D and the top shelf is 12"D.  I'll store the canning lids/bands, tools and food sealer up there.

From the floor to first shelf has 18" clearance and I stuck the boxes of Pint jars under there for storage.  So the first shelf has 12" clearance to double stack pint jars and then there are 3 shelves with 8" clearance to accommodate quart jars.

Now that I've put what little self canned goods we have on there, I now feel inadequately stocked with them.  Hopefully next year we'll have the garden back online and producing to help fill up these shelves.

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[RoneKiln]

Yesterday I tried "dry tooling." It's rock climbing with ice climbing gear. Whomever came up with the idea is truly crazy. It was awesome.

Right now my pressure canner is getting up to temperature. It has 6 quarts of squash curry base and a quart of rendered bacon fat. Once it's fully up to pressure it will cook for 90 minutes at 240 degrees. When it's done and cooling I'll start another batch of squash curry.

I use the squash curry base for both curry over rice and for soups. I go real mild on the spice when canning it and add more when using it so I can dial it in for my mood and accommodate others that don't like as much spice as I do.

I'll likely never render bacon fat again unless I find a better way. I made a horrible mess and it wasn't worth the effort. Even after 90 minutes at 240 degrees I'll stick it in the back of my fridge for storage.

[flybynight]

Yesterday I tried "dry tooling." It's rock climbing with ice climbing gear. Whomever came up with the idea is truly crazy. It was awesome.

Right now my pressure canner is getting up to temperature. It has 6 quarts of squash curry base and a quart of rendered bacon fat. Once it's fully up to pressure it will cook for 90 minutes at 240 degrees. When it's done and cooling I'll start another batch of squash curry.

I use the squash curry base for both curry over rice and for soups. I go real mild on the spice when canning it and add more when using it so I can dial it in for my mood and accommodate others that don't like as much spice as I do.

I'll likely never render bacon fat again unless I find a better way. I made a horrible mess and it wasn't worth the effort. Even after 90 minutes at 240 degrees I'll stick it in the back of my fridge for storage.

You can it for 90 minutes? How many lbs. pressure?

[RoneKiln]

Yesterday I tried "dry tooling." It's rock climbing with ice climbing gear. Whomever came up with the idea is truly crazy. It was awesome.

Right now my pressure canner is getting up to temperature. It has 6 quarts of squash curry base and a quart of rendered bacon fat. Once it's fully up to pressure it will cook for 90 minutes at 240 degrees. When it's done and cooling I'll start another batch of squash curry.

I use the squash curry base for both curry over rice and for soups. I go real mild on the spice when canning it and add more when using it so I can dial it in for my mood and accommodate others that don't like as much spice as I do.

I'll likely never render bacon fat again unless I find a better way. I made a horrible mess and it wasn't worth the effort. Even after 90 minutes at 240 degrees I'll stick it in the back of my fridge for storage.

You can it for 90 minutes? How many lbs. pressure?

I use the 10 pound weight on it to push it up to 240ish degrees. This is my 2nd year using a pressure canner and this method worked great last year once I dialed it in.

My previous attempts without a pressure canner fell short of my hopes.

[CG]

I'll likely never render bacon fat again unless I find a better way. I made a horrible mess and it wasn't worth the effort. Even after 90 minutes at 240 degrees I'll stick it in the back of my fridge for storage.

Bake your bacon in the oven. Remove bacon from cookie sheet.  Pour grease through strainer (with paper towel at the ready to catch the last drip).

[RoneKiln]

I'll likely never render bacon fat again unless I find a better way. I made a horrible mess and it wasn't worth the effort. Even after 90 minutes at 240 degrees I'll stick it in the back of my fridge for storage.

Bake your bacon in the oven. Remove bacon from cookie sheet.  Pour grease through strainer (with paper towel at the ready to catch the last drip).

I had several cans of it that I heated up and strained through coffee filters. A lot of the grease must have evaporated while heating it and then condensed, cause I ended up with a layer of grease EVERYWHERE. It was absolutely awful cleaning the stove and the area around it afterwards.

[Crosscut]

Rollup of the last few weeks. Checked the zero on the 10/22 that lives in the BOV (minor adjustments needed) yesterday.  Changed the plugs and oil on the standby gennie, and cleaned the air prefilter today.  Bought some shipping tags tags last week for marking the gas cans for the various fuels, regular, 93 octane, 2 stroke mixes, kero, and off-road diesel.  Charged the battery that powers the Dakota Alert at our main gate, would really like to get a small solar panel for that but it'd require cutting some trees to get any sun.  Got out 2 weekends ago for some sporting clay practice with some friends.  Been too long, I sucked, but in my defense I was throwing the clays for them further out with nice glide paths - they couldn't get the hang of the hand thrower so I had to take my shots closer and quicker, and often while the clays were falling almost vertically.  Getting more clay pigeons and will try again in the middle of the month, found my ground mounted thrower (similar to this) so it should be more fair next time.  Got a new DirecTV receiver (long story), and they didn't want the old one back so I removed the 40 watt power supply board (5v and 12v outputs) and a USB cable from it before tossing it.  Dispatched a mouse and a porcupine in the last week, first mouse in this house ever, it's ICF so no clue how he got in unless through an open door while we were bringing in groceries or something.  The porcupines chew on the wood molding around my entry door, so it's shoot on sight for them, this morning the wife said there was a porcupine quill stuck in the bark of her bird-feeder tree so another one might have already moved in to replace the deceased one.  Of the two the mouse could be the most dangerous in terms of cost considering the amount of dry goods in the pantry (and that the dogs learned their lesson and don't mess with porcupines anymore thankfully).

[Blast]

Made mead!! 
-Blast

[woodsghost]

Fire extinguisher day today!

I guess in the US, fire extinguishers are expected to last 12 years? The ones I have (Kidde) are listed as having a 12 year life. I decided to check my parents extinguisher and my family's extinguishers.

My parents extinguisher was made in 1998 and was coming apart at the bottom.

Mine are made in 2015. I decided to get 2 new ones anyway. I'm on the "replace every 6 years" wagon.

One of my 2015s will go to replace my parents kitchen extinguisher (rated for liquids and grease). I put in a place where one does not need to fight child locks to get to it. (My parents installed child safety stuff when grand children became a thing... actually, my hyper sensitive brother did it and installed them to be as difficult to open as possible)

One of the 2015s will be used by my wife and myself to put out some practice fires.

I got my new ones from Walmart. 2.5 lb units. They have metal handles, valves, and depressor handles. I'm very excited about metal since our previous were all plastic.

So hopefully this weekend we will light fires and put them out.

[MacWa77ace]

Bought one of these yesterday from the Amazon Treasure Truck for $75.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0843HYLK9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They had a limit of just one at that price.  Is it still hideously expensive per meal?  Yes.  But with a 30-year shelf life and a menu selection, we know that we enjoy it's an easy way to keep a few more days of food on hand, particularly food that could be quickly stuffed into a pack if we had to evac.

Seems Ok pricing wise at $3/serving. Even now its back to $99 or $4 / serving. The thing I look at on those is the calories. Those types are really low calorie counts. So I'd expect to eat 2 servings per meal, that means its only a 12 day supply or 6 days for two people to get 1500 calories / day, which is more realistic than 900+. It works as a fill in for a lunch.

[woodsghost]

Bought one of these yesterday from the Amazon Treasure Truck for $75.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0843HYLK9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They had a limit of just one at that price.  Is it still hideously expensive per meal?  Yes.  But with a 30-year shelf life and a menu selection, we know that we enjoy it's an easy way to keep a few more days of food on hand, particularly food that could be quickly stuffed into a pack if we had to evac.

Seems Ok pricing wise at $3/serving. Even now its back to $99 or $4 / serving. The thing I look at on those is the calories. Those types are really low calorie counts. So I'd expect to eat 2 servings per meal, that means its only a 12 day supply or 6 days for two people to get 1500 calories / day, which is more realistic than 900+. It works as a fill in for a lunch.

I think those need a tablespoon or two of olive oil added. I had to double check, olive oil is about 120 cal per tablespoon, so adding 1 or 2 per meal will be helpful. Adding grass fed butter would be better, but can be tough to store long term.