What have you done this week to prep?

[Iroquois]

OK, been an interesting weekend. 5 months ago my wife acquired 9 chickens, supposedly all hens. about 5 weeks ago they started crowing, not all at once but one at a time. We gave one away, thinking we could live with one. Then there was two ,then three, then four. Singing in a chorus, all together, at 4:30 AM. So saturday we did some thing that neither the wife or I had ever attempted, we butchered roosters…sure was quiet the morning.
Only 4 left, three silkies and an Americana…one of the silkies is acting like a rooster….

 

[Trigger Time]

I was sorting through some canned goods and an idea popped into my thick head. Would it be a good idea to spray and seal metal cans with plasti-dip? It would keep them from rusting if you did it right.
they rust just with the slightest bit of humidity. If the power was out and we couldn't run dehumidifiers the our basements would get humid fast. What do you guys think?

 

[teddy12b]

I was sorting through some canned goods and an idea popped into my thick head. Would it be a good idea to spray and seal metal cans with plasti-dip? It would keep them from rusting if you did it right.
they rust just with the slightest bit of humidity. If the power was out and we couldn't run dehumidifiers the our basements would get humid fast. What do you guys think?

Rust on the outside is one thing, rust on the inside is another. For the time, $$ and effort to spray every can of food you've got I think you'd better off to put that energy towards just more cans of food and play the odds that the cans will be fine. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[ghunter]

Two gallons of white "wine" ready to be pasteurized. One gallon of pear juice based kilju (Finnish hooch recipe) will be ready to pasteurize and sample in a week or two.

Anyone know where I can get more three gallon frosting buckets? I could use a few more for fermenting and storage.

For any excise cops on this thread: I'm nowhere near the limit of personal use wine at 100 gallons per year.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

I was sorting through some canned goods and an idea popped into my thick head. Would it be a good idea to spray and seal metal cans with plasti-dip? It would keep them from rusting if you did it right.
they rust just with the slightest bit of humidity. If the power was out and we couldn't run dehumidifiers the our basements would get humid fast. What do you guys think?

There's one guy with a prepper-type site that I've checked out. He talks about taking the labels off cans, writing on them with a sharpie what the contents and the purchase dates and stuff. Then he dips them, half at a time in paraffin wax. He says that it makes the cans very rust-proof.

 

[Rookie]

New to the prepping game...

Kroger has great deals on canned goods this week. Most everything is 10/$10.

My daughter lives in the middle of nowhere, and we will head there if things go south. The only issue is, they don't have room for storage, so my plans are to build a bug out trailer. I have a walk out basement, so I'm thinking about building a trailer just small enough to fit through the French doors and loading it up. If things go south, I can drive around back, hook up the trailer, and head for the hills.

Thoughts?

 

[churchmouse]

New to the prepping game...

Kroger has great deals on canned goods this week. Most everything is 10/$10.

My daughter lives in the middle of nowhere, and we will head there if things go south. The only issue is, they don't have room for storage, so my plans are to build a bug out trailer. I have a walk out basement, so I'm thinking about building a trailer just small enough to fit through the French doors and loading it up. If things go south, I can drive around back, hook up the trailer, and head for the hills.

Thoughts?

The trick is making your prep program fit your life style/living quarters.
We have had to adapt and make room as we expand.
The trailer idea sounds good.
Make a main and secondary route plane. Maybe even a third. If things go far enough off the scale to make you bug out you will not be alone out there.

 

[Rookie]

Unfortunately, room will always be an issue where she lives. Where I live, room will never be an issue. The advantage to where she lives, it's in the middle of nowhere, if you don't know where you're going you would think you're driving through a corn field. Only one way in and out with a vehicle and it would be easily defended. Getting there might be some concern for the first few miles out of town, but I already live out of town, so I've got a head start.

 

[churchmouse]

Unfortunately, room will always be an issue where she lives. Where I live, room will never be an issue. The advantage to where she lives, it's in the middle of nowhere, if you don't know where you're going you would think you're driving through a corn field. Only one way in and out with a vehicle and it would be easily defended. Getting there might be some concern for the first few miles out of town, but I already live out of town, so I've got a head start.

WE have a bug out trailer but it has been out at the bug out site full of material and gear. Hard to say no to the folks that are willing to share the land with you if the S really does HTF
That place is 69 miles exactly from my drive way.

 

[littletommy]

Been running some taste tests on store brand canned goods. Mainly comparing Meijer and Kroger brand VS Chef boyardee. I've found that the store brands, aside from a slight difference in consistency, taste almost exactly the same, as a matter of fact, my Son could not tell the difference between the national brand or either of the store brands. Ravioli has the texture difference, with the store brands seeming to be slightly "grainier" for lack of a better term. I could not tell a difference between national brand speghetti and meatballs, aside from the Meijer brand maybe being slightly saltier than the other two. All in all, I'm going to start stocking the store brands a lot more, as they are $0.77 compared to $1.00 for the national brand.

I have been stocking Meijer brand canned vegetables for quite a while, as the family seems to prefer them over other brands, especially the golden corn and french style green beans.

My thoughts on the canned goods: I don't buy anything to stock that I can't throw in a pan, skillet, or grate, over an open fire, so the canned stuff, ravioli, speghetti, beefaroni, vegetables, and cases of Spam work well into that plan. I've tried to stock enough stuff to have 3 cans of food per person in my household per day, and I have reached about 4 months based on that. That figure does not include the larger cans of vegetables, and small cans of assorted fruit I've been able to collect. I view the canned stuff as our lifeline to get through a tough time, and have been pretty successful at convincing the rest of the family that it is an important part of our lives, it may not keep bad things from happening to us but at least we have the edge on a LOT of other people in our society.

Anyway, sorry to ramble, just wanted to post this up for others who may be just getting into this.

 

[littletommy]

Oh, I also cooked a pack of Knorr Pasta sides, the beef flavored one, that was almost two years beyond the expiration date. The contents of the mylar lined pouch are dry, so I figured not much could go wrong with the product, and, I guess I was correct, because the noodles cooked just fine and the seasoning tasted fine as well. I have a few more pouches that are of the same expiration date, and I won't hesitate to eat them. I may put one away and wait another few years and see how it does.

 

[churchmouse]

Oh, I also cooked a pack of Knorr Pasta sides, the beef flavored one, that was almost two years beyond the expiration date. The contents of the mylar lined pouch are dry, so I figured not much could go wrong with the product, and, I guess I was correct, because the noodles cooked just fine and the seasoning tasted fine as well. I have a few more pouches that are of the same expiration date, and I won't hesitate to eat them. I may put one away and wait another few years and see how it does.

We have been OK with rotating packet foods by expiration dates. They always cook up just fine.

 

[littletommy]

We have been OK with rotating packet foods by expiration dates. They always cook up just fine.

The kids used to really go through stuff like that, but now, they are rarely ever home anymore, so I've toned it down on the stuff with shorter shelf lives.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Been running some taste tests on store brand canned goods. Mainly comparing Meijer and Kroger brand VS Chef boyardee. I've found that the store brands, aside from a slight difference in consistency, taste almost exactly the same, as a matter of fact, my Son could not tell the difference between the national brand or either of the store brands. Ravioli has the texture difference, with the store brands seeming to be slightly "grainier" for lack of a better term. I could not tell a difference between national brand speghetti and meatballs, aside from the Meijer brand maybe being slightly saltier than the other two. All in all, I'm going to start stocking the store brands a lot more, as they are $0.77 compared to $1.00 for the national brand.

I have been stocking Meijer brand canned vegetables for quite a while, as the family seems to prefer them over other brands, especially the golden corn and french style green beans.

My thoughts on the canned goods: I don't buy anything to stock that I can't throw in a pan, skillet, or grate, over an open fire, so the canned stuff, ravioli, speghetti, beefaroni, vegetables, and cases of Spam work well into that plan. I've tried to stock enough stuff to have 3 cans of food per person in my household per day, and I have reached about 4 months based on that. That figure does not include the larger cans of vegetables, and small cans of assorted fruit I've been able to collect. I view the canned stuff as our lifeline to get through a tough time, and have been pretty successful at convincing the rest of the family that it is an important part of our lives, it may not keep bad things from happening to us but at least we have the edge on a LOT of other people in our society.

Anyway, sorry to ramble, just wanted to post this up for others who may be just getting into this.

My wife makes it a point to get a few cans of Keystone canned meat whenever she finds it on sale. It's a quality product with a great shelf-life.

 

[skulhedface]

Meijer canned vegetables on sale 3 for $1, maybe went a little overboard this time...where am I going to store these

 

[flagtag]

Bought more ammo, ordered more dehydrated food packets. Got my winter emergency vehicle storage bags ready to put in the truck. First sign (or forecast) of bad weather, I will put them in the back seat of the truck. Making a list of other foods, etc. to get each week.

 

[RobbyMaQ]

maybe a veg oil could help prevent rust for moe cheaperish?

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

maybe a veg oil could help prevent rust for moe cheaperish?

^^^^^Really?????

 

[Car Ramrod]

Put together an extensive, pretty much all-inclusive, inventory of everything at the BOL. It should make it a lot easier to keep track of what is down there, what areas we're lacking in, and what we need a hell of a lot more of.

I put it all in a spreadsheet, sorted into categories such as Food, Water, Ammo, Clothing, Kitchen, Garden Tools, Misc Tools, etc.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Put together an extensive, pretty much all-inclusive, inventory of everything at the BOL. It should make it a lot easier to keep track of what is down there, what areas we're lacking in, and what we need a hell of a lot more of.

I put it all in a spreadsheet, sorted into categories such as Food, Water, Ammo, Clothing, Kitchen, Garden Tools, Misc Tools, etc.

That's a good idea, I need to do that for the prep stuff at my place.