Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: September 19 ~ 25, 2021

[coloradohermit]

I'm pressure canning some leftovers from the freezer. I need to get the freezer better organized with more room for stuff.
ETA. All 5 pints sealed, which is a little bit unusual.
Now I'm pressure canning 7 half pints of the blue potatoes I grew this year. I'm going to have to reorganize the pantries to make room for this stuff. Not a bad problem to have.

 

[Cag3db1rd]

Made a trip to the mtn and brough back my solar kit just in case. As long as I can charge a few USB things and run a box fan, I'm good.

I have purchased 2 ibc totes to add to the rain catch. Hubby wants to do the plumbing on this. He needs to hurry the heck up.

I'm up to 14 jugs of lamp oil, and worried that's not enough. How does one know when you have enough candles and lamp oil? I have LED rechargeables, too: 6 solar security, 60 of those 97c pathway lights from wm, and some that are usb charging.

I bartered for some more quart jars from a friend who said he will never use them. I also try to pick up a case of whatever jars there are at wm when I go, and at least 1 box of lids. Hubby thinks I'm nuts.

Got the burn barrel set up to have a way to burn trash. Put up 2 more big trash cans of pine shavings and a small dumpster of mulch to handle waste. Sanitation is an issue most ppl don't know how to deal with off grid. I have been hyper aware of this after off-gridding early on in our marriage. Humanure Handbook is awesome.

Today I bought 2 dzn each beef and pork 1.5lb cans of ground meat from a local surplus store. This is my 3rd time buying from them. They still seem to have plenty of pork, but the beef is getting sparse.

My up coming canning project is half-pints of bacon ends and pieces, and butter. I have been stocking back to do multiple double batches on my propane stove. I'm so grateful for that propane stove.

Hubby's job is full of liberals. We expect him to be fired as soon as he says no to the clot shot. I feel like I'm prepping for that possibility more than anything. And as they exclude the unvaxed from society, ee are going to have to provide even more for ourselves.

Brought a load of firewood from the gree waste dump. Some of it needs cut n split, but firewood is firewood. Did I mention hubby thinks I'm nuts?

Gotta have redundancies for redundancies.

 

[moldy]

We had our first frost Tuesday night and it was a significant one. So this weekend, I will be stripping all the warm weather stuff from the garden: tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons, onions. I harvested a bunch of hibiscus yesterday and have it drying in the greenhouse.

 

[Cag3db1rd]

Hit up wm for more canning jars and they had no lids. I do have several boxes, but, ya know... So, 3 dzn half pints and 6 half gallons, plus 2 bags of plastic lids.
I've finally put my pretty new Excalibur to work dehydrating frozen broccoli for me. I could only place 4 of the 10 trays in so that there was enough space. I fit 2.5 big bags of florets. I still have my old dehydrator, so I can do the rest in that. All the crumbles are going into broccoli cheese soup tomorrow. Maybe with bacon.

 

[Marseydoats]

Made a trip to the mtn and brough back my solar kit just in case. As long as I can charge a few USB things and run a box fan, I'm good.

I have purchased 2 ibc totes to add to the rain catch. Hubby wants to do the plumbing on this. He needs to hurry the heck up.

I'm up to 14 jugs of lamp oil, and worried that's not enough. How does one know when you have enough candles and lamp oil? I have LED rechargeables, too: 6 solar security, 60 of those 97c pathway lights from wm, and some that are usb charging.

I bartered for some more quart jars from a friend who said he will never use them. I also try to pick up a case of whatever jars there are at wm when I go, and at least 1 box of lids. Hubby thinks I'm nuts.

Got the burn barrel set up to have a way to burn trash. Put up 2 more big trash cans of pine shavings and a small dumpster of mulch to handle waste. Sanitation is an issue most ppl don't know how to deal with off grid. I have been hyper aware of this after off-gridding early on in our marriage. Humanure Handbook is awesome.

Today I bought 2 dzn each beef and pork 1.5lb cans of ground meat from a local surplus store. This is my 3rd time buying from them. They still seem to have plenty of pork, but the beef is getting sparse.

My up coming canning project is half-pints of bacon ends and pieces, and butter. I have been stocking back to do multiple double batches on my propane stove. I'm so grateful for that propane stove.

Hubby's job is full of liberals. We expect him to be fired as soon as he says no to the clot shot. I feel like I'm prepping for that possibility more than anything. And as they exclude the unvaxed from society, ee are going to have to provide even more for ourselves.

Brought a load of firewood from the gree waste dump. Some of it needs cut n split, but firewood is firewood. Did I mention hubby thinks I'm nuts?

Gotta have redundancies for redundancies.

I've posted this before, but in case you didn't see it --- the plastic on those lamp oil bottles is pretty thin. I had the bottom come out of one of them last year and it made a heck of a mess. I was able to salvage some of it by refilling all of my lamps, but those oil bottles are now something I try to keep a check on.

 

[Illini Warrior]

I've posted this before, but in case you didn't see it --- the plastic on those lamp oil bottles is pretty thin. I had the bottom come out of one of them last year and it made a heck of a mess. I was able to salvage some of it by refilling all of my lamps, but those oil bottles are now something I try to keep a check on.

the sunlite UV does a job on the poly also - if you have a gallon of torch fuel sitting around the patio >> it's going to be dicey by the end of the season - I always transfer fuels from the store shelf containers to a regular fuel can that is better engineered to survive ....

 

[Digger]

I have a friend that works at Lowes. They were putting the canning jars on clearance. Her boss said she could have them for $5 a case if she bought them all. She called to see if I needed any. At that price I told her 6 cases. Another friend of hers is getting 5 cases. That will leave her 10 cases for herself. It helps to have friends in Lowes places.

We stopped at our small town Harps after hubby's dr appointment. We always look for reduced meat. We bought the only pack of chuck eye steaks that were in the case. They weren't marked down, but I told him to get them while we could. The rib eyes were $19.89 a pound, and that is not going in our cart.

Hubby got his hunting license. I still need to get mine. We are seeing deer, 8-14 in a group on our place. No wonder I could not grow a garden for the deer this year. Hopefully between us and our son, we can thin them way down. Our neighbors are big hunters too.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

Once I found out that the plastic bottles of lamp oil would eventually leak, Cary bought fuel cans, and we transferred our 10 gals of oil into them. I still think we need more, but Cary doesn't. I may buy a few more bottles, anyway. His thinking is that in a grid down situation, we will go to bed with the chickens, and get up with the chickens, so we won't be using much. Plus, our eyes will have to adjust to less light. I also have lots of candles, and still add to that stash when I find them on sale. My thinking is that, I'd rather have too much of anything as not enough, and no way to get more. Don't forget to stock up on extra wicks for the oil lamps, too.

I've got all the canning jars I think I'll ever need. On top of all that I have, Mom gave me all of hers, since she doesn't use them anymore. She gave up gardening, once my dad passed. I've got hundreds of lids and rings in storage. We don't garden much anymore, but I have them on hand for a "just in case".

I've just been doing my daily chores this week. Nothing special, other than taking Mom to the doctor. Cary is steadily working on our firewood for both the heater and stove. He still needs to clean the flues, before we start fires for the winter. I've already started switching our clothes out from summer to winter clothing. I need to wash a load of sweaters and light jackets. I had to grab a sweater this morning to go out, and hang laundry on the clothesline. It should warm into the mid 80's today, though.

 

[Marseydoats]

You can make wicks for those old hurricane lamps out of t-shirt rags. We had ordered wicks 3 or 4 times and they never showed up. Our Y2K was a 2 week power outage due to an ice storm. Our best lamp had no wicks, so dh improvised one. It worked so much better, he told me not to bother ordering wicks anymore. I think I've got one bag for the little lamps around here somewhere.
My Chewy order came this morning and I've already put it away. Now I think I should have ordered more?
I made a grocery run yesterday and the store was mobbed. I don't usually shop on Fridays, so maybe that was part of the problem. Eggs had gone up to $1.25 a dozen. I swear the last time I bought them they were 79 cents. My worthless chickens had better start laying again.
Got to the library, and didn't realize I was early. I had more than a moment's panic when I thought they had shut down again. I dropped my books in the book drop at the door and was starting back to the truck to see what time it was, when this elderly lady screeches her car to a stop in front of me and says, "Are you they shut down again? Are they closed? Are they not opening today?" I saw the clock in her car and it was 10 minutes until opening time, and I told her that I thought they just weren't open yet. And then the guy didn't unlock the door on time. I guess I'm not the only one who really gets upset when there is no library. I got 27 books, and when I got home and checked, I realized I had already read some of them. Hopefully that will hold me awhile. I hate not having anything to read. I hate reading on Kindle.

 

[ReneeT]

Ugh - Thursday night's 12 hour shift turned in to an unexpected 16.5 hour shift, so other than a trip through the Arby's drive through on my way home, I made no stops and was next to useless yesterday after I got home from work - didn't even eat the lunch I'd picked up, just shoved it in to the fridge. I'd sent Hubby a text at 0600 to let him know I was working over and to please feed the kittens so that I could just shower and crawl in bed once I got home; and that is pretty much what I did. I couldn't tell you what - if anything! - else I did other than feed the kittens again once I woke up, but Hubby brought some scrubs upstairs around 8 pm and put them in my closet so one of us must have done laundry

I'm getting too old for this crap... We're bleeding nurses - though not as bad as the medical floors. Two of ours have taken other jobs, and we have another one who is leaving to travel, and one just...left; no notice, no explanation. That's over a quarter of our unit RN staff. And I'm still taking my vacation - without guilt - next week; and I won't be spending it all at home. (Okay, maybe a little guilt... I do like most of my co-workers and don't like leaving them so understaffed, but....)

I may finish up the beans today - after they are completely thawed out, which may take until tomorrow. About the only thing on my agenda other than refilling my coffee cup and normal housework will be popping in to Dollar General for laundry detergent for daughter, and going to younger grandson's soccer game this afternoon. If Hubby doesn't go to the game with me, I might to WM to see if they have canning jar lids left; ditto the 24 oz jars. I'm waiting to see how many 24 oz jars I end up with before I make a specific place for them in the storeroom.

There was only one hummingbird on the feeders when I got up this morning - usually we have them well in to October. I'm wondering what that means for the winter weather...

 

[SouthernBreeze]

You can make wicks for those old hurricane lamps out of t-shirt rags. We had ordered wicks 3 or 4 times and they never showed up. Our Y2K was a 2 week power outage due to an ice storm. Our best lamp had no wicks, so dh improvised one. It worked so much better, he told me not to bother ordering wicks anymore. I think I've got one bag for the little lamps around here somewhere.

That's something that's good to know! Could you explain how it's done? I think we have enough wicks put away, but ya never know. I've always got a stash of old t-shirts.

 

[amazon]

Renee, I feel for you. I used to work 16 hour shifts, Baylor. I hated it. It's exhausting. You deserve that vacation! Hope you get to relax.

I have a bushel of apples to process. Going to dehydrate half, can some pie filling, and make unsweetened applesaucewith the rest. I have thawed hamburger and chicken breast which must be canned. That's all I'll get done probably.

 

[connie]

I have small solar camping lanterns tha t are actually quite bright. I live in location that is sunny year round. We have some o occasional snow and cloudy winter days but not often. So these are good option.
Thanks to whatever mentioned them years ago.

 

[moldy]

Totally get it, Renee. Here they are offering almost $30/hr over time and overtime, and still can't get takers. We had our first heavy frost Tuesday night, so this weekend I am stripping the squash, melons, onions, green beans, tomatoes, and peppers. Everything else will take even a light freeze. (potatoes, cabbage, carrots, turnips, beets). Gonna be a busy weekend.

 

[Marseydoats]

That's something that's good to know! Could you explain how it's done? I think we have enough wicks put away, but ya never know. I've always got a stash of old t-shirts.

Just cut off a thin strip of shirt about 6 inches long and roll it into a tube, and insert it into the burner. Best done in the daylight when you can see what you're doing. Dh had to do it by candlelight.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

Just cut off a thin strip of shirt about 6 inches long and roll it into a tube, and insert it into the burner. Best done in the daylight when you can see what you're doing. Dh had to do it by candlelight.

Thank You!

 

[WanderLore]

In a pinch I've used shoe strings for wicks too.

I have one Lucy light, solar. And various solar yard lights. They are great to use.

Everyone went to see their grandma on their dad's side. So we have basically had the day off.
Took son who moved out, the rest of his clothes. He's doing good. A little homesick bless his heart.

Then went to fairgrounds and set up kids 4H projects. They judged the keto brownies right away and he got outstanding on everything! I so hope he gets a ribbon. One of the judges even took a pic of the recipe to use at home.
He is only 7 but I sit at the table and tell him what to get, then how much of ingredients. He measures, mixes, uses beater, etc. Put in pans and oven, takes it all out. And he uses a rag to clean as he goes.
He's getting to be a good cook.
We did a special chili the other day. He had to thaw, chop, open, measure, cook, etc all of it.
It came out great!
He made homemade pancakes yesterday morning. From scratch. He's a serious student lol.

Chores all done and let chickens out. Hubs will lock them back up so I'm vegging out and early night.

Ps: I had shingles for 8 years. Everywhere. Would get a week or 2 break then start all over again.
I would get an antiviral right away. The only pain relief was a cold soft pillowcase on the skin.
I haven't had a break out for awhile and I have to partly credit my chiropractor with that.
Shingles are just awful miserable. I feel for your Mom.