Happy New Year

I am so excited about the new year.  Each year, we see our stores grow, our knowledge increase, and our interest and satisfaction in preparing continue.  It seems the more we research, the more we attempt, the more we successfully accomplish, the more we want to know, want to attempt and want to accomplish.

Some of my preparedness goals for the new year include:

• Store even more water.
• Find an organization/rotation system that really works for us.
• Obtain a pressure canner, and can protein sources.
• Obtain a dehydrator (or build one until we can afford the one we want).
• Utilize our Food Saver even more.
• Figure out our sun cooker and use it.
• Utilize educational opportunities (classes, web, videos).
• Continue to grow our storage.
• Increase our garden size and scope.
• Put our 72-hour or bug-out-bags together (much has been gathered but not put together)
• Make smart cost/benefit evaluations.
• Enjoy the process.

There is really so much more.  Will I get this all done?  .  Other than the purchases, I am confident that I will.  Why am I confident?  Past successes.  We have already stored much water, so I know we can and will store more.  So much of what I want to do is a continuation of what we have already done.  Stepping stones, building blocks, continuing on the path - whatever you call it the end result is the same.  Success leads to success.  And honestly, failure has also brought us to success.  For every failure, we have found a solution, or are determined to do so.

It really is easy.  If we can do it, anyone can.

As for the purchases, it would be lovely if a pressure canner and dehydrator made themselves available at a yard sale by some other means.  If not, they will come eventually.  We have plenty to do until then, as you can see.

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Elixir of Life - Water

From Floyd...

This is for people just getting started preparing, and wondering what is the first step. Well, if you have a lot of money just type "emergency food" into your browser and you will find many sites that you can go to and simply order a year supply of prepackaged meals. However back in the real world that is not likely your situation. So let's start off a little more realistically. 

You can't start today and be prepared for every thing by tomorrow. Start small and build your way up.  How?  Think of what you would need for a local, short term emergency.  Here in California we think earthquakes, but for you it could be tornadoes or flooding.  In a short term "bug-in" or hunker down and stay put situation, it is recommended that you have a minimum of 72 hours of supplies. Most people have 3 days worth of food on hand. You might not be fixing gourmet meals but you have probably have cans of veggies, baked beans, tuna, enough to get you through (please be sure you have a hand-operated can opener).  But how much water do you have? If the water was out for a few days because of broken water lines or contaminated municipal water supplies, would you have enough?  We take the faucet for granted. Turn the knob and water appears as if by magic. Some of you are thinking "I don't like the taste of tap water so I buy bottled water." That's a start, but how much do you have on hand at any one time? A few bottles in the frig, a couple of the gallon jugs or even a flat of the bottles will not cut it. A healthy adult needs a minimum of one gallon of water per day. More if they are dehydrated or the temperature is high. That is just for drinking and food prep and does not include water for washing up. Before we started preparing we were trying to reduce the amount of plastic we were using (we believe in the old reduce, reuse, recycle thing) so we bought a Brita Water filter. It was a good idea and we still use it, but you need tap water to put through it.  We now we use the filter for our daily drinking water and also store several gallons for "just in case."  We have several 5 gallon containers on the floor of each of the bedroom closets, several 1 gallon jugs in the back of the cabinet in the kitchen and individual bottles in the garage. Remember, you can live longer with out food than you can with out water.  

Stay prepared.  

Note from Dawna:  Don't forget to date and rotate your water.  Commercially bottled water should be stamped with a date.  We put notes on the containers we fill ourselves so that we will know when they need to be rotated.  Also, be sure to use containers made for long term water storage.