Letter - Throwing foxes into the hen house?

robert r.
Oakton, VA     11/07/2009 7:58 AM

" Sweetheart, i know, I know,four feet of snow and a twenty mile an hour wind. I'll help you into your snowsuit and tie the scarf around your mouth. I want to go across the street and see if that nice Mrs Bratten will give you about two pounds of lard. I think they still butcher their own hogs and render the lard in that big kettle out back, Mommie wants to try to make rosettes in the Dutch oven over the embers in the fireplace."

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GP K.
11/07/2009 7:24 AM

If you haven't sprouted I will give a web site. I have sprouting equipment but most of the time it is just easier to use a canning jar covered with cheese cloth. We don't much care for raw sprouts and I use them in soups, stir fries, chow mein, scrambled eggs and even in bread. They are good for you and if fresh veggies aren't available you have a whole garden right there in a jar. http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2009/02/19/how-to-grow-sprouts/

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GP K.
11/07/2009 7:01 AM

I always sprouted my own mung beans but have never tried lentils. That would probably be much cheaper if they come from Walmart instead of having to get special beans for sprouting.

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Kay P.
11/07/2009 3:21 AM

LL L. good point about canned food and the possible freezing problem if stored in alternative areas. I have a nice sized "closet" type pantry room off the kitchen. It has deeper shelves, spaced closer together and that is where my jars go. It would have to freeze in my kitchen to get to the interior pantry and cause a problem. Mileage may vary and folks do need to take into consideration the what-ifs. When the rubber hits the highway, and food is a viewed as a necessity and not a gourmet buffet, it's amazing how simple meals become acceptable and a little creativity can provide several different options for using staples. I am intrigued by the lentil sprout thing! It may have very well given me another dish that I can prepare using homecanned meats...chow mein. My grandmother maintained a root cellar for her entire life. It had bins for potatoes with sand on the bottom, and a bin for carrots with clean sand in it. She had bins for squash. amd various other root crops. Horseradish, dug in the fall, and with the dirt knocked off, can then be wintered in a cool dry and dark place and fresh can be made all winter. Rows and rows of shelves for jars, I even remember her wintering over her old geranium plants she used to put in the planters outside. My mom can remember spending time putting food by all summer, raising chickens and back then taking orders from locals that didn't wish to have to clean their own birds. There was a day when mom could dress a chicken in no time flat. They thought nothing of cleaning a few hundred birds a couple times every summer. The added cash from the sales helped buy medicine and clothes for all the kids. Grandma also had an apple orchard and she peeled and froze bushels of apples every fall. Rhubarb too! Made chokecherry and wild grape jelly, and apple butter. When I think of the limited funds that my grandparents had, all those years, I never remember a time when food was scarce. Gram always could make magic with a few tators and a frozen chicken, some flour and a little lard that she would render down after Gramps butchered a hog. After living for years with the comforts of having a grocery close by, now that I am living in the country again, it's been an exciting review of former lifestyle where creativity and forward planning keeps me from having to run to the store for some little item to make dinner. I just learned how to make a homemade flour tortillas. Darn if they weren't fantastic! Hot off the cast iron griddle!

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LL L.
Alexandria, MN     11/06/2009 6:17 PM

There are special filters a person can buy to purify water and then it is possible to boil it and also to add your own chlorine to the water right at home. Oh, I almost forgot, that bottled water that tastes so bad after a few years, I am told that is because it needs oxygen added. Pour it back and forth from glass to glass a few times and it will perk up.

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Patty W.
11/06/2009 2:52 PM

This has been such an interesting read. We have, for years, had this "be prepared" conversation with our children and their families. We are outdoors people, raised by people who survived the depression and lived off the land. We consider ourselves fortunate to have had their knowledge and for the fact that they put the fear of God into us that it could "all happen again"..."don't lull yourselves into a false sense of security". Oprah had an interesting program during the bird flu/high fuel price scares a couple years back. At that time, the experts on her panel said that, because of the disappearing rail freight and the reliance on trucks, the high gas prices could take the truck drivers off the road. Grocery stores, even city governments, don't stockpile anymore because everything has been so available. (Why have millions of dollars worth of supplies on hand when you can have them delivered in just a couple of days.) They said that at the time the City of Chicago had enough chlorine to last a few weeks at best. Can you imagine a major city anywhere in this country without chlorine for the water supply and the health problems related to drinking the water considering the source(s) of most of it. robert r...maybe you can add to this scenario.

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Lee P.
11/06/2009 1:37 PM

MRE's are a huge leap forward from the C-Rations hqanded out in the 60's/early 70's and the "old timers" then told me "kwitcherbitchen, these beat the h*** out of K-Rations"

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LL L.
Alexandria, MN     11/06/2009 11:07 AM

Interesting stuff, robert r., about not getting those big cans of things unless there are enough people around to eat them right away. It would just spoil. Tons of paper plates are a great idea because there wouldn't be water for washing dishes. Some MRE's are delicious and some are not even good dog food. I opted for grocery store food that could be incorporated into the routine around here and get used up so that it would be rotated. I like fresh food and will avoid canned if given a choice but to keep a decent amount on hand it has to be eaten to replace with fresh. A person has to learn not to be a food snob that can't learn to bend a bit. To a someone stranded in a snow storm a can of Vienna sausages, bowl of Ramen Noodles or a big steaming bowl of Dinty Moore stew can be a gourmet meal! I always have wondered how those people around Carlos and Miltona that were stranded in the 70's after the blizzard for over a week with no electricity managed to keep from being carbon monoxided to death all gathered up in a kitchen heated with a propane cook stove! That is a dangerous situation!. You people with children need to stock up on things children can do with no tv to keep them entertained and unable to go outside. Games, cards or anything else you can think of because they would drive you out of your everloving minds otherwise.

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robert r.
Oakton, VA     11/06/2009 10:24 AM

LL L. raises a series of valid points. Why 400lbs.of food. We were feeding 6, and now three are away (far away) at colleges. The plan was for 3 weeks of sheltering in. Most food items are liquid based and not requiring reconstituting with valued clean water. Pop Corn...neutral, in a wire basket over the embers in the fireplace. I'm currently being embarassed by trying to recycle gallon cans of peaches & pears. No one-NO ONE wants to eat that much cobbler. 1,000 paper plates and plasticwear to compliment. Go smaller, but in case lots which are easier to stack. I stack both food and water on new!..ripped off, pallets. Murphy's Law knows something will leak and it is guaranteed to be sugar based. No need to skimp on calories, Paris fashion-week critics won't need your body til spring. Purchase heavy sryup fruits which are often cheaper. MREs at $7.75 each provide 3,500-5,000 calories to mixed reviews...but it is where the candy and Tabasco are. Bottled water can be a stickler. After 3 yrs it tastes like newspaper print...trust me on this one. Smaller personal bottles are cute and keep the kids entertained... until they bend and crush and crackle them. (some judges understand and forgive parentral corporal punishment in these cases.) I do an internal recycle and designate it."don't drink this junk." Test question: Name 5 other uses. Last item; I've found the florecent camplight (resembling the white gas, pump item) by Coleman and GE, sold nearly everywhere and still under those trademarks...to be excellent. I usually get 5-6 nights of light on 4-D cells. If it burns, i.e. propane, white gas, kerosene...it produces Carbon monoxide...you be warm-but you be dead.

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robert r.
Oakton, VA     11/06/2009 9:34 AM

REF: the original article. why,... look; we've made lemonade from lemons!

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