SlingMama

Over the last year I've: Taught my 6 year old to use a paring knife and she helps chop herbs and easy things like celery. Both she and my 4 year old graze on wild edibles from the backyard. They can also identify the herbs like oregano, chives, basil, etc. Fire starting with a flint and steel. We had a discussion on appropriate tinder and they watched while I used the flint. They have also helped lay and start a fire in the wood stove - using a match and with supervision. Planting a garden. Making bread. They each get dough to roll out and shape their own little loaves. The kids also grease the bread pans for me. DD and DS help me mix ingredients and they even crack eggs. Measuring ingredients is a great way to introduce fractions and following a recipe is good reading practice.

I make my own broth but I've only cooked the chicken or bones for 10 -12 hours. Three days - wow!!! I bet the bones are soft. But how would you cook bones for that long w/o the grid? Would it be possible to use heat retention cooking and just re-heat the bones every 6 hours or so? I wonder .... And to get more on track with the topic. I don't know if this counts as stretching food but weeds are really nutritious. We have mallow, purslane, lambs quarter and I think amaranth (otherwise known as pigweed) growing in the yard. I've tossed some nice weeds in with the normal salad fixings and everybody ate it all up. Besides, with enough salad dressing everything tastes good Hey, speaking of calcium. Is it possible to crush up egg shells and use them in anything? I don't know. Just tossing this out there.

You know you might be a prepper/survivalist if you: Overhear you daughter instructing her brother on the best method of removing spines from an edible cholla (cactus) bud. Send the kids out to collect lamb's quarter, purslane and mallow 'cheesits' for the dinner salad. And can be 100% confident they will pick from the right plants. Be in the midst of shopping and have your DD whisper to you, "I think we should buy more honey so we'll have enough when there isn't any food in the stores." Buy enough steel bar to secure every vulnerable window in the house. But be ready to tell the DH, if he finds the bar, that it's just for securing chicken wire plant cages or for staking trees. Have one of the checkers at the hardware store, where you buy your canning jars, ask if you want to sign up for a special customer card because, "You are in here a lot." Beg your DH for a Lehman's stove top oven for your Christmas, anniversary, birthday present, and then hope no one at his work asks, "So, what did you get your wife for Christmas?"