mommato3boys

Apartment homesteading! That is what I am doing now. We have a container garden. I have built my own earthboxes and have a container garden on the back patio. I am dehydrating frozen veggies becasuse we have a smaller freezer. Have turned the extra bedroom closet into a pantry. One major draw back is no livestock. Can't talk the landlord into chickens. 

6 hours ago, Mt_Rider said:

   Wow....thanks for the research, Mommato3.......both here and in your Great Exodus storyline!!!!!   

 

 

 

Mt_Rider the medicare info is really not research. That is what I do for a living. If you having anything done as an outpatient at the hospital where I work you will probably talk to me. I have to verify insurance and call each patient and tell them what they will owe. And I can tell you there are some sad stories of how "some" insurance agents have talked these people in to crappy policies. So I have made it my mission to help education as many people as possible about Medicare, medigap aka supplement policies and managed care policies. I breaks my heart to see these little old people being "scammed"...at least that is what I consider it is, because said agents are not really explaining what the patient is getting. They are all about the greenbacks and not about helping people get the best coverage.

This is to answer Littlesister's post on The Great Exodus...

You qualify for full Medicare benefits if:

You are a U.S. citizen or a permanent legal resident who has lived in the United States for at least five years and

You are receiving Social Security or railroad retirement benefits or have worked long enough to be eligible for those benefits but are not yet collecting them.

You or your spouse is a government employee or retiree who has not paid into Social Security but has paid Medicare payroll taxes while working.

Part A coverages just hospital stays and you do not pay a monthly premium for it. You have a $1,400+/- co-pay whether you stay in the hospital one night or 5 nights.

HOWEVER; Part B you pay a monthly premium and it covers doctors, testing and any out-patient  procedures, but not at 100% you have a 20% copay. Now your copay is not based on what the hospital charges but what Medicare allows. So say you have an MRI and the hosptial charges $5,000 but Medicare only allows $350. Medicare will pay 80% of the $350 and you will only 20% of the which is $70. This where you need a supplement policy that will cover part B copays. 

Now the quesiton was do you have to have Medicare. Well at age 65 you automatically qualify for Part A at no cost to you. So yes you can buy your own policy.  You DO NOT have to sign up for Part B. But here is the catch if you do not sign up when you turn 65 and you decided when you turn 70 that you want to sign up for part B your rates will be higher unless you can prove that were covered under another policy. 

My personal suggestion (and this from working with insurance all day long) get your medicare part A & B then get a supplement policy. If you go with a managed care plan like Humana or United Healthcare ask the following questions....

1. Is my doctor in network - if not do I have out of network coverage

2 Is my hospital in network - if not do I have out of network coverage

        (if your doctor or the hospital that you use is not in network then said doctor and hospital will not get paid and you will then be responsible for the bill)

3. Drug plan...are my prescriptions covered...what is my dedutible>

4. How much will I have to pay for outpatient procedures. Some of the managed cared plans get you when it comes to outpatient services. You will have a $250 copay for that MRI that you would have only had to pay $70 if you were on medicare.

If you have any questions I will happy to get answers for you. Like I said I deal with insurance all day and know how they like taking advantage of people on Medicare.  Right now we are dealing with one company that talked people in our area to sign up for a new plan. Said company notified clinics and doctors of this new plan but did not notify any of the hospitals in the area. And this new plan does not have out of network coverage so they can not have procedures done at the hospital. 

We allowed ourselves two splurges. One was fishing poles the second was a French door dehydrator oven (Gourmia brand). It said it would dehydrate, so last night I pulled out a bag of frozen veggies that I had bought for this purpose. And this is what I decided...

1. It will dehydrate!

2. The basket's holes are too big. As stuff dried it would fall through so I had to put a try under the basket to catch food. I am thinking of buying a small roll of window screen material and cutting it to fit the basket tray for the air fryer and for my round trays in my dehydrator. I have the same problem with it. 

I will probably use the air fryer more often, as I can control the temperature. I will purchase another tray so I will have two for it. Over all I like it. As they say on Forged in Fire ... It will Dehydrate 

2 minutes ago, Jeepers said:

One time when G-son was still in diapers we all were out shopping for the day. Lets just say before we went out to eat both G-son and G-ma had to make a pit stop by the house to change our drawers. Fun times.  

There is an extra pair in the car for hubby. And I have a little make up bag in my purse with and change of drawers and a pad for me. I don't have the control I used to, and when I first stand up after sitting for a long time yep, I grab my little bag. It even has the "before you go" spray in it. 

Since hubby had to have his prostate removed due to cancer he has been wearing the mens underwear. We joke that he could always borrow grandson's since gs is in pullups. I will have to do research on this for hubby. Thanks for the heads up.

Guess it is time to look into personal cloths. Geezz can't a girl get a break 

Maybe we should do another Wagon HO.... You know we could throw in the pandemic, power grid down, migration from the south oh let's not forget the great TP shortage. What do you think Mother and Mt.Rider? Up for another adventure?

Well today we got home from church and there was a box at our door. It seems my 02 packs came via FedEx. The package at the PO is hubs. I guess I set up the dehydrator tomorrow evening and let it run all night. Our one of the two splurges from the stimulus checks was a large air fryer oven type and it dehydrates also. We will see. Not sure I trust it enough to go to bed and sleep with it running. The other splurge was fishing poles. I fishing poles did not survive the move to Texas and we have never replaced. them. Now GS is almost 3 I want tot take him fishing.

37 minutes ago, Jeepers said:

Yes. And those Barkey filters are expensive too. 

Unfortunately they are, but the good part is they will filter 6000 gallons of water. That's a lot of water. We will be using it just for drinking and cooking so they will last us at least a year by my quesstimtes. 

The stock pot he uses is the Wal-Mart brand Mainstay and the 12 quart is like $10. That will work in my budget especially since I am buying the Berkey filters.

Well snapdragon! The mail delivery was early and we missed it. My 02 packets were due in today so now hubby has to pick them up Monday at the PO. But that is ok it will give me an extra day for cooling. Don't want to make the same mistake I made with my peaches - I didn't let them cool long enough before packing them away. The veggies are going in first. I have blueberries to dry as well. I like cooking with dry blueberries better than fresh. Dry berries don't sink to the bottom nor do they add extra moisture.

I had hoped to purchase a Berkey with this last stimulus check but we decided to use most of it to pay down bills to give us some breathing room. I started searching how to make our own system. I wasn't thrill with the idea of using buckets, because even food grade even give off a plastic taste. Then I saw this video and we are gonna try it. My biggest investment will be the Berkey filters. Yes, I will splurge and purchase Berkey filters, they are the best plus I can get fluriode filters when they are back in stock. 

https://youtu.be/CjGxUAOrkrM

This is a maintenance video he did 

https://youtu.be/UYhkhL_n6fw

For about a week now I have been hunting O2 absorbers. Sticker shock city. I finally found some on the LDS online pantry that decently priced but I could only order 2 packs. Each pack has 100 300cc absorbers in it. So hopefully I can order more soon. I plan on dehydrating a lot this year. I want to make soups and other meals and put in mylar backs for camping or bugging out or running away, whichever I decide to do LOL. Any way two packs with $3 shipping was only $24.50. Compare to other places that wanted that much just for 10 absorbers. Have people lost their everloving minds?

Oh thank you Jeepers. I have been looking for a good tutorial on how to dehydrate potatoes.  

I was looking for something else but ran across this and thought I would share.

https://youtu.be/1DqYmhY-OcA

Seeds? Did someone ask if I wanted seeds? PLEASE

Well here in the panhandle of Texas where I am it is currently 2 degrees feels like -6 and snowing. You people north of me need to come get your weather. She is drunk and off her meds and making a mess in my yard. This is day 8 of snot freezing cold weather (anything below 40 is snot freezing cold). Last week we had freezing fog from Sunday to Thursday. The sun finally broke through and melted the ice off the power lines only for it to drop down to single digits and start snowing Saturday. We are experiencing rolling blackouts here. They are trying to reduce our power usage. I thought our CEO at the hosptial where I work was going to blow a gasket this morning. The power company was supposed to give the hospital warning before cutting our power. They didn't and the back up generator failed to kick in. The worse part was we had a patient on the table in the OR. Thank the Lord they had not started the proceedure. They was just about to intubator the patient when the power was cut. It was off an hour. Needless to say it was not pretty at the hospital this morning. The statement from the power is every 8 hours they would cut the power for 30 minutes. If our power is off longer than 60 minutes we are to call. However, at home we lost power twice within two hours.

 I will not give my opinion of this decision as I would like to keep my memebership here on Mrs. S. But I am sure you can fill in the blanks I am leaving.

On 1/20/2021 at 2:16 PM, Jeepers said:

Oh yeah, and flat bread. I'd like to learn more about tortillas.

I cheat and use http://whitewingsbrand.com/tortilla-mix/ you just add water. The hotter the water the better not boiling but it needs to be hot.

Mix it up, cover with plastic wrap let it set for a few minutes then make golf ball size balls cover with camp cloth. (you have to keep the dough from drying out) and roll out thin. I mean really thin as in you can read bold print through it. I use a large iron skillet on med heat and hubby swishes it until it starts to brown then he flips it and repeats process. We then stack them in side a folded kitchen towel and put in side a 2 gallon plastic bag. 

To use warm, stuff and enjoy.

12 hours ago, Mother said:

Add some grain and you have the beginnings of a complete protein.  Yep!

 Tortillas are so easy to make. They are time consuming and really a two person job. But cheap and easy. I mix the dough and roll them out. Hubby cooks them and stacks them. 

A fan?!?!? Why have I never thought of a fan....I will have to try that. May just a little one that blows just on the plants. Thanks for the suggestion.

I have had success with growing spinach in a planter inside a long with lettuce. I was told by someone to purchase a tiny soft paint brush from a craft store and become a bee. In other words take your tiny brush and pollinate your plants. Just gently brush the inside of each bloom on each plant. I thought he was crazy but came home and researched what he was saying. I was surprised to find he was correct. 

https://igworks.com/blogs/the-igworks-indoor-gardening-blog/pollinating-your-indoor-fruit-and-vegetable-plants

On 1/14/2021 at 4:28 PM, Annarchy said:

The ‘strained’ contents are processed in a blender on purée, and made into a thick mess.    which I put into a glass & cool.  After cooling, it is almost the consistency of bologna, sorta, sliced, it makes a very nice chicken ‘soup’ sandwich. Well, at least that’s what I call it.  Waste not want not.....

I am going to have to try this. Because I too, use the back, neck and wing tips to make broth but picking those tiny bones out of the little bit of meat that is there is not worth it. But with this....well let's just say we are going to have chicken soup burgers. 

So if your food storage is not anything like mine, you have a wide variety of dry beans. I on the other hand am heavy on the black bean side. We love them. I make everything from refried beans to burgers with them. I found this page when I was looking for a pulled pork recipe and well it is one of my go to sites. I even get email updates from him. Recently he posted 15 bean recipes. So if you would like to add a little pizzazz to your beans and like Mexican food this is a great place to start.

https://www.mexicanplease.com/15-easy-recipes-can-make-beans/

I am looking to can some chicken and I was wondering how you can your chicken...

with skin or without skin

with bone or without bone

do you can it whole or in pieces

do you can it raw or do you cook it first

Since I don't have my mom or grandmother around to ask I am asking y'all