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PureCajunSunshine

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Everything posted by PureCajunSunshine

  1. Sorry I didn't find your comment on my avatar sooner. I'll get the hang of this forum yet. I got it here http://www.uselessgraphics.com/a-e/avatars2.htm

  2. Welcome to here! We're all mostly harmless... ...except for frequent bouts of chocomania... ...and fits of canning... We don't sit around ...worrying about stuff like bird flu ...or worrying about high prices ...or worrying that the sky is falling! BECAUSE...we're too busy doing something about it, and helping others, too! We don't believe in last minute preparations for life's unexpecteds, because that's a lot like learning to swim when you are drowning We believe it is better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. Preps happen to be the only insurance premiums that we get to keep! We believe that the difference between adventure and disaster is being prepared... And, um...Karelle? Here's a for giving us Darlene!
  3. I love your blog! I'm printing some of your stories and adding them to my homemade 'Bedside Reader'. It's a binder filled with a collection of my favorite writings found on the 'net Please keep writing!
  4. So sorry 'bout this!!! I hope that you can resolve it! Don't despair over the garden thing! You can still do it, just not the same way...think container gardening...also table gardening!! Google gardening for the handicapped for loads of good ideas! Ya can still get down and dirty, see! While you're Googling around, maybe also look up anti-inflammatory herbs and foods, to supplement what you're already doing? Bestest wishes, Sharon
  5. Very nicely done! Thanks for posting this. Pardon my ignorance...but what's the B.O.A.T. (#4 on the list)?
  6. 'tis time to brush the dust off this older thread...there's so much gloom these days, that it wouldn't hurt to look at another side of the coin. Balance is good. If you can't find good news in the news media, then look around your own circle of friends, family and community...please hare your findings with us!
  7. Duh huh...think about it Westie cher...CocaCola eats paint, cleans toilets, removes battery acid scum...so ya know it's gonna tenderize and flavorize a tough old boar hog wearing monstrous tusks!!! 'tis so delicious that I can close my eyes and make believe I am eating at Commander's Palace instead of in an old houseboat in the swamps.
  8. 'tis my first time on your blog! I like to read your stuff Out There, and so I just KNEW I'd be delighted in here...and awww... gotta love that General, and the cool name...General Burnsides! LOL Keep writing and posting pics! Love that historical flair, too!
  9. I love your writings, Stephanie and I'm so tickled to find you've got a blog! Which quote? That's a hard choice! So, I'll cheat, ok? "You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body." and The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. and There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."
  10. The old 'Swing-Away' has got to be the most durable canopener in the world! Notice the word 'old'. 'taint what it used to be! I bought a new Swing-Away from Walmart (I keep threatening to do a personal boycott, but...I must be a glutton for punishment). The Swing's old logo was there but not as deeply etched as it should be. The lettering on every one of them was so faint I could barely read it. Sure enough, the thing only performed half as well as its older siblings. Walmartization at work. I do buy a lot of the cheap $1 models, though. They're cheap enough that I usually put one in every 2nd or 3rd large box of canned goods...
  11. Glad you posted these recipes! YUM!!! WormGuy's Pork Loin Rub is similar to a recipe my brother uses to make the toughest Louisiana wild hogs taste like the finest thing in the world. Lacking some of the ingredients in the recipe in camp, he substitued Coca-Cola for the sugar and soy sauce. It 'hit the spot' just right!
  12. P. S. I sure wish you would repost that in the Are You Really Ready forum. So many women and their families could benefit from the lesson, especially in the dire times ahead.
  13. Whoa MAMA!!!! What a compelling post! BTW, thank you for being here. You are a blessing to us. (((MM))))
  14. They have just now begun revamping their entire site...hopefully the new one will feature these resources!
  15. LOL @ Mr. & Mrs. Pogo! Thanks for that recipe, Violet!! I can't wait to try it out. My mouth is watering! I don't have 'tart' apples on hand, but the recipe should still be great (or should I increase the lemon juice a little bit)? I am going to use those very same flavors in making apple leather...mmmmYEAH!!
  16. I'm standing next in line for that recipe! Apple Pie Jam? With a name like that, I know it's gonna taste good, f'sure.
  17. HOMEMADE PECTIN... http://www.wildflowers-and-weeds.com/The_Forager/pectin.html Making Your Own Apple Pectin By Sam Thayer From The Forager. Volume 1, Issue 3. August-September 2001 When making homemade jams and jellies, commercial powdered pectin is usually the most expensive ingredient. A few generations ago, powdered pectin wasn't readily available, and the skill of making pectin at home was common knowledge for the family cook - yet today it is a rare individual who knows how to do this. I learned how to extract pectin from apples a few years ago when I made jams and jellies for a living (as many as 600 jars per day). Not only does this save money, but more importantly, it provides the satisfaction that only comes with doing things from scratch - one of the reasons that I love using wild foods. To prepare liquid apple pectin, it is best to use under-ripe apples that are still a bit green, hard, and sour. Ripe apples contain less pectin, but the level varies greatly from one tree to the next; some varieties are suitable when ripe, while some have virtually no pectin by that time. Over-ripe apples are the worst. You can use your damaged or misshapen apples for making pectin. Chop them in halves or quarters, fill a large pot, and then add just enough water to almost cover the apple chunks. Cover the pot and place it on low heat for a long time, until the apples are fully cooked and you have something that looks like runny applesauce with skins and seeds in it. Stir the apples every twenty minutes or so while they are cooking. I arrange a strainer for this "sauce" by placing a cheese cloth (actually a white T-shirt) over the top of a five-gallon pail, secured by a cord tied around the rim. (A piece of cheese cloth in a colander works fine for smaller amounts.) The hot applesauce is then poured into the strainer; what drips out the bottom should be a clear, thick liquid that's a little bit slimy to the touch. That's your liquid apple pectin. I usually let mine strain overnight, because it drips slowly. You can get more pectin by pressing it, but then it comes out a little cloudy and carries more of the under-ripe apple flavor. I like to make a few gallons of this pectin at a time and then save it by canning or freezing - it's not hard to get a year's supply with one batch. To test the strength of the pectin, pour a little bit of rubbing alcohol into a glass and then drop in a spoonful of pectin. The pectin will coagulate into a jelly-like mass. If this mass can be pulled out with a fork and it forms a heaping gob on the tines, it is concentrated enough to jell perfectly. If it can be picked up by the fork, but mostly hangs from it, then it will jell loosely. If it cannot be picked up by the fork in mostly one mass, then the concentration is too weak for it to jell. In this latter case, you just have to boil it down to increase the concentration of the pectin. (Note: the alcohol test doesn't work right if the pectin is hot.) You can mix liquid apple pectin with fruit or juice and boil it down until the mixture has enough pectin to jell. This can be a little tricky. If you mix it with a fruit juice such as chokecherry that has little or no natural pectin in it, you will want to boil this mixture down to approximately the same volume as that of the pectin that you put in. If you mix it with high-pectin fruit such as wild grapes, you might only have to boil it down a little. Boiling the fruit-pectin mixture will not harm the flavor unless it cooks to the bottom of the pan, which will not happen if you keep stirring it as it boils. (An overcooked or burnt flavor is generally the result of cooking the jam for too long only after the sugar has been added.) I like to use liquid pectin instead of water to cover fruits such as currants or wild cherries when I boil them to extract the juice. After boiling down a little bit, such juice often has enough pectin to jell. If it is cooled down, the pectin concentration of the juice can be determined using the alcohol test described above. One great thing about apple pectin is that it can be used to dilute or balance the flavors of certain fruits that are not tart enough to make superb jam by themselves, such as elderberry and chokecherry. When using homemade pectin, you can't just follow the proportions found on the chart in a Sure-Jell packet; you have to understand something about what makes jelly jell. Basically, there are two factors involved in this: the concentration of sugar and the concentration of pectin. Too little of either one, and you end up with syrup. It is possible to compensate for a little less sugar with more pectin, or vice-versa - but you can only stray from the recommended ratios a little bit. The most common reason that people have batches that do not jell is because they want to add less sugar than the recipe calls for. If you are going to make jam or jelly, you may as well accept right now that these confections are mostly sugar; that way, hopefully, you will avoid this temptation. When you reckon that your fruit-pectin mixture is about right, mix in sugar at a ratio of about 5 cups of fruit-pectin (or juice) to 7 cups of sugar. Stir constantly - especially with jam - to keep it from burning to the bottom of the pan. After the jelly comes to a full, rolling boil, let it do so for about a minute. Then, if everything has been done right, it should be ready to pour into jars. If you are not confident, however, this is the stage for the final jelly test. Turn the heat down low when the boiling begins. Dip a large spoon into the mixture and then hold it over the pot sideways. If the last jelly falls off the spoon in a sheet rather than a drop, or if you get a drop that hangs down bulging at the bottom and doesn't fall (this happens especially with wooden spoons), then you're in business. If the jelly passes this test in either way, bring it briefly to a vigorous boil on high heat. Here you will find yet another indicator of whether it will jell or not. It will not just boil; it will boil up, get foamy, and probably make you scared that it will boil over. (If you don't turn the heat off soon enough, it will boil over.) This is when you pour the jam into clean mason jars and cover with clean lids. Turn the jars upside-down for a minute or two to sterilize the lids, right the jars, and try to ignore them for a few hours while they set. (Note that home canning of jam and jelly is not dangerous, and you do not need to sterilize the jars in a boiling-water bath or use a pressure canner!) Hopefully this doesn't make the whole process seem harder than it is. Like many skills, once you learn how, it's a piece of cake. It may be encouraging to know that I never use the alcohol test anymore, and rarely even rely on the last jelly test. After making a number of batches, you can tell just by looking at the jelly if it's going to jell. Is it worth all this trouble just to make your jam from scratch? Trouble? There's no trouble when I do it - just a lot of fun. And that's what it's all about.
  18. It's apple season...so what are your favorite things to do with them? Applesauce? Dehydrated? Fruit leathers? What? BTW, applesauce and apple leathers are good SHTF foods, especially in the face of a nuclear crisis. While this is by no means a 'cure' for radiation poisoning, it does not hurt that the pectin in the apples binds with heavy metals associated with radiation poisoning. The pectin (along with some of the bound metals) can be removed by the process of elimination. This helps your body to detox better. And of course, you know about how good applesauce is for you! Plus it is a comfort food that is easy to digest. Speaking of applesauce, Mom11's post about the applesauce had me in stitches, from laughing so hard! Socks sticking to the floor? ... ROFL! http://www.mrssurvival.com/forums/ubbthrea...8426#Post248426 It's the 19th post on that page. Now I am scared! I just ordered two bushels of apples for the first time in my life. One bushel is what, 48 pounds? I had thought about making lots of applesauce until I read those posts! It is getting cool enough here that maybe I can store some of them in a sort-of 'root cellar' that I made out of a clean galvanized trash can that is parked in the shade outside my kitchen door...(last winter I used it to dump my woodstove ashes into). Speaking of root cellars, here's an excellent book for root cellars of every description: Root Cellaring by Mike an Nancy Bubel. Published by Storey Publishing www.storey.com Blurb on the front cover: "Keep your produce 'harvest fresh' in your own basement, porch, garage, or closet hideaway!" It's a great resource and it's where I got the inspiration for the trashcan variety outlined above... I plan on individually wrapping a few of the apples in a paper towel, then newspaper, before burying them between layers of straw inside the galvanized can. Maybe they'll last a little longer that way? I love fresh apples! What I'll be doing with the rest of the apples: Dehydrate (rings and apple leather) Vinegar (peels and cores) Applesauce Open to other ideas... What do you do with your apple harvests?
  19. Originally Posted By: JCK88 I scored INFJ Counselor... So I guess I'm on that 1 percent bench with PCS. (I guess this score explains why I am usually misunderstood around here, come to think of it! LOL) LOL, sometimes I feel that way in RL...('tis good to know I'm not so alone, there...misery loves company!) Y'know, I had you pegged for an INFJ a long time ago. You have a wonderful way with sounding words into the heart...I love the way you have the gift of reaching out and pulling a downtrodden poster up by the bootstraps and giving sound and practical advice...and all that...I've seen Christy do it too, lots of times...and the other INFJs, along with many other alphabet soup label types here and on other boards...Ya'll are really gifted. Originally Posted By: Christy Originally Posted By: PureCajunSunshine I scored INFJ, "The Counselor" Grin PCS, I'm the same type. No surprise there eh? LOL! We are so alike in so many ways, we could be almost be sisters! Sometimes, I am tempted to ask "Who's yo daddy?" lol (A while back, I asked CookieJar the same thing, 'cause we have many of the same interests and line of thinking!) 'tis only natural that birds of a feather tend to flock together, which leads into the question Tracie brought up... Originally Posted By: Tracie SO weird. INFJ are supposedly less than 1% of the population, but of 13 people reporting scores, five of us are INFJ. Not a scientific poll, I know, but still and interesting coinkidink. Well, when you think about it, the members of this site ARE a unique bunch, and we are generally considered by the rest of the populace as being weird kooks for prepping and stuff...and also for our ability to see the forest for the trees! Looks like we few are flocking together here for some reason... I will say this, after reading the entire summaries presented for my INFJ type, I thought, "Wow...this has me pegged! Sometimes in painful ways that I had been consciously denying for years...(BTW, the summary I posted was only a quarter of the whole summary...I edited it for brevity.) Many of the questions in the test were redundant, which is a good thing, because it would be soooo easy to misunderstand the way some of them were worded. Some of those questions made me go, 'huh?' and I had to reread it carefully. Overlooking one word in the question can seriously flaw the answer! Overall, I hafta agree with 100% of their assessment of me. 'tis spooky how some of the things mentioned were the very things I have been running away from for years....
  20. I scored INFJ, "The Counselor" Counselors are scarce, little more than one percent of the population. Counselors have an exceptionally strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others, and find great personal fulfillment interacting with people, nurturing their personal development, guiding them to realize their human potential. Although they are happy working at jobs (such as writing) that require solitude and close attention, Counselors do quite well with individuals or groups of people, provided that the personal interactions are not superficial, and that they find some quiet, private time every now and then to recharge their batteries. Counselors are both kind and positive in their handling of others; they are great listeners and seem naturally interested in helping people with their personal problems. Not usually visible leaders, Counselors prefer to work intensely with those close to them, especially on a one-to-one basis, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes. Beneath the quiet exterior, INFJs hold deep convictions about the weightier matters of life. Those who are activists -- INFJs gravitate toward such a role -- are there for the cause, not for personal glory or political power. INFJs are champions of the oppressed and downtrodden. They often are found in the wake of an emergency, rescuing those who are in acute distress. INFJs may fantasize about getting revenge on those who victimize the defenseless. The concept of 'poetic justice' is appealing to the INFJ. "There's something rotten in Denmark." Accurately suspicious about others' motives, INFJs are not easily led. These are the people that you can rarely fool any of the time. Though affable and sympathetic to most, INFJs are selective about their friends. Such a friendship is a symbiotic bond that transcends mere words. NFJs are distinguished by both their complexity of character and the unusual range and depth of their talents. Strongly humanitarian in outlook, INFJs tend to be idealists, and because of their J preference for closure and completion, they are generally "doers" as well as dreamers. This rare combination of vision and practicality often results in INFJs taking a disproportionate amount of responsibility in the various causes to which so many of them seem to be drawn. INFJs are deeply concerned about their relations with individuals as well as the state of humanity at large. They are, in fact, sometimes mistaken for extroverts because they appear so outgoing and are so genuinely interested in people -- a product of the Feeling function they most readily show to the world. On the contrary, INFJs are true introverts, who can only be emotionally intimate and fulfilled with a chosen few from among their long-term friends, family, or obvious "soul mates." Some INFJs Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Chaucer. Goethe Sidney Poitier, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Goodall, Sir Alec Guiness, Carl Jung, Immanual Kant, William Shakespeare, Ludwig Beethoven, Pearl Buck, Queen Noor, Martin Luther King, Jr.
  21. Here's an eyeopening read: "Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey", written by Lillian Schlissel. Copyright 1982 Schocken Books. New York, NY. It includes riveting excerpts from diaries written in the mid-1800s by more than a few women who personify the word "survival"! It is also rich in pics, too. Those people who crossed the continent between 1840-1870 really knew the idea of "bugging out" to the extreme. It was the stuff of daily struggle... Good read, lotsa good ideas and lessons... By the time I finished reading it, I wanted to slap the dust out of my skirts, and reach behind me to get the lantern down off the hook...
  22. On this page http://waltonfeed.com/old/index.html there are hot links to lots of useful instructables such as: * The Spring House * The Ice House * Building a Root Cellar (5 pages) * Potting Meat * Long Life Salt Cured Ham * Salt Curing Meat in Brine * Yeast Cultures for Bread Making * Making Bread in a wood burning oven * Making Butter * Making Sauerkraut * Soap Making (13 pages & 33 Sites) * Growing and Harvesting Wheat By Hand * Building a Cistern * The Out House * Remember Mama's Recipes (46 pages) * Grama's Recipes for Life By Julie Janson (30 pages) * Knowing Where To Dig A Well by Rod Hendricks * Digging A Well By Hand * Memories, by Libby Maxwell * Just for Fun - The Homestead House * Just for Fun - Getting Electricity * Just for Fun - Getting Water * Just for Fun - Heber Valley Products PLUS Links to Other Sites: * Oregon Trail Center, Montpelier, Idaho. * American Memory Historical Collection * Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. * The 1850 Westville, GA Living History Museum * See 1850's cooking, candlemaking, buildings & furnishings, blacksmithing, spinning and weaving, pottery making... Widow Rumble's Home Page Recreations of many facets of life in the 1800's. * Colonial Pennsylvania Plantation * Association of Personal Historians. Helping people preserve their life stories. * The Online Homesteading and Small Farming Resource * Candle Making Supplies and Information * Spinning Wheel FAQs by Christine Jordan * Handmade Parchment & Vellum * Cheese Making * Handweavers Guild of America, Inc. * Cisterns by the University of Florida * The Rural Resource Center * The Kansas Pioneer Way of Life by Norris Torrance * Jackie's Smoke House * The Rugmaker's Homestead '99 Learn to make a rag rug. * Old type bread baking ovens * Laura Ingalls Wilder author of Little House on the Prairie * The Overland Trail Tons of really interesting, exciting stuff. * The Home Steader Web Ring * Family History of Walter Scott * Eldon’s Jerky and Sausage Supply Everything you need to cure meat. * Whoever thought plumbing history would be interesting??? * Hundreds of Civil War Recipes * Farm Dogs * Captain John Outwater's Company Living History Site * Hand Weaving - Fiber News/Fiber Arts * William "Cookie" Luke's Cowboy Site. * Country Folks Magazine * Homestead Survival.
  23. Texas Caviar salad is great.. will be back with a recipe.
  24. I'm a latecomer on this thread, but I just love this splendid idea! I'll contribute as well...looking forward to seeing it all come together!
  25. Those are great ideas! Perfect for everyday use and would look nice. As times get harder and meaner, more drastic measures may be needed. In a severe prolonged SHTF situation, concealing valuables such as water/gas supply, etc. might be possible by 'hiding it in plain sight'. When garbage pickups are no longer running, 'twould only be natural for some trash to pile up at nearly every residence... Even rather large 'trash piles' would not be out of the ordinary... I would create a 'trash pile' around the treasure that needs to be concealed...adding enough stuff to the pile to do the job well. Totally worthless scrap metals, wood, and whatever else junk you can salvage to make it look realistic enough, while allowing reasonably easy access...
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