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nini2033a

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Everything posted by nini2033a

  1. Watering with Sugar water helps against transplant shock (Or so I have heard) .
  2. Be careful though, they grow like gangbusters.. (PNW here, with 12 acres of brambles). The berries grow on second year canes. They are near impossible to kill. Here, we need to go over them pulling them out 3 times with the tractor before we make headway to clear spots of them. They keep coming back!
  3. They are a kind of bush apricot? I bought a couple and will be planting them as soon as their home is free. (We are doing construction and big trucks drive down near where they will be planted.) Are they anything like real apricots taste-wise?
  4. oh the little minds you can meld.... let them learn and maybe they will teach their parents...
  5. nini2033a

    rabbits...

    Well one of the next steps we have taken towards being more self sufficiient has been to acquire rabbits. We only have 2 of them, one of each, they are Silver fox? Anyway, we thought we would try to keep them alive over the winter, and if successful we will try to breed them in the spring. We hope to raise them for meat. But I have never purposely killed anything except a vegetable plant or an insect, so I am not sure if we will be able to harvest them. My DH says it is all up to me since I am the one who wanted to try raising them.... gee thanks. But I will definitely try. If I can bumble my way thru this successfully, we will get another female or two and really try to go into meat production for family usage. I am trying not to get too attached. They are cute, but very skittish. I have not really tried to tame them yet because of the whole harvesting thing. I am afraid once I see the babies, it will be all over... I would like to eventually have chickens, but that will have to wait I think until we move to a place with more land and NO HOA. I hate having an HOA. You would think that with 3 acres, we would have a bit of room for a few ladies, but it is not allowed. I hope to move within the next year. It makes the whole adding to the orchard thing very difficult because I dont want to put in alot of trees just to move. We finally got our soapstone stove put in. It is really great and heats the house wonderfully. We are only using half the heat from last year. We still use some because we are not home alot and for example dont want to start a fire first thing in the morning when we are leaviong for the day in 2hours. So we will take off the morning chill with the regular furnace and then build a fire when we are home in the evenings until we go to bed. Well, it is almost the end of the year, hopefully the next year will bring more changes.
  6. So, it has been way too long since I have posted anything. To be honest, I forgot all about the blog. Lets see, in the past year, I sent 2 kids away to college, my DH graduated college after going two classes at a time off and on for 20 years... Yea! Continuing to homeschool darling son.I lost my longtime friend/puppy Jillie, and recently found a new friend to join our lives and protect our home, Avery Calypso (black lab/border collie). I joined a prep group in the area and have met some local like minded souls. I have expanded my garden and bought a small greenhouse. Now if we could only get some +70* weather, maybe I will have more luck with the warm weather garden. Oh, and we bought a wood burning stove to heat our house this winter. Now as soon as our tax refund arrives, we will have it installed, (want someone else to cut the hole in the roof!) But we are also looking for a new house with land, having to move my elderly parents in with us. So if we find something soon, I will wait with the install for the new house, otherwise I will have to move the stove too.
  7. nini2033a

    cranberries

    So, it has been way too long since I have posted anything. To be honest, I forgot all about the blog. Lets see, in the past year, I sent 2 kids away to college, my DH graduated college after going two classes at a time off and on for 20 years... Yea! Continuing to homeschool darling son.I lost my longtime friend/puppy Jillie, and recently found a new friend to join our lives and protect our home, Avery Calypso (black lab/border collie). I joined a prep group in the area and have met some local like minded souls. I have expanded my garden and bought a small greenhouse. Now if we could only get some +70* weather, maybe I will have more luck with the warm weather garden. Oh, and we bought a wood burning stove to heat our house this winter. Now as soon as our tax refund arrives, we will have it installed, (want someone else to cut the hole in the roof!) But we are also looking for a new house with land, having to move my elderly parents in with us. So if we find something soon, I will wait with the install for the new house, otherwise I will have to move the stove too.
  8. We are having turkey (no butter in baste) ham (I am allergic to turkey) Quinoa stuffing with chestnuts and mushrooms Yams topped with corn-free marshmallows cranberry/apricot sauce Pumpkin pie (for DH) cranberry pie(for DD#2) pecan pie (with rice syrup instead of corn syrup)(for DD#1) Spinach "cheese" casserole (with Daiya cheese- based on tapioca) and 2 types of bread, (1 will be GF) for appetizers, there will be dates stuffed with blanched almonds and then wrapped with a piece of Bacon, black olives, rice crackers with Hummus(for DS and Myself), regular wheat crackers with smoked oysters or Brie(for DH and DD#1), Oh and I make a "caramel" dip for applewedges by pureeing some dates, really good and much healthier than the real caramel apples. It is a bit confusing dealing with everyones allergies and my DH being diabetic, but we manage, and we celebrate Thanksgiving 3-4 times each fall because I believe we should be thankful everyday, not just on the third thursday in November. (Of course, we celebrate birthdays for a whole week with something small but special every day)
  9. just finishing up 5 quarts of applepear sauce. Staring at a large bowl of plums and a large bowl of oranges and wondering what to do next... Oh, and somewhere in there, I need to peel and prepare 14 ears of corn for freezing. (only my DH can eat corn,,,)
  10. I was talking with my mom about possibilities. She is Sinthroid dependant at the highest available dose currently and we were wondering what we could do/grow in case SHTF and she couldn't get her normal medicine? She is trying to get some stored up, but it would eventually run out... What other possibilities are there and is there any herb I could grow to help her?
  11. We love cranberries in all forms. This thanksgiving, we had both a turkey and a ham (I am allergic to turkey). So I made cranberry apricot sauce. It turned out fabulous. I canned up the extra and have 9 beautifully sealed bright red jars of the stuff. I figure that is one for a month for most of the year. Yipee! I have also been making Pear sauce with a hint of apple. Every time I open ajar, A eats the whole thing. I can tell that next fall I will need to make alot more of this stuff. He could easily eat a jar a week, so I will need at least 52 jars next year. Gee, I wonder exactly how many pounds of pears and apples that would be....
  12. well, last night we had a cottage pie for dinner, my picky DS loved it. So he had another slice for Breakfast and wanted more for lunch. I love it when that happens because other times I have left overs that become science experiments because nobody would eat them after the first serving.
  13. Sounds like you got alot of good advice here. The 2 things that I would add,, 1- google Dump chicken recipes.... basically you line up gallon sized baggies with enough chicken for your family meal, then you dump in other ingredients (Often including preserves or salad dressings) seal baggies and freze. Then on the day you want that meal, you take it out of the freezer, dump into a crockpot and let it go all day long. You come home to an easy great meal, just add instant rice and a veggie. 2- The easiest way to make meatloaf, even my kids can do it by themselves, (got the recipe from the stove top stuffing site) is basically adding a box of stuffing mix, eggs and ketchup or BBQ sauce to ground meats and cooking. Any stuffing mix works. You can make them up in advance, then freeze wrapped in Aluminum foil, write on it at what temp to preheat the oven then who ever is home can pop it in the oven and cook. It also can be baked in a muffin tin then individually wrapped and frozen for fend for yourself night...
  14. Yesterday we went to the local LDS cannery. We had heard that you dont need to be LDS to purchase there.... I really hope that I won't now get inundated with missionaries because I am happy in my own religion. I do have to say though that there are some things that the Mormons do very well, preparing is one of them. After growing up in Utah and seeing how in times of need the church can mobilize their people and avert disasters, I am impressed. I just do not subscribe to the same religious beliefs. Anyway,so we picked up Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers. Now I want to start putting away Sorghum, Milletand Quinoa, the GF grains that we use. They do not offermuch in the way of GF foods at the cannery. They did have Rice, (I already have some of that on our own) and oatmeal, but that often has cross contamination issues, so we use GF oatmeal which I will slowly gather. And of course, we are corn free, so we need to stay away from thier corn products. We did however pick up 1 (#10) can of Black beans, 1 can White beans, 2 cans apples, 2 cans carrots, and 2 cans potato flakes, 2 dry onions,and 1 salt. Their prices are much better than any I have found online. I am hoping to pick up more and to start using this stuff in my household cooking and storage as well. I am currently trying to find recipes and such to help me learn about cooking with my storage.
  15. nini2033a

    lol

    yesterday we stopped at a store for a few essentials. I just got back from a trip out of the country and my DH was living it up while we were gone, eating nothing but junk food. So we needed to get some real foods,,, when we left the store, I made one more stop at the local salvage store on the way home and happened to pick up a few tuna tins and a few spams. Anyway, at home, my DH said to me how we messsed up because the one thing we forgot to pick up was something for the storage. He was lecturing me that since we had decided to build up a storage, we needed to pick up something for it every time we went shopping. I had to chuckle and told him about the few tins I had stopped to pick up.
  16. What is Security Landscaping? nini2033a
  17. Hi Nini! I am so glad to see your face and smile! :)

  18. what about puting the reflective tape on the flat bottom of the tin instead of the moulded top pf the tin?
  19. nini2033a

    a find

    yesterday afternoon we had to find some more distilled water for DH's CPAP machine. The local food stores don't seem to carry it anymore and we had to finally go to a drugstore at the other end of our small town to find some. Yikes, maybe we need to learn how to distill our own water at home. How will we keep a CPAP running if TSHTF? Don't want to have to run a generator all night, and he really needs it to get a decent night sleep. We will have to work on that one... Anyway, we were in the commissary looking for the distilled water and in the markdown section I found a case of greenbeans marked down to 63 cents a can. The regular stores around here are charging more than a dollar a can! We bought it and stuck it in the storage, so my gathered items just about doubled in size with that one trip. Yipee! And whats more, Mikee is supportive of the whole thing. He really likes looking at equipement (solar generator back-up, water filtering systems. etc.) OK, so this week before I leave on my vacation, I am going to research solutions for the CPAP machine.
  20. yes, it is true about the cinnamon. With my last child, I got gestational diabetes. After the birth, my blood sugar went back down to the pre-diabetic stage where it hovered for 5 years. I took a very small cinnamon pill daily. Now for the past 2 years, I have taken a "horse sized" cinnamon pill and my blood sugar has gone back down into the normal range. I have some packed away with my emergency stash. I tend to buy my herbals a year at a time when they go on sale.
  21. Wait! So we can't can pumpkin butter? Why not? this is a recipe I have, what about it makes it unsafe to can? I have been wanting to learn about canning... 2 1/2 c Pumpkin; cooked, mashed 3/4 c Sugar 1/4 c Apple cider or orange juice 1/2 ts Cinnamon, ground 1/2 ts Cloves, ground 1/4 ts Allspice, ground 1/4 ts Nutmeg, ground
  22. Ok, so we took inventory, pathetically little, but at least it is together now. We have 15 gallons of water,a 20 # bag of rice, maybe 20 cans, mostly soup/broth ready to eat. I have a bucket of candles& lighter, and I have another bucket where I have started to gather vitamins and herbals we take, I also have 6 weeks of prescription meds for myself, about 30 antibiotics and grapefruit seed oil and oi of oregano. Now I have asked my DH to try to get ahead some on his prescriptions, but he is on 3. Oh, I also have painkillers OTC & precription stored in the bucket. We have warm clothes aplenty, but now I need to gather some together and put them in a BOB. We have always carried warm clothes/coats, snacks, water, and first aid in the car along with chains, but now I want to get it in order in a bin or something instead of just thrown chaotically in the back. Well, I do feel like I have made some small progress.
  23. Hi, I am a complete newbie, also in the NW, north of Seattle. I am hoping to learn how to can, I have a dehydrator already. I read somewhere about a group of women who get together one day a month to can. They buy whatever is the "loss leader" in the produce section that month, can, splitting the costs and the proceeds. I would love to find a group like that. It would be great to have a group to work with. I have talked to a few of my friends, but they tend to look at me like I am nuts, and I haven't even mentioned the whole "prepping" thing, just the getting good foods without all the added stuff in them. Because of allergies, we will be basing our preps on things other than wheats, eggs, and milk products. I have a question, if I am putting raw grains in canning jars, do I need to do them in a hot water bath or just add an oxygen absorber? both? Neither?
  24. nini2033a

    Intro

    Hi, I am Nini203a, a mom with too many allergies to an adorable kid with too many allergies. Last week, we had a very late paycheck and so I broke into my emergency stash to see about rounding out our food. I discovered that almost everything we had stored, we have since found out we're allergiic to. Now I had other stuff stored, but have had a good friend who went thru a family crisis and I filled the trunk of her car with food 3 times in the last year. So anyway, discovered I needed to give away the foods we had stashed, and start over basically from scratch. I have looked at emergency prep sites and foods, basically, they all seem heavily stocked with our allergens, (gluten, casein, soy, corn, eggs,poultry) and although I don't currently know how, I would love to learn to can our own allergy friendly foods. I do have an Excalibur dehydrator and we already eat alot of beans and rice, so I imagine most of our stock pile will need to be based on that instead of all the other foods we can't do. I am not sure how much to aim for though. We are a family of 5, although 2 are currently in college, but one would hope it the SHTF that we would be able to get them both home with us. One is an hour away and one is 10 hours away by car (but looking to move to a closer college).
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