GoatLady

Eggs have been going up here too . We can EASILY go through a dozen a day! Can't wait to bring my biddies home! That will help!

Fried chicken, cole slaw, and biscuits tonight

Times like this we have to go full Dory; "Just keep prepping, just keep prepping" I KNOW right?! LOL Hoping next year. Nigerian dwarfs <3

I can't think about what's going on right now with the the stock market, our preps are so low (been really hard financially the last few years) but at least it's finally got my dh on board with the idea that we NEED to prep (would have been nice if that had happened SOONER :s). Praying things can limp along a little longer . ANYWAY, trying to focus on the GOOD! We're moving in a month, back to the country! Much lower rent, big garden area, can have chickens, hopefully soon goats, and nice neighbours. I've got chickens coming (4 orpingtons, including a roo, 5 rhode island red banties, and a couple silkies) as soon as I can get their coop set up, and hopefully garden will be ready to plant in the spring (doing a back to eden garden). Also we're set to have our car loan payed off by the end of the year! Trying so hard to get out of debt and that's our biggest debt payment so paying that off is so encouraging! My Orp girls <3

Settled on hamburgers

Settled on hamburgers

I'm vacillating between pasta and lentil soup with cheddar biscuits

Tonight we're havin' cowboy beans and fry bread! I think I'll make some iced tea to have with it!

I am going to try that! I dehydrated a boiled chicken breast and that is exactly what we found, way too hard and chewy to be palatable! I am going to have to try this! I so much prefer to store things dehydrated if I can, we tend to be rather nomadic so lighter and less space is gooood LOL.

I've heard they go mushy if you can them. It's OK, I guess we'll just have to eat them up before we unplug, then it just won't be something to stock up on. I finished my meal plan (doing Wendy DeWitt's food storage method) without any hotdog meals.

Hmmm, that's true. Well phooey, so much for that idea. Oh well, it was a nice thought lol.

Sometimes I wonder what's up with Amazon! More than once I've seen some thing I want, send dh the link (so he can open it on HIS computer) and he'll open it right away and the price is different than it is on MY computer .

So I've been putting up a lot of ground beef rocks (dehydrated cooked ground beef) and it got me thinking. I have a whole whack of chicken franks in my freezer (I like to chop them up and use them in casseroled during hard times) and, wanting a shelf stable way to preserve just about everything, I was thinking, why not slice them up (maybe a little thinner than usual) and make rocks out of them?! Anyone tried this before? I'm thinking I'll give it a go when my dehydrator is free (I have sour cream going right now then I have celery, garlic and ground turkey in line first) and see how it goes with one pound before I go ahead and do the rest of the 10 or so pounds I've got in there. Any thoughts?

Wasn't trying to sound ungrateful for the effort put into making the list, I'm very sorry I sounded like I was, I was just disappointed that by the time I got to them they weren't available anymore (for free). Wasn't meant to be a criticism of anyone.

I did find one free one on Pam's but all the links here weren't free for me .

Ok hopefully it will load the pictures now. The damage doesn't show up well on the pics, but in person it's quite impressive lol. After doing some more research (I really only want to have to buy this once LOL) I decided to spend a little more than the Ziplock pump and go with this. I like that I can see from the gauge how much pumping in necessary! Yes, I know I'll be doing a lot of pumping, but that's usually the trade off when getting off the electricity, more physically demanding. The way I look at it it's free exercise! I could spend money on buying exercise equipment (which I've done since I'm counting my physical condition AS prepping. If SHTF I'd rather be physically fit to meet it! I've been really working on it since December and I've dropped 16 pounds so far and getting much stronger!) or I could just keep replacing my appliance with the kind that run on elbow grease . Well, here are the pics...

Shoutbox is being weird for me right now (ALL my electronic things are ganging up on me today!). I'm pretty sure it wasn't the powder itself that wrecked it (I had covered it with some paper towel) I'm sure some could have gotten around it but I totally forgot that you're supposed to let it rest 20 seconds between uses and while I only had 8 jars, some of them didn't seal the first time or 5 and I got impatient . Totally my fault, not the FS's. When I looked at it again after I was fully awake this morning I realized what I had done to it . Anyway I don't know if it will show up too well (white on white) but here's a few pictures to show how the casing warped! AAARRRGGG!!!! My connection isn't strong enough to load the pictures! I am 5 seconds away from saying "forget this, I'm going full Amish!" Hopefully my connection will be better in the morning and I'll add pictures then *sigh*

What I'd been doing with my FS was using the largest canister as a JarVac. I'd put a jar in the canister, vac seal the canister and then open it up and the jar would seal. I was thinking I could to the same thing with the PnS by using the bowl cover over a canister. If that works then I wouldn't have to worry about the tabs. I don't do a whole lot of sealing in bags anyway, mostly in jars. I was thinking about getting the PnS ANYWAY as a non-electric back up, but I think I just found a cheaper way to try it out!! Check THIS out! I just have to figure out where to find the Ziplock pump, I don't think I've ever seen it anywhere, but if I can find it, $5 is worth the investment to see if it works!!

So my new FoodSaver died . I guess the basic model just wasn't able to stand up to the amount of work I gave it . Anyway, I'm trying to decide if I should beg and plead and hope dh will buy me another one....OR.... if I should try THIS instead! I like that it's non-electric (because I hate being dependent on electricity) but I don't know how much I trust the little tabs that are supposed to keep it sealed. Does anyone have one of these (Pump-n-Seal)? How do you like it?

*sorry double post, not sure how to delete it!*

I hope you both have a wonderful day!!!!

My best piece of advice is to get some non-electric non-consumable curriculum! I have the set of Mc Guffey's for reading, and I used to have Ray's Arithmetic but I seem to have misplaced my whole set!! Right now we're use Khan Academy for math but I don't like having to be dependent on working internet for it! Our service is iffy and I'm really wishing I could find my Rays . I love using online resources but I do NOT like being dependent on them! I have little chalkboards for them to work on and just stock up on lots of extra chalk. Saves on paper!

Hope you had a good one!

Dehydrated all my onions, one step closer to using up everything in the fridges so we can unplug the beasts. Tired of paying for and being dependent on their electricity! Did my laundry by hand and hung to dry on my drying rack (for the same reason) Used residual heat to do most of the cooking at meal times Started a stash of cloth pads for my girls and I (getting awful tired of paying money to wrap our bits in chemicals and plastic! )