Mother

Today we had a whole meal of older frozen foods.  Grilled sweet corn dated 2021, beets dated 2022, Bok Choy dated 2020 and chicken dated 2019.  All was good tasting with no freezer burn but they had been packed well.  The corn had been previously oven roasted and was a but chewy but still good.  
 

We are slowly trying to use up the old.  

3 hours ago, Necie said:

My boys hunt those and we look forward to them every year.

Here too. DGS took a deer today in fact. 
 

Little Sister, I can appreciate what your DD does. I was a Federal and State licensed wildlife rehabber for well over 25 years and was also licensed to keep unreleasable animals to use for educational purposes. We averaged over 300 rescues a year. We did not eat any of them.  We only ate what we legally hunted with the exception of road kill deer.  We worked closely with the DNR and were called for any downed animal in our area.  The injured we helped and released back into the wild, the dead food animals we processed and shared with various institutions and those in need.  

I have a similar recipe that makes enough mix for literally hundreds. (800-1000 cups mixed up) We served it at the museum I worked for at the annual Christmas Walk. They still do.  We used regular cocoa instead of the chocolate mix along with the other ingredients.   Much cheaper and makes it nice and rich. (So they tell me, I am terribly allergic to chocolate ). You can also buy dried mini marshmallows like comes in cereal and add that to the mix.  The colored ones look especially festive.  We used to get them in the bulk at Amish bulk food stores but I’ve seen them on Amazon. 
 

A tip. The mix makes a really nice gift.  I’ve pared it with a special mug with the directions tied on with a decorative ribbon. Great for a gift exchange too. 
 

Thanks for the survival tip Necie!  

Seriously though, just in case…..  Didn’t care for raccoon but opossum in the crock pot with cream of mushroom soup is great.  No need to feed it ahead of time or to parboil. Plain trapped or hunted opossum will do.  Be sure to remove the glands they mention and as much fat as is possible.  
 

I believe we are having wild Turkey this year.  The permits are pretty high priced so not much savings but oh so tasty! 
 

By the way, if you are concerned with a ‘gamey’ taste in any wild meat (which it rarely has) soak it overnight in milk. 
 

And did you know that wild goose can taste so much like roast beef that few people can tell the difference if not told.   
 

8 hours ago, Jeepers said:

Jeepers  =>  Moderator extraordinaire   

Well of course you are! 

 Necie Take a left at Urban Side Streets and then a right at Urban Farming and you should see the door to the country!  

43 minutes ago, Jeepers said:

Can someone move it back to the preserving forum.

  You aren’t looking at me, are you???  You at least only moved it.  I might have deleted the whole thing!!!  😳. 
 

Maybe you could just do a reverse spell on it?  You know, Pocus Hokus and beat it with your magic wand???  
 

 There must be a magic potion or something…….

  
((((((((((((((((((Jeepers))))))))))))))).  Don’t worry. It’s not lost, just playing keep away in a different forum.  Someone will come along to fix it.   

The old ‘What are you canning’ does appear to be missing.    Thankfully I didn’t touch it so didn’t lose it!!    But will help look for it! 

Oh wow Jeepers.  That’s a great space.  Does it have a lot more trees and bushes than the picture shows? The way you described it I had envisioned a very wooded area.  
 

I’ve never had a garbage disposal.  Every leftover went to chickens, pigs, or compost area.  I can see why in your neighborhood you would have to think of esthetics too.  Perhaps you will want to think of raised beds, in an artistic or symmetrical design, right from the start with nice mulched or hard surfaces paths between.  With your son a Plummer, even if he IS like the cobbler, you might want to consider having water lines run to the area so you can run hoses to the different beds.  Unless, of course, you have sun close to the house to run them from there.  Be aware though that the hoses would have to be taken in each winter and the faucets drained or be frost free ones.  Take my word for it….that’s harder as you age.  DH and I have lost a garden area because we can no longer do it.  
 

Hey, as this is a canning thread, maybe you will want to start a new thread (or move these couple of posts, into another forum, maybe DIY,. Put in your pictures and let others weigh in on what they would do.  Fun for us all and ideas for you! 

Okay, WARNING…..middle of the night, can’t sleep, think of possible Jeepers ideas coming up! 
 

Jeepers, perhaps you could look into urban homesteading to see how others plan theirs.  Check out one acre (or half acre or whatever) homesteads. Then look into garden designs and don’t forget to check out Permaculture.  You already have an idea of what you want to do there, things like gardening and etc.  You would need to set priorities, then ‘walk’ through them one at a time , listing needs. Say it’s gardening.  You would definitely want sunshine and perhaps you would need to be close to water source. You would want to water plants easily, have an area for potting plants and maybe for washing veggies before you take them inside.  You’d want to have a place for compost and/or close or connected with a chicken run if you decide to have chickens.  You might want a small greenhouse and a place to store tools.  You might want two garden areas or even three, a ‘kitchen’ garden close to the back door for planting things you might use often like herbs or salad greens and veggies.  Then perhaps a bigger garden for canning,  crops like tomatoes, beans, and etc.,  then maybe an area for potatoes, corn or other less often tended crops.  Think ahead.  Perhaps you will start with a small garden shed for tools but plan it so you can add a small greenhouse. Perhaps later you could add a small chicken house and run to that greenhouse.  
 

Do the same ‘walking’ through other wants.  Like a swimming pool. You would need easy accessibility from the house, a place to store pool cleaning equipment, supplies, and ‘toys’. They might share the same garden/greenhouse/chicken coop/shed.  It’s easier and cheaper to build ON to an existing building than build another whole building unless they really did need to be on a different part of the property.  If you have never experienced something before then you need to learn from those who have BTDT.  
 

Permaculture has a great model for working with the land. It can be quite involved or very simple depending on your need. In general it has you thinking in terms of zones. Things needed close to the house, things needing to be further out, things on the perimeter and etc. It encourages multiple uses and things (even plants and trees) working together. For instance, big trees with shrubs and bushes under them and smaller plants under them, each taking advantage of the assets of the other, each helping to sustain the other.  Or in the instance of the garden/animal/compost connection.  The garden feeds you, if the chicken run and coop are close by the garden waste is easy to feed to the chickens or maybe rabbits.  The chickens in turn process that waste into fertilizer to feed the garden while giving you eggs or meat.  Perhaps the animal building attached to the greenhouse will help heat it in winter and the greenhouse will feed the animals in the winter. The building could be used as a rain catchment system to water the animals, the greenhouse, the garden and maybe you if it’s set up correctly.

It all depends on your WANTS and NEEDS. None of it will work well if you don’t know those first. Landscapers can only make a plan after they know those two things.  And remember this very important rule.  No matter what age you are or at what physical ability you are, if you plan to stay then you have to plan for aging and ability.  Plan in handicapped accessibility in both house and yard.  
 

Another suggestion. You can find programs online that ‘landscape’ for you but you can also make paper or cardboard cutouts to plan your property.  Use ‘to scale’ shapes to represent house, garages, gardens, sheds, pool, fire pits, trees, etc, and move them around a scaled drawing of your property.  Mark water sources, pathways, driveways, possible fences, dog runs, etc. It is more fun than paper dolls and could be a fun winter pastime.  

20 minutes ago, euphrasyne said:

  I think they inhale it like cocaine.

.  Oh so true and that bread was on top of baking powder biscuits and dumplings that they loved.  

Let me explain. Those twelve loaves were made into bread, buns, sweet rolls, and pizza, among other things. I also kept some of the dough in the refrigerator to raise slowly and bake later.  Occasionally I would put excess bread, well wrapped, in the freezer but with three teens and various teen friends and relatives, DH, myself and the loaf or two I always gave to my Mom and Dad it kept nicely in an old pie safe.  I usually wrapped it in linen or old flour sack towels and kept an eye on it.   Any left over bread was dried as croutons or to make crumbs.  The crumbs, if not used, were added into the next weeks batch along with any left over cereal, ground up left over vegetables, peanut butter, and etc.  You never knew what would be in that dough and no one seemed to notice or care. 
 

I’m not a fan of freezing home made bread as it tends to dry out some but the dough, wrapped well, does keep pretty good for a few weeks or a couple months. Thawed in the refrigerator over night and let raise a while in the warmth, it bakes just as nice as fresh.  
 

I have to admit that I didn’t use sour dough starter every week. Depending on my schedule I would use plain yeast instead.  Often though, I would save a cup or two of that dough to start a ‘sponge’ for the following baking.  When I look back on those 18 hour days I wonder how I did it all!  Now I just throw some ingredients into the bread maker and let it do the work.  🍞 

(((((((((Euphrasyne))))))))). 

39 minutes ago, snapshotmiki said:

The ants are my friend, they're blowing in the wind.  The ants are blowing in the wind.   LOL

You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel?  Four hundred children and the crops in the field! LOL 

Annarchy,    I’m sorry you are hurting. 

 Sygnet. Hope your day is fantastic.  

  Love them.  ! 

That’s what I call thinking ahead, Homesteader!!!   You can probably ‘hide’ lots of edibles in that narrow strip not to mention what you could grow at the forest edges. Hope some of those trees and bushes have edible parts. 👍

Sunflower seeds are not just for eating.  I use them to grow ‘Sunnies’. Sunflower shoots that are a crunchy salad greens. They have a sweet sunflower seed taste.  We love them.  They only need an inch or so soil but I have grown them on shredded paper, cardboard and paper towels as well as grow pads.  I mostly use black oil seeds purchased through Sprouthouse as they are organic but I have grown them using bird seed sunflower seeds, both black oil ones and big grey stripped ones, and even grocery store ones if they are truly raw.  
 

I also grow pea shoots and they can produce a LOT of greens as they can be cut many times. I grow them mostly from the dried whole green peas gotten at the grocery store for making soup.  They DO have to be the whole ones which can be hard to find though I haven’t checked at Amazon yet.  You can also get them from the Sprouthouse but the grocery store variety is much cheaper. You can’t grow peas from them though. Those come from specific varieties.  You can, however, eat leaves and tendrils of those varieties so if you want both buy garden seed variety pea, eat the greens for a while and then let them mature. 
 

I grow both of these off and on all year. 
https://www.mrssurvival.com/topic/56865-inside-winter-gardening/?do=findComment&comment=484317

I use a fifty gallon fish tank, gold fish, and both a water and an air pump, both with our twelve volt solar system but there are various types of hydroponics, some of which can be set up non electric.  Check out some of them to see if they will work for you.  And don’t forget sprouting and microgreens if you have a way to also propagate the plants that furnish the seeds for them.  Remember, ‘weed’ seeds will make microgreens too. Sunflowers are a great plant that most people won’t recognize as edible because sunflower seeds come salted and in bags, ,,,,,don’t you know, LOL

Remember, any light will be seen at night and probably investigated. If there is no electricity the aero gardens won’t work!  We have one but primarily use our aquaponic system with 12 volt pumps to operate. The plants till need light but it is set up in the greenhouse area.for natural light. 
 

Anyone else have ideas 

Well thought out, LS.  One of our members, Cookie Jar, a long time ago talked about planting things in her area in town. There was an abandoned golf course just behind her hime that she actually planted potatoes and different seeds in unmoved areas and they did great.  She put several edible plants in her yard that the housing association she lived in never noticed.  They just thought they were decorative. She did the same in a nearby park, especially around trees where they didn’t get mowed. Just some thoughts. 

1 hour ago, Littlesister said:

At my age I am not able to do but so much

That is part of what this thread is about, what CAN we do that is more than just stocking up.  You talk about buckets and lights in outbuildings.  How do you grow if there is no electric for lights?  And would even a thin sliver of light showing through a crack cue someone to growing plants in there?  
 

I have a green house area within my home, a corner that is ll windows and clear roof, but I am concerned that it is all too easy for someone to see what is growing inside.  We have timber areas close to the house and have a several areas we could plant a stealth garden but getting there would be a problem as it’s all hillside. Being in town would make it more difficult to plant such an area but is there any way to plant seeds on public land nearby? Perhaps edibles that most people wouldn’t recognize as such? 

Good find LS. 

I have been thinking of this A LOT lately. I saw something online this morning about how much of our US agriculture land was owned by  China and other countries and by billionaire conglomerates controlled by one or two people.  Winter is coming in my part of the country and our growing season is pretty much done but food production weighs heavy on my mind in light of all the threats we have surrounding us.  
 

This thread is only 18 months old but it somehow lost steam after Pioneer Woman was good enough to post links to a lot of good information.  Was it too scary to think about or was it thought to be needless considering we were coming out of lockdown and food would, after all, be readily available again?  
 

War and rumors of war are all around us but do we actually believe it could happen here?  Conspiracy theories abound concerning government controls of our food.  Have you actually seen it?  Can you point to any one necessary food item that you can’t actually get?   Can you lay your finger on anything specific that makes your sense ring alarm?  Do the high and still rising costs of everything despite being told the economy is getting better nag at you? Does the control over farm land make you wonder?  Do you know anything about the way the government manipulates what farmers plant and grow and the costs through ‘programs’?  Does it bother you?  Has food control been one of those things that has come about so slowly and subversively (one bill at a time) that you barely notice but it still somehow feels “off”?  Or is this all just a conspiracy theory?  
 

But what if it’s true?  Is it still a conspiracy THEORY? 
 

These thoughts weigh heavy on my mind.  I have followed the trend for years, the trend of government control.  Long before the conspiracy theories became the fad I have watched as more and more freedoms are eaten away at, tiny almost unnoticed bites.  
 

The older I get and the less able I am to be self sufficient, the more important being able to prepare ahead becomes.  But what happens when the stored foods run out?  What if we do have two weeks, six months, two years of food stored? Even if we ARE able to protect it from the hungry hoards, eventually it will have to be replaced, with what?  Will farm land be so regulated that farmers become chattel like in feudal times?  Will gardening be outlawed or a percentage of your produce “paid” to the government? 
 

“That will never happen here.” We say.  But will it? And what do we do if it does?  
 

Let’s play pretend and talk a bit about what we WOULD do if that happens…. I suppose this should be in the Edge but after all,,,,we are only pretending,,,,right?