Medical Journal

It's important to keep track of your, and your family's, medical history, especially for children and the elderly. You never know when a medical crisis will happen. Children are required to have certain shots to be able to attend school. The elderly may live out of town and you may not know what medications they are taking and who their doctors are. If you have one notebook to keep all of the information in, it will bless you when the need-to-know arises. A medical journal will help hospital staff in the event of an emergency, when your mind may not be clear with the answers that are needed. But, if you have written down the information and placed it into a binder, then assistance is in-hand. A binder is easy and quick to grab and take it with you. With a binder, it is easy to insert new pages when necessary. Have everyone in the family understand what the journal is and what it is for, even children will understand the importance. What do you include in a medical journal? Many things. This is just a partial list. Post a comment if you would like to add more.

--doctor appointments
--doctor's information (address and phone number of primary care giver, eye doctor, hearing doctor, dentist)
--prescriptions, vitamins and supplements
--emergency info
--biographical data
--insurance info
--basic tests reading
--surgeries
--hospital stays
--chronic health problems
--illnesses
--injuries
--family health history
--medical contacts
--organ donor
--blood group
--allergies
--medical needs

Buying Metals For Tough Times

Have you been buying, or thinking of buying, gold or silver for "tough times? I had thought about it, and read where you could collect dimes that were 90% silver, if you could find those with dates of 1964 or earlier. That was when the government started sandwiching copper in the middle. I was disappointed that I was way too late to find many of these more valuable dimes in the change that I'd get at the store. James Wesley, Rawles (author of "Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse" and is the editor of SurvivalBlog.com) said, "In February, 2010 it was announced that the Obama administration had endorsed a change in the metal composition of pennies and nickels." So, that means that the base metal in our current nickles will become more valuable. If you are interested in knowing more about this, go to Prepare To Survive In California's blog to read what James had to say. This is the time to stock up on nickles, before they disappear.

Brain-Freeze

Remember eating ice cream and getting a "brain-freeze" or instant headache from the cold treat? That's not the brain-freeze I'm talking about. This one is about automatically and immediately responding to certain circumstances. This is part of preparing for emergencies. After you are faced with an emergency is not the time to get a book out to read about what to do. It is good training to visualize your responses to emergencies way before you are faced with them. The Preparedness Pro has a great post on this subject that I wanted to share with you.

There is a book called, "Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things," by Laurence Gonzales, that explains how we often don't realize that we are in danger even when we see it. Mr. Gonzales also has another book along the same line called, "Deep Survival." One example he gives of this phenomenon in the second book, is where a skier is skiing down a slope and touches off an avalanche. His three buddies are at the bottom of the mountain. They see the avalanche coming down towards them and two ski away. The third one just stands there, on his skis, and watches the avalanche. It reaches the man, covers him with snow and kills him. The question Mr. Gonzales answers is why did two leave and the one not. These books can be a real eye-opener. We need to practice so our bodies will instinctively react in our best interest.

Shrinking Products

Have you noticed how products at the market are shrinking? I have used recipes that I have had for many years that called for a 16 ounce can of something, but today they only sell 14 ounce cans. Recently, I bought a 6-pack of paper towels, thinking that I was getting the better deal. Not so--there were fewer sheets per roll. Toilet paper is now thinner width-wise (unless you buy a special huge roll), and yesterday I was thinking that the toilet paper "squares" are even shorter. Sometimes I will buy a box of food, but the inner bag is much smaller than the box, when it used to be full. We won't even go into cost increases! We may need to re-think some of our year's supply of various items to make sure these smaller products will actually cover our 365 days of needs.

Ready?

Do you have enough food to last a week or two in an emergency? One would expect that people in snow country would keep plenty of food on hand, just in case a big snowstorm blew in (which happens every year). Apparently not, according to one blogger. Miss Celie, in Baltimore, Maryland, stopped at the store on her way home from work--see what she found! I think the majority of people there aren't prepared for emergencies. It's the same thing where hurricanes are common--the stores are cleaned out just before the bad weather hits. I urge everyone to stock up so that you would have enough food to last at least two weeks, for emergency purposes.

[Picture is from Miss Celie's blog].

Free Emergency Ebook

I'm always trying to learn new things about being prepared. M.D. Cheekmore, of the Survivalist Blog, has a free ebook [it takes a few seconds to load] called, "It's The End Of The World As We Know It And I Feel Fine." Don't be put off by the name as it is "A Quick and Dirty Guide to Survival Planning." It covers the basics that you need for getting through emergency situations. Cheekmore is way ahead of me in being prepared and his knowledge is vast, covering many different aspects of preparedness. Some things may seem way out there for some, but he covers a multitude of topics. He also has guest writers that cover various topics.

Cheekmore also has a weekly post on Saturdays, where he says what he has done for the week to be more prepared, and asks readers what they have done to prep. It is interesting to read what people are buying, making and doing to be prepared for emergencies. It helps me to broaden my view as to what I could be doing.

Getting Started With Food Storage

I've been thinking about Melanie's question about buying food-storage items locally instead of on the internet (buying non-food items will be covered later). I have a few things that I found helpful for me when I started stocking up on my food storage.

1. The Mormon's have a website (here) that will help anyone figure out what is needed for a family's one-year supply of food. This church has a storehouse in Fresno where they dry-pack (can) different food storage items, such as wheat, rice, oats, dehydrated apple slices, beans, flour, cocoa mix, etc., for a reasonable price (no freeze-dried foods). These items are for the church members, although non-members may purchase these items IF they go through a member. (A printable order form is here) . The order is phoned in by the member, and in a couple of weeks the member will be called and told when the order is ready to be picked up. Then the member, plus non-member if they want, will pay for and pick up the order. These items are sold in #10 cans, pouches, or in bulk.

2. For help with making a plan for buying, storing and eating food storage, Everyday Food Storage has a network of 3 or 4 websites that work together to guide you along. This, and the other links on our side-bar, show various ways to go about planning and buying food storage.

3. When I really got serious about stocking up, I used an Excel program that I found online, but I can't seem to find it now. The Food Storage Shopper has a special way of using coupons, which I found beneficial, especially when I used it with the Excel program--I saw huge savings.

I will explain how the Excel program worked:

Column one was for the item name.
Column two was the name of the store where I purchased the item at the lowest price.
Column three was for the cost of the item, at the lowest price I had found anywhere.
Column four was for how many ounces the product weighted.

At this point, when you tabbed over, it calculated the cost per ounce of the item (column five).

The second half of this program was for my base price information, so I knew what the product normally cost.

Column six was the base price in the market that I went to the most.
Column seven was the cost per item.
Column eight was how many ounces the product weighted.
Column nine was where you tabbed over and it calculated the cost per ounce of the product.

With this spreadsheet, I would take the market ads (including Walmart, Target, and the "drug" stores near my home), and my coupons, then I could plug-in the sale price into my spreadsheet to tell if the ads were the best price. I could see what the lowest price I had ever found the item for, and the normal everyday price. Adding the coupon to a really low priced item would give me a great discount, so I was getting more products with my limited funds. If the price was not at or below my "lowest" price, I would wait--the store ads run in cycles and they would have the "lowest" price, again. I also went to Costco and wrote down their everyday prices, and put them into the Excel program if they were the "lowest" price.

I hope that makes sense. It seems wordy to me for how simple it really is. If you know how to set up an Excel spreadsheet with calculations, then you won't have any problems with this.

Plum Jam and Plum-Strawberry Jam

Bill has been at it again---he and his wife made 21 jars each of Plum Jam and Plum-Strawberry Jam last Monday.

Plum Jam

6 cups pureed plums
1 Jalapeno pepper, seeded, and pureed in 1/2 cup water
7 cups sugar
1 package pectin
1 tsp. butter or margarine

1. Measure exact amount of fruit and Jalapeno water mixture into a saucepan. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

2. Measure exact amount of sugar into a separate bowl; set aside.

3. Stir pectin into fruit mixture once it has cooked, and add butter to reduce foaming.

4. Return mixture to a full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly.

5. Stir in sugar quickly. Return to a full rolling boil and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and gently stir in any foam that may have formed.

6. Ladle quickly into prepared jars, filling to 1/4 inch from the top.

7. With a clean, damp towel, wipe jar rim and threads. Cover with lid and ring. Screw ring tightly.

8. Place jars in an elevated rack over boiling water (in a water bath canner), and lower rack into canner. Water must cover jars by 1 to 2 inches.

9. Cover, bring water to a gentle boil. Process 10 minutes.

10. Remove jars and place upright on a towel to cool completely. Allow to set 24 hours before using.

Note: Bill didn't say how the Plum-Strawberry Jam was made, but likely the fruit called for was half plum puree and half strawberry puree, enough to equal 6 cups.

Canning Meatballs

A question was posted a few days ago and I will address it here. The question was: could they can their own recipe of meatballs, which used venison, eggs and Parmesan cheese.

Any kind of meat, including fish, may be canned and they all need to pressure can for the same amount of time--75 minutes for pints, and 90 minutes for quarts, at 10 pounds pressure. (I read about a woman that kept her dog well fed during WWII by catching rodents and canning the meat. IF we were under a long-term national/world meltdown, we could do this for our own benefit).

Eggs are included in the Italian Meatball recipe that was posted before, linked here, so they work just fine. The plain meatballs that I canned didn't have any eggs, but they did have cracker crumbs and that worked well, too (recipe here).

As to adding the Parmesan cheese, it would probably be best to add that when you are preparing to serve the meatballs (after they are canned). Cheese and canning generally don't go together too well. When you go to can your own recipe of meatballs, add some Parmesan cheese to one jar's worth of meatballs, mark the lid with a Marks-A-Lot permanent marker, and pressure can it along with the other meatballs. Then you can test how they come out--it might just work! If you do this testing, please let us know what you find out, so we can share with others. Thanks for the question!

Getting Prepared

Today I was thinking about all of the things I have done to be prepared for emergencies. I have done a lot--I have my year's food supply, I have various ways of cooking without power, I have most of my first aid stuff, and I have my bug-out bag. The food storage really needs a bit more variety; my first aid stuff needs to be organized and finished up; and my bug-out bag needs to be revamped, since I have learned more about what to include in this bag. After thinking about all of these needs, I started to get overwhelmed. Has this happened to you? What did you do? Where do you begin? It's all important and I guess that's the problem. I am sure there are others that could benefit from your answers, especially those that are new to preparing. Please share what you have learned and what has worked for you!

Reusing Canning Lids

There has been much discussion about reusing canning lids. Manufactures say that they should not be used more than once. Many people that home can food have stated that they have reused their lids several times. When I grew up on the farm, I remember my grandmother (my teacher) taking previously used lids from a shoe box and putting them in the boiling water in a pan. When you are on a farm and quite frugal, many things are reused. We couldn’t run to town when we wanted lids for canning.

I experimented with a batch of meatballs and a batch of diced chicken breasts the other day. I put up 18 wide mouth pints with used lids. Of the 18 pints there was one that did not seal. This provided us with dinner that night and 17 jars for future dinners. Not a bad average if I do say so.

Everyone has to make their own decision about reusing lids or not when canning.

Happy canning,

--Bill

Preparedness Stores in Fresno

A month ago Melanie posted a question--Are there any preparedness stores in Fresno (CA)? I was suppose to get back to her, but I had to leave before I could. When she asked that, I was thinking of food storage. Talking about it with Bill, his take was that she might be looking for preparedness equipment. So, Melanie, you need to get back to us! We have our email address set up, or you can just post here. Either way, we will answer those questions in a post.

Italian Meatballs

There has been a request for the Italian Meatballs recipe. We have it posted on our previous emergency blog, and you can link to it here.

Penny asked if Parmesan cheese can be added to the meatballs before canning. Dairy products don't can well. I tried canning a 1/2 pint of cheddar cheese just to see what would happen--and it wasn't pretty! I have never tried to eat it, although I am sure it wouldn't hurt me. Cheese can be kept on the shelf for years if you just put wax on it. There is wax called cheese wax that you use. I got the cheese and cheese wax, but alas, I got sidetracked and it never got done.

You may find a method online on how to can butter. This is not pressure canned, but the butter is heated until melted, put into sterilized jars, and then the lids "seal" when it cools. There is some concern by the government that butter is not to be canned (the reason is that they have not done the research on it to give it their approval). Many people have been using this method of canning butter for many years and have never had a problem. I was going to "can" butter and I purchased ten pounds when it was on special, but I never got beyond that because I was sidetracked, again. You can buy commercially canned butter, but it is very expensive.