What Did You Prep This Week

Thursday night grocery flyer review ( my new "look forward to " activity of the week) turned up canned salmon and tuna for 1.50 a can, so picked up 20. Also in my quest to make a solar cooker I found a large, 19" diameter, mylar coated, bowl shaped shell. I am interested in making one that is sturdier than cardboard and tinfoil but also free and made of recycled materials.

Printed out instructions on how to use bleach to disinfect water and attached it to bottle in supply cupboard.
Water supply is up to 185 litres.

Thursday night grocery flyer review ( my new "look forward to " activity of the week) .

OH YEAH!! I call the newspaper the FlyerHolder because I'm not really interested in much except the flyers 🙂

I have't accomplished too much in the past week - just got home from a weekend bridal shower in Ottawa with my sister and I'm going away next weekend on a date with DH to Cam Mather's off grid farm - yippee.

DH and DS cut more firewood and cleaned out some gardens while I was gone so I will just take credit for their hard work while I went off to play! 😆

labelled all the hydro, electrical, gas water mains so everyone in the house knows what to do if these have to be turned off.

Hung flashlights in each bedroom and near garage and basement door in case of power failure so people can quickly see where they are going.

Updated food supply list, organized by expiry date, to make it easier to sort what needs to be consumed in the next month, and then replaced.

Prepped cars for winter and packed 3 day kit in each vehicle and these can also serve as workplace emergency kits as we park very close to our work sites.

Cleared yard of all loose materials, prepped outdoor charcoal cooker for winter use and moved bags of lump to a storage bin close to the house. Bought last 5 bags of lump and still looking for more as it is one of our back up cooking methods.

Read through this site http://www.survivinghealthy.com/
for tips on first aid and other medical issues.

labelled all the hydro, electrical, gas water mains so everyone in the house knows what to do if these have to be turned off.

Hung flashlights in each bedroom and near garage and basement door in case of power failure so people can quickly see where they are going.

Updated food supply list, organized by expiry date, to make it easier to sort what needs to be consumed in the next month, and then replaced.

Prepped cars for winter and packed 3 day kit in each vehicle and these can also serve as workplace emergency kits as we park very close to our work sites.

Cleared yard of all loose materials, prepped outdoor charcoal cooker for winter use and moved bags of lump to a storage bin close to the house. Bought last 5 bags of lump and still looking for more as it is one of our back up cooking methods.

Read through this site http://www.survivinghealthy.com/
for tips on first aid and other medical issues.

WOW - you're on a roll!!!! Keep going and thanks for the motivation 🙂

yeah, I am a task oriented, list maker that needs to keep busy :geek: 🙂
I am also motivated by economics as recent reports on how prices have risen over the past year ( e.g. fuel is up about 25%) explains why we are feeling pinched even though we make a decent wage.
My spouse is tolerant of my prepping but is not interested (yet!) to do more than that, so I prep for the whole family, like many of you here.

Got 3 more cord of wood delivered...now just got to stack it. This brings the total to 7...aiming for 10.

The "go bag"is basically complete! Tools, hunting knife, manuals, first aid, firestarters, water, clothes, shelter, food and water,extras like playings cards, large sewing kit...in an old canvas hiker backpack that just keeps going on and going, I was amazed at how much it held!

More staples: flour, various dried beans, rice, cooking oil, peanut butter, vinegar, bouillon, a few sauces, seasonings, salt. Another 10 litres of water. First aid kit almost complete, an suturing kit on order and a few more o.t.c meds to purchase. ( My daughter was overseas in Afghanistan, she was the triage medic for their team and has really helped me in this area)

My cool find of the week, an old non-electric percolator at a thrift store for $4. (Not really a prep item unless you are a die-hard coffee lover like myself I guess.;) ) A little scrubbing and it shined up like new!

Billyrubin, what a great resource that link is! I wish I had known about it sooner! 🙂
My medical resources/reading so far are "Where there is no doctor" http://weblife.org/pdf/where_there_is_no_doctor.pdf , "Where there is no dentist" http://weblife.org/pdf/where_there_is_no_doctor.pdf . I downloaded a How to Suture Course off of Amazon and have been transferring the contents into a small notebook for the go bag.

Try this youtube video for suturing...
http://www.youtube.com/user/drbonespodcast?feature=grec_index#p/a/u/1/5GlkuxNdTgc

The grocery flyer's arrived and some of our usual meal planning foods are on sale, beans, tomato, pasta, peanut butter. Bought 24 cans of diced tomato, 36 cans of beans, 10 kg of peanut butter and 8 litres of water. The food storage shelves are filling in nicely.

We have three grab and go knapsacks prepped in the cupboard. I want to re-organize them so each one is its own survival pack. Right now one is cooking and heat, another first aid and tools, and another food and water.

One concern is that one family member has a colostomy (anyone else here? ) so I need to factor in hygiene and supplies for that condition. I have been looking at the various toileting options and for the moment have settled on something called Double Doodie bags from Cdn Tire. Any other suggestions? Thinking of both bug in situations, where we stay at home but no running water; and bug out where we may be on the move with no access to toilets.

3 more cord of wood in & stacked...to date total is 7, 3 more to go.
Finished the siding on another wall of the house and sealed up some cracks around the windows along the way.
Bulk Barn finally opened in town so that is our destination tomorrow.
Got the generator oil changed and she runs like a charm!

My DH and I attended a workshop called: The Living Sustainably and Independently, Ready for Rough Times, Hands-On, Solar-Powered, All You Can Grow Workshop
at Cam and Michelle Mathers Off-Grid Farm. It was amazing! I am still thinking and digesting everything I heard and saw there. Most of it was familiar but it was nice to talk to other in-the-flesh crazy people like me 🙂

Hi, anitapreciouspearl. That workshop sounds pretty cool, how long was it? Many people there? Can you tell us a bit about your experience there?

As for prepping this week, I haven't been doing much, haven't been up to par, health-wise, the last couple weeks. Still collecting recycled plastic buckets and other plastic food storage containers from work. Haven't been able to get anything larger than the one gallon size, but they're free, so not complaining.

Hey, Denob. That's pretty ambitious of you, chopping all that wood, 10 cords sounds like a lot, is that what you need to get through a whole winter? My dad has been chopping wood this year also, pretty good for a 76yr old man. He lives in a big old house by himself now that my mom is in complex care. Last year he tried to just get by on oil, heating just the bathroom and the kitchen where he also sleeps. But he didn't like it, so this year it is back to supplementing with the wood stove in the basement. He gets the wood free from his brother's land up island.

Took all the hard Halloween candy that the kids said 'meh' to and sealed it up. Hey does anyone know how long pasta will keep for? And we just had the bathrooms rebuilt at work so I got 4 huge rolls of TP.

Pressure canned 9 pints of hamburger and final 4 quarts of garden tomatoes to add to the pantry, purchased 50 lbs of organic rolled oats and 25 lbs of organic jasmine rice and got those bucketed up and added to the long-term food storage, organized canning shelves in the basement as canning season is winding down, as a family we put together "at school" (we have teens, probably won't work for younger kids) and "at work" 72-hour kits together (husband works downtown) as we are heading into the snowy season and people can get stuck away from home, organized home emergency evac items better in coat closet, went through everyone's winter wardrobes and pulled outgrown items to hand on/donate.

Pressure canned 9 pints of hamburger and final 4 quarts of garden tomatoes to add to the pantry, purchased 50 lbs of organic rolled oats and 25 lbs of organic jasmine rice and got those bucketed up and added to the long-term food storage, organized canning shelves in the basement as canning season is winding down, as a family we put together "at school" (we have teens, probably won't work for younger kids) and "at work" 72-hour kits together (husband works downtown) as we are heading into the snowy season and people can get stuck away from home, organized home emergency evac items better in coat closet, went through everyone's winter wardrobes and pulled outgrown items to hand on/donate.

You sound like my kinda girl!! I love canning too 🙂 Welcome to the boards if I haven't already said so! 😛