The dehydrating I have been doing in the greenhouse has been going fantastic but the amount of wasps I has been attracting made we want to move the operation away from the house incase they decided to stay after the feast was done...so, mid job crunch, I had to improvise quickly. This gave me the opportunity to teach you folks something from my original series on techniques for the poor or under prepared prepper. The simplest way to store food is to dehydrate it. If you have to improvise, recycled window screens work well and your car becomes the solar heat generator. The windows are left open a crack for air circulation. Best if you do this on a windy but sunny day. It may take a few days. The wind blowing through the cracked window whisks the moisture away. If moisture is building up on the windows, open the crack a bit further. Close it overnight. You will still get wasps but they will leave once the food is removed. Today I am dehydrating wind fall apples for winter pig food. The amount of shrinkage concentration deeply reduces the storage space required and imperfect apples will not store very long on their own.
We had severe gas shortages this week in our Provence. Something I will talk about in a future post. It left a lot of unprepared people stranded, unable to get to work or provide public services. Some day, this car will be stranded for good. Suddenly it will become a fine dehydrator in the early fall and a useful greenhouse for early plant starts in the spring. All those mondo pickup trucks will also make fine raised bed gardens 😆
I have a Tactical Harness and I have a Tool Belt. The Tool Belt is more Useful.
Now that you see what I am doing I have to remind you of a very important rule.
C5 rule of survival- There is a big difference between KNOWING in the Biblical sense and KNOWING in the PORN sense.
(for those that don't get the joke, "Knowing" in the biblical sense means having sex)
You saw this and thought "Aha". Reality Check. Dehydrating takes practice...or...you could lose everything you worked hard to put into it to mold. Its like the hay farmer that must get the right conditions. You could lose an entire crop if you judge the weather wrong. You need a few days of full dry to get the full job done or you lose it all. That takes experience, hard work once it presents itself...and luck. Dehydrating is fickle here in Canada. The moment a crop comes in the exact moment the weather turns cold or wet. It takes practice and suffering some losses. The other option is carefully storing your crop until your woodstove fires and then repeating this above your stove...or a lamp or your heat vent. If you live in a dry climate, this is easy. If you live in humid conditions or a tropical storm is heading your way...not so much. So you must know in the biblical sense before you role around with the pretty but fickle biatches. Start with only one or two trays. Its all about judging the heat and airflow. Too much heat and no air flow, its just a solar cooker. Too little heat and you are just flopping flaccid. So, go out and practice from your mistakes long before the pretty biatch, mother nature, dumps your awkward, inexperience arse.
I have a Tactical Harness and I have a Tool Belt. The Tool Belt is more Useful.
That's brilliant and funny all in one.