June 2nd Hidden Valley Meet

waiting for old School to chime in ..it was her show 🙂
i had a ....oppps i got to wait.

Lol why the heck do you have to wait for me 😀

So who is going to do a thread with the meet details

i will if you want 🙂

You guys are just teasin us poor folks that spent all day wishing they could have got to hang out with everyone, and instead, I am have spent the day in lawn care, and puttin in my ma's garden 🙂 I hope? that my package did arrive in time but if for any reason it didn't, consider a gift old School for all your hard work 🙂

I think since it was basically your meet and plan that everyone is waiting for your opinion and critique of how the day went.

i will if you want 🙂

Yes please.

ok working on it

What a day!

Oldschool (great job on this one! It was awesome!)
GrouchyPrepper
Ranger2012
Mason
Rusty
Greenguy
Salt and Prepper
Justabear
Duer
Em Ty
Classynewfie
Healthkate
Perfesser
(sorry if I forgot anyone!!!)
and some spouses, family members and friends tagged along too 🙂

Coffee was brewed, solar oven was made, fire was started (yes it was, using some glass from an overhead projector, just a twig at the end of the day) and samples of food were had, many friendships were made!
There was jerky, salads, cookies, dehydrated cake, SHTF sandwich, pickled eggs, dried watermelon, garlic chives, again, I apologize if I missed something.
We all congregated under the pavilion, awaiting possible rain that didn't come, chatting and jumping in on each others conversations. It was really nice to exchange ideas and tips and tricks face to face!
Discussions ranged from solar ovens and generators to gardening and canning to when are we doing this again??? lol
Thanks to all who came out and we missed those who weren't able to make it (really hope you can make it next time!) and it was a great day!
I know I missed stuff so PLEASE add to this everyone! I will post the jerky recipe and solar oven pics in a few minutes (uploading is taking forever!) 😀

It sounds like an awesome time! Wish I could have been there..... looking forward to pics and more input!

SORRY!!! I have tried to resize these pics, photobucket won't let me and Flickr is being a PITA!!! So they are HUGE!! 🙁

Solar Oven pics.
What you need... we should all have this in our homes! Easy to do!

After using glue to coat the cardboard and taping the side of the box, you make the rack out of coat hangers!
(I have seen this online a hundred times but honestly didn't "get it" til I saw Ranger doing it.)

Poke holes in the side for the hanger rack to hang from!

use wire to hold up the sides of the cardboard on the top. This holds the window/glass in place and reflects more light into the oven.

The finished product! Takes under an hour to complete! (really is a simple process that just looks complicated!)

the AMAZING and addicting and did I say AMAZING? Beef Jerky recipe!
I could eat 10 pounds of this and still want more... delish!

THANKS Old School for all you did for the meet.
the munches where great.
hope to do it again.....count me in on the next one everyone.

Well done guys. Sounds like a great meet!

I wanted to say thank you to everyone that made the day possible. I am sorry that I did not have the chance to spend time talking in length to everyone. Next meet.

Thanks for the summary post Mama. Good thing you took pictures.

There was so much information given yesterday that my head is spinning and I am having problems remembering everything. 😳

Just a few additional things that I found interesting:
A lovely man gave us the shelter yesterday. He was there before we got there and by all rights he could have said no when I asked if we could use the space.
There was a midwife “meeting” next to the shelter. At first there was a bit of a mmmmm issue(?) lol, but it turned out in the end. A few people from the midwife group came over to watch and learn.

Perfessor – could you post how you made the biltong?

Greenguy – are you sure you wont fill all those lovely mylar bags for me lol

Grouchy – since my head is still spinning, could you post how you did the sealing of the bags? Sorry but atm all I remember is the straw.

I kind of heard the tail end of a talk on oxygen absorbers. Could someone post the details on that? That was one of the things I was hoping to learn about yesterday.

Once again, thank you everyone that was there and those that were there in spirit. 😀

The solar oven that I made here was the absolute basic box design with no additional cardboard on the side for insulation. The glass on top wasn’t cut to size and the reflectors needed re-enforcement so that the were flat. But my purpose there was to show the fundamentals of building one, and what was required, all within an hour, someone told me that it was less but it felt longer. That solar oven will slow cook a meal within 4-6 hours with direct sunlight, less time with more insulation on it. I hope this demonstration was informative to most of you. Next time though I listening to the other topics, I missed a lot there.

Great meeting, I certainly learnt a lot!

thanks old School for arranging it....loved your oven ranger...and grouchyprepper has inspired me to start
dehydrating. Am going to scan the second hand stores and stock up on glass containers. We also dropped
by Dollarama and found the $2.00 bamboo sticks...Gary wants to use them to make a geodesic greenhouse!

What fun...

Healthkate