Category Archives: Momma Bear

Momma Bear: Figuring Out How To Make Food Storage Work

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At our house food storage is a complicated issue. We all face obstacles to our prepping, whether it is financial, lack of family support, or just being unknowledgeable. I grew up poor, so you might say I have “food issues.” And when I say poor, I mean that I really only finished my senior year of high school because they provided low-income families two free meals a day; for me the school part was just the filler between my meals.  But what I did not realize until recently, thanks to the article: The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor, is that growing up that way affects how I shop for food even today. After 20 years of marriage, with a much more substantial income, I was still shopping paycheck to paycheck. I had the mentality of only buying exactly what we immediately needed.  But once I became a prepper, I had to retrain myself to “buy extra.”

One obstacle of the ‘poverty cycle’ I was able to break, was my love of packaged foods. Packaged foods are cheap, have a long-shelf life, and feed more people than fresh foods do. Poor people eat lots of these, essentially training their bodies to expect high fat, high carb, and high sugar as the core of their diet. This causes their bodies crave these foods and, as a result, they tend to be frequently overweight, even obese. I was able to overcome this and have raised my children on fresh, home-made meals with plenty of vegetables. Though the flip-side of this is that it’s really hard to reconcile my love of fresh foods and wanting to stock my long-term food storage. To combat this personal conflict, we have been gardening and canning foods at home. I feel that at least then I can control exactly what ingredients are in my “canned” foods. (It has also been a great teaching tool for my children.)

I do not believe that there is only one way to have/create/do food storage. I believe that how we choose to store food needs to be a reflection of our families and who we are as preppers. Here is my take on different types of food storage:

Food Storage Theory 1: Most preppers live by the simple motto “store what you eat, eat what you store.” This is the simplest way to store food, one giant pantry that is in a constant rotation as part of your daily household diet. Most commonly you will see shelves filled with canned and packaged foods, and buckets of rice and beans. It makes prepping very easy because your goal is to store the same things in increasingly larger quantity, and you never run the risk of waste because you know you will use it. I applaud people who do this because they are able to use everything without risk of waste.  Although I have increased the amount of beans and other previously unknown foods my family eats, they will never be lovers of beans or packaged foods. This storage method simply doesn’t work for our family.

Food Storage Theory 2: This is the idea of having two separate food “pantries”, one that is for your regular rotational use and one that is exclusively long-term food storage (that you won’t eat unless the SHTF). The rotating pantry contains basic items that wouldn’t be the core of any diet, but that you do regularly eat, and could enhance the longer term food storage. At our house this is condiments, oils, canned vegetables, powdered broths, etc. The long-term food storage then consists of large quantities of beans, pasta, rice, TVP, and an assortment of canned and packaged foods that are NOT even part of our regular diet. This is a more expensive way to prep because you run the risk of possibly never using that long-term food storage and at some point you will have to decide what to do with it as it ages. This is how our family is storing food.

Food Storage Theory 3: This is a combination of the first two Theories, plus fresh foods from a garden and a renewable protein source raised at home (chickens, rabbits, goats, etc.). These are the people that are pushing for the greatest level of self-sufficiency should the SHTF. Many of us may never be able to attain this goal for a number of reasons. For instance, local ordinances restrict us from owning chickens, and although we are allowed to have rabbits, “processing” them at home is illegal. Even if we could, I’m not sure we would chose some of those options; I applaud those that can achieve this level of self-sufficiency.

My post next month will focus on specifics of food storage: container choices, canning and dehydrating, and purchasing bulk items from Costco or Sams Club. I would love to hear feedback from other preppers as to how they store food.

Momma Bear’s September Preps

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September has arrived and we are seriously looking forward to cooler weather! We decided to shut down the garden a little early in expectation of heavy duty leaf raking. I filled my two compost barrels with the old plant foliage and with the dirt from my container gardens (except the one I am waiting to go to seed). We will be augmenting the barrels throughout the winter with egg shells, coffee grounds, etc. The plan is to use the two barrels of compost to refill the containers in the spring.

As mentioned, my ham radio came and, as I thought, it’s complicated! But I am signed up to take my licensing classes next month. I even discovered that my town has a ham radio store!

Last week Trace mentioned the website aGirlandherGun.org. I met “Girl” at a mutual friend’s house where we had gathered to watch a football game.  Having never met her before, we were talking and something set my antenna buzzing. I finally looked at her and said, “Are you a prepper?” She is the first local prepper I have met! We had a great evening with lots of discussion about guns and self-protection. If you have not yet had a chance to check out Girl’s website, please do. She is a firearms instructor, and is also taking EMT courses with her husband. You will see that prepping is relatively new to her also, and for a very serious reason. Interestingly, Girl is the second woman fire-arms instructor I know (the other being Pistol Packing Ladies, LLC). So along that train of thought…the husband and I will be taking our gun class next week at the Nation’s Gun Show outside of Washington, D.C. This will allow us to apply for our concealed carry permits. Though neither of us have decided yet if we will carry, we want to at least prepare and get permits.

Lastly, I have moved fish antibiotics (see Trace’s post Antibiotics In Your Preps?), and books on medications, to the top of our prepper purchase list. This last week the husband “humped” out of the field with a very deep blister in the ball of his foot (If you are not familiar with this phrase, it means Marine Corps camping in which you train and hike 20 or so miles with a 70-80 pound pack, carrying everything you need to eat, sleep, and shoot). He had done everything right: changed his socks regularly, removed his boots to sleep, powdered his feet, etc. But he still managed to get one really deep blister. As a long time Marine and marathoner, my husband teaches others on the importance of foot care. Initially it looked okay, and there were no visible breaks in the skin. Medical opted not to drain the blister because it was so deep, saying he was “good to go” (military slang for fine). But within 36 hours his foot was swollen, red and angry-looking, and he was running a fever. It looked like he had a Fred Flintstone foot that was about ready to split open. We both knew he had a raging case of cellulitis and needed antibiotic treatment. Cellulitis is a bacterial infection which, if left untreated, can lead to a more serious–even life-threatening–type of infections known as sepsis. It can also be resistant to antibiotics, and it is not uncommon to have to take IV antibiotic treatment. In any event, my husband was fine once he started his antibiotics. I personally am allergic to a number of antibiotics, including the one he was treated with, so it is imperative for us to carefully stock the right antibiotics. This was a good reminder of how something as common as a blister can quickly lead to a serious health risk; imagine how you would treat this in a post-collapse situation…

What’s next on your prepper training schedule?

Momma Bear: MRE’s For Your Preps?

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‘Meals Refused by Everyone’ is a not-so-affectionate term for Meals Ready to Eat (MRE). MREs are the field rations that our military eats whenever they are out training or on military operations. Though some preppers have chosen to stock up on cases of MREs, there are many who have avoided MREs due to their mystery and the stereotype of bad military food. Having grown up with a step-dad who served in Vietnam (and into the 1980’s), I was pretty familiar with the old school military C-Rations, which came in cans and required the use of a small personal can opener. The only redeeming quality found in those early rations was the cardboard like caffeine-laden chocolate bar that I loved. But today’s MREs are not only much better tasting, but have a better variety of foods, and meet a rigorous nutritional standard.

An MRE is made up of roughly 1300 calories: 169 grams of carbs, 41 grams of protein, and 50 grams of fat. Yes, that is a LOT of carbs and fat!  But remember that this nutritional standard was designed for our military, classified as ultra-athletes, “exercising” in a combat environment. A typical MRE is made up of a: main course, side dish (fruit/vegetable usually), bread or snack item (pound cake, tortillas, crackers, candy, peanut butter, jelly, etc.), beverage of some sort (coffee, tea, kool-aid, an electrolyte-type drink, and/or hot cocoa), matches, gum, condiments, and a spoon.

They come in a sealed plastic package and weigh 1.5 pounds. They also contain a “flameless ration heater”,  a chemical pouch that heats up when activated with water, to heat your main course. The average service member only consumes about one or two of these a day, because they are just too dense to eat as three square meals. Also, most service members “field strip” their MREs down to the parts they know they are going to use to reduce their bulk.

There are 24 MRE menus. The meals come in two case lots: menus 1-12 and 13-24 (and include specific vegetarian and religious meals). MREs are considered to be shelf stable for six months at 100 degrees and three years at 80 degrees (see side bar chart). There are two ways that packaging dates are listed on MRE cases: 1) A standard pack date (as shown in the photo of a military issued case) and 2) A numeric date, listing the last digit of the year followed by the Julian date of packaging (so my husband’s same box is: 0200, meaning it was packed on the 200th day of 2010). Currently, the military uses three manufacturers for production of MREs: Wornick Company, SOPAKCO, and AmeriQual; I mention this because there are a lot of pseudo-MREs out there.

My husband unofficially rates MRE’s in three categories: good, okay and nasty. His “goods” include: chili with beans, beef ravioli, chicken with noodles, chili & macaroni, spicy penne pasta w vegetarian sausage. His “okays”: meatballs with marinara, cheese tortellini, beef patty, spaghetti with meat sauce. And his “nastys”: beef brisket and beef stew. These are his ratings, I’ll ask around in the next few months for some reviews by my husband’s troops. Personally, I find the spicy types of MREs to cause killer heartburn, and I wouldn’t want to be in the field without a good antacid! Though the meals claim to be balanced in the fiber department they need to be consumed with sufficient water, or they will literally leave you in a “bind”. But overall–as long as you are not eating more than two a day–they are a good, handy meal that certainly has a place in most preppers’ food storage and Bug-Out Bags.

Also of mention, the MRE heavy plastic pouch itself is extremely durable and can be used for holding/carrying water.  While the packaging is not currently being recycled or made from recycled materials, the package does certainly have multiple uses that are only limited by the imagination. While serving in Somalia, my husband reported that the local children would salvage the packages out of the trash to be used as shingles on their homes.

The Operational Rations of the Department of Defense provides a pdf file that gives the entire background on MREs, and includes the complete menus for 2011 and 2012.

 

Momma Bear’s August Preps

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August has been madhouse crazy for us with plenty of work and personal commitments. We have not done as much prepping as I would like. BUT, when we are too busy for physical preps I can always use the time to learn new things. This month’s field of study focused on EMP’s. I found two sites to be particularly informative. The first, The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, includes two reports that describe the recommendations for how we should prepare for an EMP strike. It is interesting to read,  because you quickly grasp that this report was essentially poo-poo’d by our government and we remain ridiculously unprepared for such an attack. The second is a website that talks about home-made faraday cages designed to protect small electronic devices. After reading this, my son and I built a small faraday cage out of an old microwave; then placed our small shortwave radio inside.

This month we also made a few purchases. Following Trace and Sarah’s lead, we ordered the Duracell 813-0807 800 Watt DC to AC Digital Power Inverter. For the time being, we have opted not to buy a generator and this will be our interim solution. With three vehicles, we can surely spare one to power some things here at home. My second purchase was a ham radio. We are absolute beginners with ham radios and are not really looking to broadcast (just to receive information from a distance in an emergency), so we opted for a small, inexpensive hand-held model. We ordered the BaoFeng UV-5R 136-174/400-480 MHz Dual-Band DTMF CTCSS DCS FM Ham Two Way Radio, for less than $60. There is a more basic model available, but after reading some reviews we felt this one was a better choice. All that said, even this basic model is a complex item that is going to take some research to understand. Thankfully, there is always the internet and YouTube to answer our questions. And, of course, once we get this thing mastered it will also be going into the faraday cage. Our goal is that eventually all the BOB’s will have either shortwave or ham radios in them as well. I will report back next month on how the ham radio learning is going!

Last for this month, I continue to harvest tomatoes as they ripen and can them as tomatoes, salsa or ketchup. We have finally gotten over the real HEAT of the summer here so the garden isn’t quite so “needy” any more. We currently have green onions, cilantro, and baby spinach coming up in containers. These are probably our most eaten/purchased vegetables so we are really enjoying the fruits of our labor at the moment!

How did your month go, and how’s your garden growing?

(Monday: September is National Preparedness Month)

Momma Bear: Our Favorite Military Things

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Just to clarify (again), being in the military is NOT synonymous with being a prepper. But, it does give you an edge on preparedness. So, I thought I would highlight some of our family’s favorite military items that we use and have in our GOOD (Get Out of Dodge*) bags and/or car kits.

Military boots have come a LONG way since Vietnam and even Desert Storm. There are a number of  “military-approved manufacturers” these days and the boots come in a variety of styles to fit the working conditions. Gone are the days of just “steel toe” or “no steel toe”. There are quality boots for hot weather, cold weather, ultra lightweight, steel toe, and everything in between. The least expensive cost about $100. My husband’s favorites (and mind you, shoes/boots are a very personal choice) are the Bates Durashocks Hot Weather boot, which run about $140. These are a medium weight, suede boot in a natural leather color. He wears these even in cold weather because he says the cold weather boots make your feet sweat unless temperatures constantly stay below 35 degrees. Around military bases there are still shoe repair places (cobblers), so it is common to have your favorite boots resoled and repaired rather than buying new ones.

When it comes to staying warm and dry, layering is the best method. Two invaluable items, in the military, for this are: Gore-Tex and liners. Gore-Tex is a high-end trademarked fabric used for making outer apparel water-proof and breathable. Most commonly you will see these as big, hooded camo jackets with matching pants. These can be expensive when purchased for personal use, but can be found used and are truly worth their weight in gold. The second component, which you can also find used–and these are inexpensive–are the jacket and pants liners. These are made of a ‘poofy’, olive drab, quilted fabric very similar to a parachute. They are very light weight, easy to compress, and excellent for layering under coats. We purchased a 10-pack of used jacket liners for about $35, including shipping, from eBay. I personally am terrible about NOT wearing coats, even in the winter, so I keep a couple of these stashed in my kit in the trunk of my car.

The last thing I will mention is the military poncho liner, affectionately known in the military as a “wooby”. It is made from the same parachute type quilted fabric as the jacket/pants liners. It is also easy to compress and pack along. BUT, in my opinion, it’s greatest strength is that things don’t stick to it. That means I can use it in sand or dirt, then just pick it up and shake it off. Even pet fur tends to just slide right off. Also it will not only keep you warm, but when used in a warm climate it feels cool against your skin (you won’t sweat up against it). Since the military changed to a digital camo pattern, there are plenty of these for sale in the outdated “woodland” camo pattern. They can be found online from about $10-30. Our family owns several, keeps them in our GOOD Bags, and also packs them along whenever we travel.

All of these items are easy to find online through military supply sites, or eBay. Most of them originally came from military sources; when the military discontinues items, they put them up at bulk auctions and people buy them in large lots (for example “400 mixed size jacket liners”). Dealers will buy these large quantities and then resell them in smaller lots or even individually, thus giving you access to genuine military-issue gear.

Building a good GOOD kit/BOB doesn’t have to be expensive or fancy, even when it comes to things to keep you warm and dry. You can get some pretty good deals using old military surplus items. Imagine, your very own veteran wooby could be just a mouse click away!

(Friday: What We Did This Week To Prep)

*A complete list of acronyms used can be found in the ‘Check Here…‘ tab at the top of the page.

Momma Bear’s July Preps

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The end of June brought northern Virginia and lower Maryland a serious, and very sudden, storm that resulted in more than a week without power to over a million homes. While we were not personally without power, there were food and ice shortages at some neighborhood stores as supply chains were rerouted or disrupted. It was a great opportunity to talk to our family about heat related illnesses and to review what we would have done for more than a week without A/C in 100+ degree weather. While we have a fireplace to stay warm during cold weather power outages, staying cool in the summer is much harder without power. We are now considering getting a generator, in part, to run a small window A/C unit. We’re also considering some solar battery chargers to power electronic devices. The least expensive option, which we will probably do first, is to get an inverter for our automobile outlets so that we could charge our cell phones and laptops. I think we are going to plan a “power outage drill” weekend in the fall. It will be an opportunity to see if our planning is really living up to our needs.

The biggest weakness we found in our preparations was that simple drinking water is not always enough when the emergency/disaster is during a heat wave. In a long-term, high heat situation–especially during strenuous activity–a Gatorade-type drink is recommended to replace the electrolytes that are lost. So we have added that to our LTS list (diluting it to half strength which is a better ratio for the body, and helps avoid stomach aches and cramping). You can make your own electrolyte oral rehydration solution. Into a quart/liter of water add: 3 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 teaspoon table salt and 1/4 teaspoon potassium chloride (bought as salt substitute, e.g. Morton Salt Substitute or Nu-salt) (note: if you don’t have access to potassium chloride double the amount of table salt to 1 teaspoon). Overall though our home is pretty well prepared for a week or more without power. We continue to stock up on alternative cooking fuels (charcoal, propane, butane, and sterno), as well as foods that require minimal cooking, and comfort foods.

After six years out of the country, we have recently purchased fishing gear and licenses (still searching for the perfect boat though). Although none of us are overly experienced fishermen we have begun/resumed fishing — though at this point it’s catch and release. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, the types of fish we have here are quite a bit different from what we are used to so it’s all about practice. Bass and catfish are the most common and they require larger hooks and stronger line than what we use for trout back home. We are fortunate to live near a number of lakes, and the Potomac River, so there is ample opportunity to practice.

My tomatoes are also growing like gangbusters; I picked one yesterday that is over a pound. This past weekend I canned my first batch of ketchup. It is a little on the gourmet side for flavor (meaning the grownups like it but the kids don’t). Next up for canning is fire roasted tomato salsa. My husband, who is quite the city boy, has been blown away by the idea that we are storing food that we actually grew ourselves, and from which I have harvested seeds for next year’s garden. Like Sarah, I have kept a garden journal to keep track of what is and isn’t working. We are already looking forward to next year to try a few different vegetables and probably more containers since our sunny spots are not necessarily gardenable otherwise. We are working as best we can with what we have.

How is your summer going? What are you canning or storing?

(Monday: Building In Redundancies In Case You Aren’t Available)

Momma Bear: Women’s Maladies

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Sometimes being a woman is really the pits. I imagine it will be even worse in a post-SHTF society where our modern, quick-fix, take a pill for it remedies are no longer available. I’m talking about those dreaded conditions that are almost exclusively “women’s ailments”: yeast infections, vaginosis, vulvitis, UTIs, hemorrhoids, leaky bladders, migraines and menopause. Bleck! So what is the best way to prep for these lovely maladies? Like other areas of preparedness, we need to tackle this with a multi-step approach.

Knowledge: Know your body. You need to be able to recognize the warning signs of an impending ailment so that you can attempt to prevent a full-blown illness. Know your genetic predispositions and history. Ask your mother, grandmothers, and aunts about what female health conditions run in your family. Heredity is a funny thing and frequently cannot be avoided. While you may maintain a painstakingly rigorous “healthy lifestyle,” sometimes nature still throws that heredity-curveball at you. You might be young enough that many of these have not yet happened to you, but at least study up and be prepared to recognize and treat them if they occur (to you or others). In my family we get three main conditions: hemorrhoids, leaky bladders, and menstrual migraines. The first two can normally be treated by surgery and the last can be controlled by using birth control pills and prescription meds. But what will we do without access to routine medical care and medications?

Prepare: If there are medications you can get that you might need someday, GET THEM and stock up. You might never have had a yeast infection in your life, but if you live someplace hot and humid and suddenly your life has no A/C, infrequent baths and changes of clothing (because you are washing everything by hand!), you might have a serious run in with a yeast infection. Stock up on any OTC meds that you can. The other way to prepare is to not put off those elective surgeries (this seems to have been mentioned in plenty of other articles). These days both leaky bladders and hemorrhoids can be treated with surgery, but they are not ones that most of us would rush right out to get. I think you will find that surgery is preferred over living with the problem in a post-SHTF world. Last, maybe cleanliness IS next to godliness. Keeping clean and dry will prevent some of these conditions from starting in the first place. The military has been doing this for years…with feet. Every time they stop, they change their socks because it prevents a plethora of foot ailments. I say every time you sweat too much, change those undies. If you can’t stay cool, at least stay dry.

Take your knowledge a step further: None of these ailments are new. How did they treat these ailments in the past? Or how do they treat them now in third world countries? Look for “old school” remedies. Read up, research, ask someone very old who grew up in a rural environment what they did. For instance, yogurt is a common treatment for yeast infections (and I am not talking about eating it). And here I mean all natural, home-made, BASIC yogurt, not the flavored variety they carry in the grocery stores today. Culturing your own yogurt at home is actually pretty easy to do, but few Americans do it. Drinking cranberry juice works well for treating UTIs. There are “alternative” treatments for a number of ailments, but most of us have grown up in a society where these remedies have become obsolete due to our easy access to medications.

It will take time to research and practice these remedies before the SHTF. But it’s better to practice it now when you don’t need the remedy desperately.  Like other types of medical care, it is best to study up long before the SHTF!

(Friday: What We Did This Week To Prep)

Momma Bear’s June Preps

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My June preps have kept me busy with my beginner’s garden. My family has been wonderful taking turns watering and weeding! My tomatoes got over their initial aphid romance — no more picking off bugs by hand; now I just go out to talk to them, tie them to the stakes as they continue to grow skyward, and sucker them off as they blossom. The first tomatoes (the two determinant plants) were almost ready to harvest when the squirrels started eating them. I am now covering them, and the blueberry bush, with ‘bird netting’ and hoping that will be sufficient to keep away the squirrels. We also had our first harvest of FIVE blueberries! We did not actually anticipate any fruit from the blueberry or blackberry bushes this first year, but they seem to be doing well since they are putting off a few handfuls of berries. Quite a pleasant surprise to be eating berries this year!

This month we have been doing some research and are thinking about buying a used boat. Although we live close to the interstate, and not too far from Washington D.C.–imagine the gridlock in an emergency–we are also only a walk from the Potomac River (and exactly 10 miles from our marina located on a secure military installation). We have been boating with various friends, learning, and considering the many different types of boats available. A boat would serve as both a recreational and bug out vehicle. There are many great deals out there on used boats due to the poor economy, but we are taking our time before we find just the right one. Has anyone else opted for a boat as a bug out vehicle/home?

Lastly this month, I have hit a turning point on the food storage program. While I have a big storage room in my basement, my food storage has reached a size that requires me to start reducing my other “stuff” to keep meeting my food storage goals. This is both a happy and sad occasion since it means I will be downsizing in some ways, while still building my food security. At the same time, I do not want to become a hoarder that can’t stop keeping/saving things (food included). The other difficulty with food storage, for us, is that we try to eat fresh rather than canned/packaged foods; so every item I store is not necessarily part of my household food rotation. How do YOU decide exactly what foods to store? Has anyone else had to make space compromises to continue storing food? At what point do we ever have enough food stored? When is one area of “prepping” ever complete or enough? I am sure these are all issues we share in common. I would love to hear some feedback about it.

What did you do?

 

Momma Bear: Birth Control

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We have grown up in a world where birth control is readily available. Now that I am in my 40’s, my tubes are tied so you might think I wouldn’t consider it a high priority. But birth control should be a knowledge priority for every prepper. While I personally no longer need to remember how to practice natural family planning, I am the mother of children who will likely marry and have their own children. It is our job as preppers to be teachers and impart as much knowledge and as many skills as possible to the next generations in a post-SHTF world, birth control knowledge included.

For those of you who currently use birth control but are done having children, I encourage you to look at a surgical procedure NOW to prevent unexpected conception. This is the same prepper approach of making sure we are all up to date on our medical and dental needs in case the SHTF (don’t put off the elective stuff!). For men, a vasectomy is a simple outpatient procedure with low risk of complications. For women, the tubal ligation is more involved and carries a higher risk of complications, but it is still considered a safe outpatient procedure. And both are considered routine elective surgeries covered by almost every health insurance plan. Should you choose not to go with the sterilization route, you can look at non-medication birth control like diaphragms/cervical caps. Although these will not last forever, they may be a more practical option than storing a case of condoms. One thing I would suggest to anyone who uses an “internal” form of birth control (such as an IUD or implant of meds), consider the potential risk of not being able to have them removed post-SHTF.

For knowledge and teaching purposes, we should all familiarize ourselves with the concept of natural family planning.  And by this I do NOT mean the old school rhythm method or anything like that. I know we have all had the classes in school about reproduction, but how many of us know the intricate details well enough to teach them? I feel that the best resources for learning to avoid pregnancies are the same ones that you study for trying to get pregnant: books about infertility. There are many more resources for infertility than there are for natural family planning. Infertility books focus, in minute detail, on the signs and symptoms of the fertility cycle. Basically, by studying how to get pregnant you can also learn how to avoid pregnancy–you are studying with a “WHAT NOT TO DO” approach; essentially learning when to avoid sexual activity. This is not 100% fail safe because women do not all have the same biology. But it is the best possibility we have of avoiding pregnancy without modern medicine.

There may be natural birth control products that you want to study and read up about. There are even a number of semi-useful ideas that evolved into modern-day birth control (bolstered by medications and chemicals). For instance, for centuries women made their own contraceptive sponges that they soaked in some liquid with sperm killing properties. This is an early predecessor to the Today brand contraceptive sponges. There are useful ideas out there, but you will need to weed out the old wives tales from the practical knowledge.

Why do I feel birth control is so important? Why do I think we all need to intimately understand natural family planning? Quite simply, pregnancy without medical care (i.e. a post-SHTF society) will mean an increased death-rate for women and newborns. My first child was over ten pounds and I had to have a complicated and risky C-Section (excessively large babies and twins run in our family.) In a post-SHTF world, that is a risk we would all want to avoid for our children. Remember that this topic is important and make sure you’re prepared with the knowledge to get it right when it is your turn to teach.

(Friday: What We Did This Week To Prep)

Momma Bear’s May Preps

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May’s preps might have been a little obsessive. I am one of those people that likes to learn something new–and master it–before moving on to the next thing. May’s preps (in addition to making the usual stockpile purchases) have been almost exclusively focused on gardening, tomatoes mostly, and on my new food dehydrator.

I have decided that gardening is about one-half learned and about one-half luck and mother nature, and I am severely behind the learning curve. I’ve also discovered that rodents have teeth sharp enough to cut through chicken wire to get into my delicate young blueberry bush. Luckily I caught it early on and have since replaced the caging with a thick grade of plastic fencing. On a positive note, we have already harvested the first of our cilantro and lettuce and replanted more.

The other steep learning curve has been with the tomatoes. The seedlings did not survive the cats, so we went to the hardware store and randomly picked six tomato plants and started them in buckets. Random is bad. A few weeks into the project I finally decided to look up the varieties we had purchased and I discovered that four of the six plants would grow up to ten feet tall and produce tomatoes between one and two pounds. Oops. Thus they will require tall, sturdy stakes and some extreme caging structures. So we built ridiculously tall tomato cage/planters (and probably spent too much money). The second thing, about the tomato plants, is that they are really sensitive and tricky; they are susceptible to too much sun or water and are prone to bugs. Every couple of days I am out there hand picking off bugs, spritzing neem oil, and suckering off (trimming unwanted new shoots). I would sincerely appreciate any advice/suggestions as my ultra-urban gardening neighbors only grow flowers!

My second obsession of the month is my new food dehydrator. After packing up our first few months of food stores (beans, pasta, rice, etc.) we decided to try another approach to food storage. Our food stores weigh a lot and would be difficult to lug if we were bugging out. Plus if we are in a longer term bug-in, say in a power outage situation (snowmagedon anyone?), beans take significant time to soak and cook. This would dwindle our fuel supply quickly. So what if we had homemade, family-sized dehydrated meals stored? Like a backpacker’s meal, only family sized and not store-bought. They would take up less space, require less preparation time and be more transportable (if needed). Also, my family just plain does not like beans and I have to find more creative quick and easy ways to use them beyond simple beans and rice. I have found about 15 dehydrated meal recipes, and have started dehydrating some of the ingredients to make meals. The idea is that I will prepare, then vacuum seal these meals in mason jars (short-term), and my family will try them over the next several months to see which they like best and which need adjustments. Ultimately, we will put the “approved recipes” into mylar bags with oxy absorbers for longer term, portable family meal storage. You can see the jars in the photo, each card has the directions on the back and a rating of quick, medium or long for cooking time.

You can pretty much dehydrate ANYthing and it will take up much less room in your cabinets, whether stored in mason jars or mylar. I am currently dehydrating cooked beans (the canned kind or cooked dried ones and then drying again in the dehydrator).These can be left as beans or ground into powder and added to the meals to sneak in the protein (the same with carrots which my family doesn’t really like either). They come out crunchier than the original, but are lighter and take less time to cook. I also dehydrate rice every time we have any left over from a meal. You can even dehydrate chicken breasts and lean ground beef, though we have not started this yet. I will say that the downside to the dehydrator is that it makes for some intensely smelly days here at home depending on what is drying. It also requires some prep work and occasionally some minor blanching/cooking of the food prior to dehydrating (potatoes especially or they turn black). But so far I am really enjoying the results and look forward to sampling the recipes.

What did you do to prep this month?