Bear here…

Friendly reminder, WINTER IS COMING … Unlike in the Game of Thrones series, our winters happen every year and it is best to be ready for them. This year could be especially rough due to the COVID virus and who knows what will happen with possibly more lockdowns, bad weather, and some people being just plain stupid. Being ready to stay home for a month or more at a time is a good plan. (Just in case anyone thinks this is political because I mentioned COVID, remember, IOWA had FREAKEN HURRICANE winds this Summer! So the weather may make you need to stay home too.) Most people go to the grocery store at least once a week along with picking up food when at gas stations. If you plan ahead, you can have plenty of food for a month or more and don’t need to panic if there is a food shortage in the stores. You don't solve the problem by not needing to go to the store, but you definitely will not be a part of making shortages worse. Keeping the pantry ready all year is definitely a stress reducer when trouble happens.
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BEING PREPARED IS THE BEST WAY NOT TO PANIC. If you have space and enough food for a month or more you don’t need to worry if you can’t travel to get more. Get an emergency supply that you can rotate once a year and have extras of nonemergency foods so your shopping trips can be more organized and you spend less time in the store.

​​Gotta love the pictures, which I hope are inspirational. Here are a few more tips, sadly without pictures...

• Know how you cook and always have plenty of the basics on hand... No, you don't cook much? Have plenty of canned or dried food ready instead. Peanut butter lasts a long time and dried pasta is easy. You bake? Buy your goods in bulk. Powdered milk takes a lot less space than regular milk. Remember if you fry a lot to have plenty of oil for backup.
• MAKE LISTS of what you need, like, and how much you go through. When there is one of something or you take the last of something from the pantry, put it on the grocery list for when you can go to the store. (I've heard running out of coffee or beer can be used as mental abuse in some divorce cases, DON'T quote me...) 
• Remember everyone, this is a good time to get feedback from the family on what they want to eat if supplies are limited. This is also a good time to show others how to cook some things so everyone can help make meals.
• The pets need food too. Stock up on extra for them.
• Remember condiments. Canned tuna tends to suck if there is no mayo. Kids tend to get perturbed if there is no ketchup or mustard. Also, ration the treats so they last longer.
• IF YOU ARE PREPAIRED, THERE IS NO NEED FOR LAST MINUTE PANICKING, nuff said...

This is a short blog and I’m a full share type of guy so if you want more info from our site here are some links:

• Here is our EMERGENCY PREP page
• Info on how we built our pantry
• How to cook from a pantry
• How to make essential cooking staples.
• More ways to preserve food for the pantry.

We are ready, are you? Hopes this helps, stay safe out there...

​Type at ya later...

Bear here... 

Tis the season to preserve for Winter and we are doing just that. This year we got a new dehydrator and Theresa went nuts, in a good way. See the pictures below...

THIS IS THE PRETTY...

(Note from Theresa: the above is 10 lbs of sweet peppers,
​which after drying fits in one quart and one pint jar.)

THIS IS SOME OF THE MANY...

... What did I tell ya?  We did fruit, vegetables, and herbs. (I tried meat jerky and found out I need more practice, hopefully I will have good pictures later.) We also updated our pantry/preserving page to include more about dehydrating. Take a look if you want to... and see why Theresa now thinks that dehydrating may be the best way to preserve food.

Type at ya later...