Hi Everyone,
NOTES:
** The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints operates Home Storage Centers where you can buy #10 cans of food, including wheat, rice, beans, oats, etc. You do NOT need to be a member of the church to purchase supplies there. The prices are very reasonable. This link has a video and explanations of what is offered there. You will find a link to find a Home Storage Center near you. There are 101 locations across the United States and Canada. You can also find a price list. https://providentliving.churchofjesuschrist.org/self-reliance/home-storage-centers?lang=eng
** I watched this video about DIY pantry pest removal. How to Get Rid of Pantry Pests Guaranteed (4 Easy Steps)
** Here is an article about 14 natural alternatives to antibiotics. In short:
- HONEY can be used to treat wounds and boost the immune system.
- GARLIC – just chew on a peeled, raw clove, and the antibiotic properties will be directly absorbed into your bloodstream. If that is too strong, just put the garlic in a little honey or oil.
- OREGANO oil is called Caracole and can fight bacteria that cause infections. Oil of oregano can fight MRSA, and other resistant bacteria. Dilute it with a carrier, and you can treat acne. Don’t apply directly to the skin.
- APPLE CIDER VINEGAR can kill staph infections. It can also be used to disinfect wounds.
- THYME contains caryophyllene and camphene, both antiseptics. It even works on antibiotic-resistant strains.
- LAVENDER oil can be mixed with a little coconut oil and applied to wounds to prevent infection.
- TURMERIC can help fight chest congestion and coughs.
- ECHINACEA has been used to treat the common cold.
- COLLOIDAL SILVER can be used for cold sores and other wounds. Personal note: I use it every time I have sore gums or any kind of mouth irritation. They will be gone in a day!!!!
Check out the rest of the list here: Homestead Survival Site – How to Live Off The Grid in Comfort and Style
GARDEN HAPPENINGS
We put up a frame so that we can cover our tomatoes with a frost blanket. We USUALLY don’t get frost until February-March. But the temps are supposed to get down to the middle 30s at night this weekend. I’m in Zone 9B. I’ve got green tomatoes on the vines and am holding out hope they will make it through.
I dug up all the zucchini, even the plants I planted in August. They are just not going to make it. Not hot enough in the day, much less at night.
I ordered a few packets of seeds so I can start indoors about the middle of December.
The broccoli is up and doing well, as are the carrots. Gardening is such an IFFY activity for me.
THIS WEEK’S PURCHASE: soup – 20 cans
It used to be that 20 cans of soup would cost you about $10. Not so today. If you get them at Winco or Costco, you can probably get them for under $1 each. You can get soup that is ready to eat (Progresso) or soup that just needs water (Chicken Noodle) or soup that you would use in a casserole (Cream of Mushroom). Maybe a few of each? Just buy what you would normally use. I store Cream of Mushroom, Cream of Chicken, and Tomato soup. After trying some Progresso soup, I was disappointed at how watery it was, so I made my own vegetable soup and canned it!!! Whatever you choose, pick up a few extra cans on your next shopping trip, write the date on them, and put them in a closet.
MISC PURCHASE: Toilet Paper
Another month of bathroom tissue. Just do it. Build up to a 5-6 month supply.
FOOD STORAGE RECIPES
Beefy Rice
1 c. rice
2 c. water
1 tsp salt
Prepare rice according to directions
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
1 TB dry onions (I usually rehydrate first by soaking in a small cup of hot water for 10-15 min)
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 pint beef (or 1/2 pound hamburger, browned and drained)
Swedish Beef over Rice or Potatoes
1 can Golden Mushroom soup
1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
4 TB melted butter
1 can evaporated milk
Stir until smooth
In a cup mix: 1/2 c. water and 1/4 c. flour. Add to the soup mix. Heat till bubbly.
Add:
1-pint ground beef OR 1 12-oz can of roast beef
Serve over rice or potatoes
Chili
1 pint ground beef or 1 pound beef, browned and drained
1/4 c. chopped fresh onion or 1 TB dehydrated onion
1 large can of pinto beans. You can use dried beans if you soak them overnight. 1 c. dry beans = 3 c. cooked beans
1 can tomato soup
1 can diced tomatoes
Add chili powder, salt, pepper, etc.
—
Marti
You may have heard that we only have 25 days of diesel left in the United States. This is a subject that is gaining a lot of attention lately, especially within the preparedness community. This subject has created sensational media headlines and attracts millions of views, but is it accurate? As we have seen before with other problems attached to countdowns, that isn’t always exactly accurate. Often there are many interventions and many other factors that can come into play to kick that can, as they say, further down the road. So, is there a diesel shortage looming on the horizon? It all depends upon whom you talk to or listen to. In this blog, we will assess the genuine threats and the ramifications, the unseen instigators of a more significant possible disaster, and what you should be thinking about now with your preps should this crisis worsen. Most importantly, stick around to the end as we’ll tell you if running out of diesel before Thanksgiving is a myth or something we should genuinely be worried about, so let’s drill down to the truth on this…
There is no doubt that if we run out of diesel fuel or even experience an extreme shortage of the stuff, we will instantly find ourselves in an economic depression that will pull at the strings holding together the very fabric of our country. Without diesel, we’d be in a world of hurt. Railway, trucking, manufacturing, and agricultural operations would immediately grind to a halt. Diesel generators are also used at most hydro, coal, gas, and oil-fired power plants and virtually all nuclear power plants in the US as an emergency backup power source for the station’s auxiliary needs. These auxiliary needs are essential, especially when it comes to nuclear power generation. Looking back at the Fukushima nuclear power disaster, for instance, there an earthquake and tsunami led to power loss. Without power, the cooling systems failed in three reactors, and their cores subsequently overheated.
Picture our reserves of diesel-like your car’s gas tank. Let’s say it’s full. For the purpose of argument, let’s say that your daily driving activity means a full tank would equal about 25 days of driving for you. Though this may not be realistic, it will help us visualize our own fuel tank in direct correlation to the 25 days supply in our national reserves. The first reality is that if the price of a gallon of gas were going higher, you would try to drive less. You do have some ability to curb your own consumption. Just as you ration and limit your driving, the government could preserve billions of gallons through conservation, rationing, and regulation, essentially prioritizing critical industries and requiring them to do more with less.
There are still some unknowns in this diesel fuel shortage possibility. First, how cold and how immediate will winter be around the world? Diesel demand will go up, and supplies will shrink. When diesel gets expensive, everything costs more. The economy runs so much on diesel that its consumption is often used to gauge overall economic health. So, decreased inventory, reduced input, and increasing demand chill the economy by driving up the cost of everything. That’s typically bad, but cooling the economy during a recession can often be a good thing. Another unknown is if there will be any hint of a railway strike–a topic we covered on this channel in another blog, which we will link to. That would slow down consumption, but it would also drive up prices.
If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, you’ve probably seen there’s the potential for a railway strike in the not so distant future. But here’s the catch, we don’t have to have a railway strike for the U.S. economy to suffer, and for food, fuel, raw materials, and other goods to stop flowing. Just a looming threat of a strike will be adverse, but an actual strike will be catastrophic. We may be barreling down the tracks right into one. In this blog, we will break down what’s going on as simply as we can. We will also look at the impacts of the threat of a strike, an actual strike, and what you should be doing today to prepare so a strike materialize. This is not a threat you want to dismiss which we’ll detail in this blog. Let’s take a look at what’s going on.
There’s enough for a book here, but we will just give you the gist of what is happening. There are numerous reasons we find ourselves in the current standoff between railway workers and their management. Decades of cost-cutting, layoffs, automation, consolidation, and corporate greed are just a few. The bottom line is that railroad companies do not have a good historical track record with their employees. That is one of the reasons the Federal Railroad Safety Act was created to provide protections for railway workers whistle-blowing about safety and abuse issues. 
If there is even the threat of a strike, the railroad companies will proactively scale back routes and raise prices. This occurred when there was a threat of a strike earlier this year. It turns up the heat and pressure considerably. Shippers must find alternate means for transporting their product, pay higher prices, let it sit and pay demurrage, or scale back their production. This pumps the breaks on economic growth while also sending prices skyward.
Most people can’t wrap their brains around the amount of cargo that travels by train at some point in its journey. According to the Association of American Railroads, if railroads did not move freight in the U.S., it would take over 99 million additional trucks traveling on public roadways and four times more fuel than rail to handle the freight Americans rely on daily. Even a day without railroads operating would cost the U.S. economy $2 billion. A week would cost an estimated $14 billion. Every ten days would tick off one percent of the annual GDP. However, those are theoretical losses.
Unions can strike starting on Nov. 20th, and have pushed that back through a cooling down period to December 9th. Likely, though, they will telegraph their date to get union leaders and management to continue talks at the negotiating table. You can prepare yourself right now for this potential crisis. High prices are inevitable even with a looming crisis, so stocking up on your food essentials now would be prudent. When you go to the store, stock up on canned goods with a good shelf-life. Building your pantry will keep you from desperately trying to find food when your reserves run low. Consider a case of canned vegetables, a large bag of rice, and, of course, dried beans. 
(2 Piece Set)
suburban neighborhood and have become nearly self-sufficient! 
Do you HAVE to store brown sugar? Do you USE brown sugar? If so, pick up 4-5 2-pound bags. It’s only $1.58 at Winco this week. 
water preparedness situations. It makes water bacteriologically suitable to drink, even in emergency water purification situations. In this video, he shows you how to make a simple water filtration system using crushed charcoal, fine sand, small gravel, and empty water bottles. He uses scummy pond water and with the filter and some way to kill the bacteria (boiling or water purification tablets), he creates drinkable, clean water. 
2020, while a memory we like to distance in my mind, was an abrupt moment where the relative calm was shattered. It marked the beginning of a deep transition starting off with COVID, political divisiveness and upheaval, protests in the streets, climate events, and rising tensions between superpowers. 2021 started off no better with the events of January 6th, more protests, a migration crisis, supply chain failures, the Taliban returning to power, and so much more. You would think we would have gotten a little time to catch our breath, but 2022 ushered in a global surge in inflation, a potential world war starting in Ukraine, global economies faltering, dramatic shifts in government, an escalating migration crisis, and soaring world hunger. Believe it or not, that’s just the 30-second summary of the highlights. Around the world, we witnessed everything from uprisings to extreme weather events to supply and infrastructure failings.
With these polycrisis events or compounding tragedies putting us in a state of permacrisis, it’s easy to feel helpless in the equation. We have clearly left a period of progress for a period of regression. The problem for many is that they have grown so far from their roots. Many have lost the old ways of doing things, but there has been a resurgence of sorts because of these tragedies. To regress is to return to a former or less developed state. That can be viewed, like most things, as either bad or good. For the prepper, that’s not necessarily bad.
There have been worse years in US history. There have certainly been worse years in world history. We have continuously cycled between periods of opulence, abundance, and optimistic hope for the future’s promise and periods of struggle, scarcity, and genuine fear of the future. These cycles are very broad and span lifetimes. Often we are only able to experience one of the periods. Sometimes we experience two, as your great grandparents would attest to having suffered through pandemics and world wars and then enjoyed explosive economic growth, better living through technology, industrialization, and unprecedented economic growth.
We have always said on this channel that even a little prepping will get you closer to surviving than no prepping at all. We must be honest with ourselves and admit that our governments will not likely step in and save the day when things go south. We must admit that supply chains will continue to struggle and scarcity and high prices are in our future. A 3-day food and water supply might get you through a natural disaster. 3-weeks would be better. A year or more with supplementation from even a windowsill garden will get you through a long period of dark days.
“Alan Martindale, the water quality supervisor for the city of Mesa, Arizona, says there are four very important reasons NOT to consume swimming pool water, other than a gulp or two by accident when splashed in the face by your toddler.
thriving again. I JUST planted more carrots and some broccoli. They are both cool-weather crops and will not die if there is a light frost. 
Gasoline does not last more than 6 months. So twice a year (Conference time, vernal equinox time, June and December, whatever) we put that stored gas into one of the cars, then refill the container. The red five-gallon containers are NOT cheap! 
This recipe comes from twohealthykitchens.com
** In cleaning out my fridge, I saw my poor crusted-over bottle of sourdough starter. I poured out the gray hooch on top. If you want super sour bread, then stir it in. I poured out 1/2 of the starter in the jar, added fresh water and flour, and set it on the counter. This morning, it was bubbling like crazy. I poured out 1/2 of the starter and added water and flour, and put it back in the fridge. 
One cup of old beans, wash and sort. Boil 3 c. water for 1 c. beans. Boil for 1-2 minutes. Take off heat. Add 3/8 tsp baking soda. Cover and let soak for 1 hour. Rinse and add water again 3 c. water to 1 c. beans. Boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1-2 hours. 
reference sake, I just dehydrated my own peppers that I got on sale for $.50 each and they were HUGE. Four diced peppers turned out to be 1/2 c. dried. I did 32 peppers and got about 4 c. – or $16 for the same amount. AND it was a couple of hours of work!!!!
** I did me some canning this week. Someone offered me free jars. Empty jars take up as much space as full jars, so I decided to fill them. 
