What to do with loved ones?

I love this idea 🙂 sure, the t-shirt is a joke, but honestly I have been wondering what to do with my sister after the zombie apocalypse. She refuses to keep a back stock of anything – much less a couple months worth of food. I figure she’ll be one of the first to have to leave cover and try to find supplies.
It can be a bit frustrating when financially it’s hard enough on our minimal income to store for our own immediate family. My sister has always been interested in learning a variety of skills (from candle making to soap crafts). For long term survival her skills will be a great addition. However, how does that help if we run out of food because she doesn’t see a need to store for her family. They have a family of six, and although she is a wiz at shopping on a tight budget, a delay of even 2-3 days for her “big” grocery trip leaves the cupboard bare and everyone scrounging by on crackers and peanut butter.

A worried Prepper

As I’ve said before, I’ve been prepping to prep for most of my life. I’ve seen the soundness of preparing for unforeseen situations. I’ve usually kept an emergency bag in the car. I try to keep all important papers in one spot (I really need to get all of those scanned to a jump drive for my go bag). I’ve always felt uncomfortable, if not down right twitchy, if I don’t have bulging pantries. I’ve even gathered an eclectic skill set and am always looking for more things to learn or familiarize myself with the basics. My parents tend to the same mindset. And then, there’s my sister.
I’ve always known she and I have been different in many ways. We joke we’re opposite sides of the same penny. We take different paths, but usually to the same destination. Since she is also a skill gatherer, and a master penny pincher, I’ve thought she would also jump on the “consciously prepping” bandwagon along with me. She already lives on the same 20 acre homestead with my parents and me. Boy, was I wrong.
She doesn’t berate me for my preps, and she acknowledges the uncertainty of our economy and possibility of natural disasters (we live on the Texas Gulf Coast). However, she refuses to “stock up”. We’ve discussed it in the past, and she says she doesn’t want all that “clutter”.
I’ve worried she wouldn’t be prepared if something does go wrong. She, and her family, are people I could never turn away in an emergency situation. It has never been more obvious to me how inadequate her panty is until our conversation this morning.
She has her three daughters and her husband living in her home. Last night they had to girls spending the night at their house. Having planned breakfast burritos for dinner, they discovered they only had 9 eggs to feed seven people. My sister ended up only getting two small breakfast sausages as her meal. There was not enough to around. Since today is grocery shopping day they were at the point where the pantry was empty.
As an older sister, it was hard not to slip into the ” I told you so” attitude. I know from prior experience that she is as stubborn as a boulder if you point out her failings. So all I can do is sit back, try to increase our back stock, and worry.

Wake Up Wednesday : Field to Table

This is a series of challenges to develop prepping ideas into skilled reality.

Have you ever looked out the office window and seen a rabbit hopping across the manicured lawn and thought “See, there’s plenty of food. I’ll be just fine if I need to gather food!”? If you’ve been looking at ways to prep for possible long term survival, you have probably become aware that we are often surrounded by food sources even in the city.
It is a high priority to have a storage of food on hand in case of an emergency. No matter if the emergency comes about from a job loss or the next Great Depression, your food needs are the same. Your food stores will last longer if they are supplemented with items that are foraged. However, no matter how well stocked you are, there may come a time when the pantries are empty and it is necessary to kill/gather your food from nature.
Challenge: Empty Pantry
This weeks challenge is to make a meal from “apex scratch”. In other words, have the main meal ingredients come direct from nature. It is all well and good to have thought through where your meals can come from – remember the bunny out of the office window? However, the practice of hunting or even just killing the animal may turn out to be a little tougher than we think. Even if you are a vegetarian, the realities of gathering enough forage for a meal – from nature – may not be as quick and simple as it would seem.
If you are not a vegetarian, I challenge you to kill, clean, and cook a whole meal for your family. If you do not live in an area where you can hunt your food, at least purchase a live animal. There are many resources on the Internet on how to humanely harvest and clean small game such as chickens and rabbits.
A quick look on Craigslist and I was able to find both meat rabbits a chickens for between $10-15 a piece. This might be a bit pricier than a normal home cooked meal, but if you’ve never processed your own meat then what you are buying is the “knowledge of how”.

Rabbit Dumplings

Many of us have chosen to supplement our food storage with live animals. There are a few good small animals that can even be housed in suburbia which provide a variety of food sources. Chickens, for example, provide eggs on an (almost) daily basis, while also providing an obvious source of meat. Goats are not quite as welcome in “town”, but are another multi-purpose animal that gives a lot for a small space requirement. One of the best meat for space animals is the cute, fuzzy bunny. However, it is arguably the most likely to test your squeamishness when it comes to harvest time.
In the past week, we have finally started having baby bunnies from our California rabbits. Unfortunately, one of the mommies apparently didn’t know what to do and I was a bit heartbroken when we lost the whole litter. At this point, we’re not sure if the loss was due more to her inexperience or ours. We had some bad thunderstorms (which can apparently stress the momma), as well as the fact that her nest was placed where the kids could see the kits. They could not touch them, but it still may have been too close for her. We thought about moving it, but we weren’t sure if the movement of the nest would be just as upsetting.
As you can see, having rabbits is not a guarantee that you will have plenty of babies- at least, in the short term. We are learning fast, and I fully expect to have them in good “production” in the coming months.
For now, we have the advantage of living on property with resident wild rabbits. They may not be as plump as our domestic rabbits, but they take care of themselves and are a nearby renewable food source. My husband has brought a few home, and recently he shot another one. In the past, he has cleaned them. However, I decided it was time for me to step up. I am getting to be a better shot, and I feel it’s important that when I finally shoot one myself that I am knowledgeable on how to dress it out. My goal is to take one from forest to table by the end of this summer.
So, I did a YouTube search on how to clean a rabbit and got to work. It took about 10 minutes and I was done. I’d say the biggest thing I learned was that I need a better butcher knife. What I have does the job, but a good cleaver would have made certain things go faster.
At this point, my biggest concern is killing the rabbits we raise. Admittedly, I do have a heart, and although I’ve harvested chickens, they aren’t as cute and cuddly as a rabbit you’ve watched grow from a baby. It is not the issue of turning fuzzy sweetie into dinner. It is the issue that I don’t want to cause any “unnecessary” pain/stress. Between hand and shoulder damage I am concerned that I may not have the requisite strength or technique to dispatch them with one swift movement.
For now, I’ll just keep gathering recipes on how to fix them and counting weeks for when Jezebel can be re-presented for mating. Hopefully, Juliet will turn out to be a good momma and I will have new pictures of cute cuddlies that I can post. No matter what, I have a couple of months before I find out how I do with the harvesting phase.

Easy Rabbit Dumplings

Clean and quarter 1 rabbit
Place in pressure cooker with about 3 quarts of water and:
Salt
Pepper
Poultry Seasoning
Cook for about an hour

Debone meat and put it back in the pot
Add a Knor chicken broth packet
Mix 2 Cups Bisquick with enough water to make a sticky dough
Drop dough by spoonfuls into boiling soup
Add 1 cup milk
Keep at medium boil for about 20 minutes

Prepping Newbie

Ok! If you have been reading my blogs, it should come as no surprise that I’ve always been a bit of what people now call a Prepper. I’ve always kept “extra” food on hand. I’ve had an emergency overnight bag packed. When I’ve lived in cold climates I kept kitty litter and a survival bag in the car at all times during winter months.
That being said, much of the information I’ve found about prepping, self-sufficiency, and food storage is simple logic progression. It’s doing a bit of what I’ve always done, but on a more purposeful – larger – scale.
So here’s my questions. (Yes, I realize blogs are about statements, but I’ve always been a bit contrary and I’m always looking for an opportunity to learn.) When considering bulk and long term storage I find lots of info on how long things are good for, and under what conditions they should be stored. I also find info on “how much” pasta/beans/rice is needed per person. BUT, what does that take into account? For example: water is water. Two gallons a day per person is a straight forward storage goal. How about rice? When you see how many pounds of rice or pasta should be stored, how does that take into account the other items you are storing?
Has any found a site/resource that goes into detail on amounts for long term storage?

Now, lest you think I’m a lazy Prepper, I am doing my due diligence of research for my own family. I am planning a 1 month menu and corresponding “grocery list” to extrapolate what we need. I am also cooking from my items, such as my canned pintos and chicken, to make sure my count is accurate to what we actually use in a given meal. However:

Why re-invent the wheel?

Obviously, I am welcoming feedback on this subject. If I get some good resources I will put it together in a future post.