Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Website Alert! Wonderful Websites to Visit!

In our never-ending quest for knowledge, "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I spend a little bit of time "surfing" the web, and we never cease to be amazed at the incredible websites and blogs that are out there. There are people who know so much more than we do, and we are happy to introduce you to those people and resources that we have found so that you can judge them for yourself!

The first website that I want to share is pretty much just a recipe website (allrecipes.com), but it has a feature that I truly appreciate. There is actually a feature on there that allows you to list four ingredients that you want to use, as well as up to four ingredients that you don't want to use (think food allergies or severe dislikes), and it will look for recipes using the ingredients that you want. This is a great way to try new things using those basic food storage items that you are collecting! I love it!

The next website is one that I find simply amazing. If you want to get going with food storage, but you just don't know how to get started or what to do with it once you have it, a lady named Crystal has the most wonderful website. Trust me, if you have some spare time, you could certainly spend some of it here! She doesn't just take cheesy pictures of her thumb, either -- she actually has video of things you want to see! Crystal inspires and humbles me, all at the same time.

The last website that I want to share is another site found by my son-in-law, Jeromy. In fact, here is his e-mail, pretty much as he sent it:

"Also found this neat website tonight...
This site talks about what the Red Cross recommends for disaster preparedness... If you go to 'Get a Kit' then 'Kit Contents' you can download a spreadsheet that you put in the number of people who are in the family, and the number of days the kit will cover and it auto fills in the shopping list for you.

Also, there is an interactive website that goes with this... Once you 'click here to begin', you can watch the videos and hit next through the steps. On the page for 'Get a Kit' then 'Create Your Own Kit', you can fill in the number of people the kit will cover, the number of days, and if there are medications or pets to be concerned for. Then after it calculates the amount of water and food and other things for you, click the link in the lower right to email the list to you or your family members.

Pretty handy lists and ideas for those who just feel overwhelmed when they are trying to get started with a bug out kit." (Thanks again, Jeromy!)

Enjoy surfing with us!

Fire Safety


"Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I have to thank my son-in-law, Jeromy, for tipping me off to a great fire prevention website. Of course, fire safety is a timely subject no matter what that season, but winter is especially a good time to be mindful of this. We are inside our homes more, running space heaters and who knows what else, using our fireplaces, etc. To truly appreciate this website, you really need to spend some time checking out all of the links found at the green tabs on the top. It is chock full of publications and resources, and even has a special section for kids!

Thanks, Jeromy!

A Thought or Two About Flood Insurance


Although I have known about flood insurance for awhile now, I must admit that I was quite surprised originally when I found out that most home owner's insurance policies DON'T cover damage caused by floods. Flood insurance is actually a separate policy. Although your insurance agency will usually help you purchase a policy, they are not the ones who are covering you. You are actually going through your insurance agent to purchase flood insurance from the federal government (FEMA). Prices may vary, but your insurance agent can help get the numbers for you and help you make it happen.

Flood insurance, like all insurance, is something that you might not appreciate until you actually need it. But if your area were to experience a flood, you would be very glad that you had taken care of this aspect of emergency preparedness. FEMA actually has an on-line map that can help you see where you fall within a flood-plain. Once I typed in my address and it brought up the map, I set the scale to 25% and used the "pan" feature to maneuver around the map. It worked well enough that even I could understand it!

Another thing that many people don't really think about is renter's insurance. For all those many years that we did not own a home I didn't think about it, either. Then, when my husband was in college, I actually knew two different families who suffered through losing everything in a fire. It got me thinking: even though we did not have a whole lot during this time, it was hard enough to come by the first time around. We would have been in a world of hurt if something had happened and we had to replace all of those towels, dishes, clothes, etc. So we actually purchased some renter's insurance which would cover the cost of replacing our household goods, or protect us in the case of theft. Our current insurance agent informed me that rates, etc., for renter's insurance are usually based on the county in which you live. Where we live, my insurance agency requires purchasing insurance at a minimum level of $15,000, and the rates vary from about $90 - $130 per year, depending on whether you are in a single-family dwelling or a multi-family dwelling. Most renter's policies will also protect you against liability, just in case someone gets hurt while visiting you.

Insurance: Hope you never need it, but be so glad to have it!

Friday, December 11, 2009

A Treat for Holiday Party Food "Emergencies"

Have you ever had a loved one come to you at 8:30 at night and inform you that he is supposed to take a dish to the office Christmas party the next day? Are you prone to having last minute get-togethers at your house, and there are times that you need to concentrate on doing a quick tidying of your home instead of spending all of your time in the kitchen? Here is a little something that you can serve during these party food "emergencies" that will make you the "hostess with the mostest"! Just keep these ingredients on hand during the holiday season and you will be ready for anything!

Quick But Oh-So-Yummy Cheeseball

Two 8-ounce packages of cream cheese
One 8-ounce package of shredded cheddar cheese
One packet of Hidden Valley Ranch Dip mix
Chopped pecans (optional)

Let the cream cheese set out for about a half hour to soften (it will make it easier to mix). In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and dip mix. I usually just use a fork to smoosh and blend, and smoosh and blend, until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed together. When it is mixed, form into a ball. The cheese ball can be served "bald" or you can roll it in chopped pecans until looks like it's covered with little ants -- it's great either way.

Store the cheese ball in an airtight container in the refrigerator until it's time to serve it. When it's party time, simply plop the cheese ball in the center of a serving tray and surround it by a sea of your favorite snack crackers and you are ready!

A NOTE OF CAUTION: Do not serve this dish if you are shy; people will seek you out to praise you for your culinary skills and to try and get the recipe!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

The "Gan"-"Green Thumb" Reading List


I can't believe that it actually snowed the first week of December here in Texas, but that's all the proof that I need to show that it's time to spend some time indoors, possibly catching up on some reading. So, do you want to know just what "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I like to read? We thought you'd never ask!

We absolutely love magazines -- I think I became such a big fan when my kids were little; I couldn't make it through a whole book very often, but I might at least read a whole magazine article before someone needed something. One of my favorite magazines is Organic Gardening. This is a great magazine if gardening is your main interest, and of course, the focus is on using organic methods. Some articles that you may have missed out on are: "Grow the Best Tasting Tomatoes", "Fit More Herbs in Your Garden", "A Drought Proof Garden", and "The Best Strawberries for Your Climate".

If you can't tell, my interests go beyond gardening alone -- my dream is to someday move to the country and live on between one and five acres. In addition to gardening, I would like to have some chickens running around, and maybe someday work up to having dairy goats, too. Hobby Farm Magazine appeals to this desire nicely (I originally found this magazine at Tractor Supply Company). Past issues list articles such as, "Milk Dairy Goats by Hand", "Plant Your Fall & Winter Garden Now", and "Greenhouses, Hydroponics and Cold Frames for Fall Gardening".

There is a companion magazine to Hobby Farm, and that is Hobby Farm Home (which I also found at Tractor Supply Company). Some articles that you might find here are, "Secrets to Using Unique Flours", "5 Chicken Pot Pie Recipes", "Preserve Your Barn's Character", "Easy Homemade Bread and Butter Making", and "Low-Maintenance Moss Garden".

The last time I bought magazines at TSC, I found the premiere issue of a magazine called Urban Farm. It's from the same people who bring you Hobby Farm, but the focus of this magazine is helping those of us who live on small plots in the city to find ways to live our hobby farm dream on a smaller scale. Some of the ideas that are shared here are "Turn Your Lawn into a Garden", "Container Gardening", and "Drying and Freezing Homegrown Veggies".

Mother Earth News is a magazine that I have enjoyed, for the most part. I will tell you that most of these magazines have at least a little tinge of "global warming/sustainable living" in their content (All right, already! We know!), but Mother Earth lost me a little bit when it had a couple of articles about our need to reduce our population rates. When it comes to the over-population zealots, I've always wondered which one of their kids they wished had never been born! But if you can just take it for what it's worth, this magazine has some really great "how-to" articles. Recent titles were: "5 Inexpensive DIY Greenhouses", "How to Heat with Wood", "How Much Would Solar Panels Cost You", and "Recipes for Healthy No-Knead Bread".

For those of you who are like me and not only want to live in the country, but also aspire to attaining a pretty high level of self-reliance (think individual water well and solar panels or wind generator), Back Home Magazine is great! (Also originally found at TSC!) I can't wait until the day I can have "A Compost-Heated Greenhouse", try something like "Generate Your Own Wind Power" and "Preserve the Harvest With Solar Dehydration", and enjoy "The Benefits of a Small House" and "The Struggles of Wilderness Living"!

For organic gardening in Texas, I find Howard Garrett, also known as "The Dirt Doctor", to be quite helpful. He not only has a website, but he has written several books and has a line of organic gardening products to help you try to keep your plants alive!

Now that the kids are older, I do get to read a book or two every now and then. Here are some books that I plan on wading through this winter:

All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew is still a favorite; I refer to it often. The focus of this method is using a 4-foot by 4-foot square (or other variation) to get 16 square feet of growing room instead of stretching your garden out into a 16-foot row. This is geared toward helping those with limited space have a garden in spite of their limitation. He also has what is the "perfect mix" of growing medium which will help your plants grow. I will say that the plants that I had in my square foot garden survived much better than my other plants (at least so far -- I'm not giving up!).

I recently bought Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, Edited by Fern Marshall Bradley. It's a big old thing, and I'm sure there's bound to be something in there to help someone with a toxic thumb!

Another book that I look forward to really getting into is Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte. This teaches a concept known as companion planting which purports that certain plants being planted with other plants can be beneficial. For example, apparently cucumbers are offensive to raccoons, so this book suggests planting them with corn. In turn, the corn seemingly protects the cucumber against the virus that causes wilt. I'm going to try some of this stuff next year!

Month-By-Month Gardening in Texas by Dan Gill and Dale Groom is a book that you can actually read month-by-month! This is just what someone like me needs!

Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza and Compost Gardening by Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin will help you get the most out of all of that compost that you've been cooking up! Actually, Barbara and Deborah have the most wonderful website that I discovered while writing this post! I guess there's even more reading for us now!

I found The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol W. Costenbader while I was knocking around TSC this summer. It's a great guide for helping you preserve that big harvest that some of you actually have. It has a guide that lists the best method of storage, as well as when to harvest each fruit/vegetable and what to look for. Great!

This last book is not a gardening book, but if you are into food storage, it is great, too! This concept has been around for awhile, but this new addition caught my attention and made me want to kick myself for not trying this earlier. Make-A-Mix by Karine Eliason and friends is not only good for the person who wants to use all of that flour, sugar, and dry milk that they are storing; it is also a good book for the working woman who wants to make "home-made" meals for her family, but may not have the time. The concept is simple: in the front of the book are a few basic "mix" recipes that you make up ahead of time and store in a large, air-tight container. For example, the "Hot Roll Mix" calls for flour, sugar, salt, and dry milk (this makes a large batch of dry ingredient). Using this one mix, plus whatever ingredients the individual recipes in the back of the book call for, you can make Swedish Cinnamon Twists, French Bread, Crescent Rolls, Big Soft Pretzels, Hamburger Buns, Pizza Crust, and several other things. There is also "Muffin Mix", "Quick Mix", "All Purpose Cake Mix", and make-ahead dry mixes.

Well, I guess that's enough for now -- that should keep "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and everyone busy for awhile. Happy reading!

Monday, November 9, 2009

This Casserole is Actually Good!

In any food storage supply it is necessary to have some canned meat. Unlike My Friend Lauren, I have not reached the level of canning my own, so I have to buy commercially canned meat. Most of the time I buy tuna, chicken, or roast beef, and use them in some of my classic dishes using rice, etc. However, this is a casserole that uses corned beef, just in case you're looking for variety.

Let me preface this recipe by stating that I really DON'T like corned beef. This is actually a dish that I first ate at my mother-in-law's house many years ago when she invited us to dinner. I took the first bite, mostly to be polite. And then another. And then another, until it was all gone. It is actually quite tasty, even if you don't like corned beef! And even better, it gives you another option for greater variety in your food storage. Enjoy!

The Old Coot's Mother's Casserole

1 can corned beef
2 cups macaroni (measured before cooking), cooked and drained
1 cup cubed cheese
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 medium minced onion (or substitute dehydrated onion to your personal taste)
Sage, to taste (about 1-2 teaspoons, depending on how much of a kick you want!)
Crushed potato chip topping (or substitute bread crumbs in a pinch!)

Combine ingredients in casserole dish; top with crushed potato chips. Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees. (Note: Since I don't believe there's such a thing as too much cheese, I add some grated cheddar cheese to the top over the chips during the last 5 minutes of baking -- just until it's melted.)

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Dehydrating: Another Great Food Storage Option

We recently had our monthly emergency prepared-
ness meeting, and since I have already taught the group everything that I know, I asked My Friend Lauren and My Friend Jay to be our guest speakers. My Friend Lauren has been doing a lot of home food dehydrating, and she gave a presentation that absolutely amazed and inspired me!

Why would you want to dehydrate food? Dehydrated food weighs less (beneficial to those who move frequently), requires less space to store, and has a great shelf life when stored properly. The only drawback that I can see is that you need to account for water to reconstitute the food when planning water storage, or store some commercially canned vegetables, etc. (which contain water), in case there was also a problem with the water supply. But as long as the water supply remains good, this is a great way to go. Also, there are many foods, such as banana chips and pineapple tidbits, that are great eaten right out of the bag.

My Friend Lauren brought many visual aids, including her equipment of choice: her food dehydrator and her "Food Saver". The brand of dehydrator that she prefers is the Excalibur brand. Why does she prefer this model? In some dehydrators the fan is located at either the bottom or the top of the dehydrator. The trays that are nearest the fan get thoroughly dry, but the food in the trays that are the furthest from the fan don't always get completely dehydrated. The fan in the Excalibur is in the back of the unit; the air flows evenly over all of the trays, giving a more consistent result. If you search the website you can buy a new dehydrator, or you can purchase a refurbished model to help with your budget. My Friend Lauren is also a big fan of the "Food Saver" vacuum sealer, and she actually prefers one of the older, less flashy models (similar to the Model 2460A). She does use a heavier bag than they sell, however. She likes to use a 3-ply bag that she finds at a website called dcprocessingequipment.com. Even more exciting to me were the attachments that you can use on home canning jars; they come in both narrow and wide mouth sizes. My Friend places her deydrated food in the canning jar, adds an oxygen absorption packet, places the top on the jar (but not the ring), and then uses the Food Saver jar attachment. After it works its magic she removes the attachment and places the ring on the lid, and she has some convenient food storage packaging for her dehydrated food. (She likes to use oxygen absorption packets ["oxy packs"] in both her bags and jars for extra protection.)

There were some items that she did not recommend for dehydration, with meat being one of them (unless you like jerky, which is actually a favorite at our house -- The Old Coot Who Married Me will pay a crazy price for seasoned jerky from the meat market!). Because of health and safety concerns, she also buys the following items commercially prepared: dried shredded cheese, powdered eggs, powdered sour cream, and butter powder. She buys these items from a company called Emergency Essentials, but there are other companies out there if you want to shop around.

However, there are many things that CAN be dehydrated. Unlike me, My Friends are "green thumb" gardeners, and dehydrating is a great way to help them preserve their harvest. However, if that is not enough, she will buy fresh produce (the fresher, the better -- junk in/junk out!) or even bags of frozen produce and dehydrate those!

The whole presentation was amazing, but there were two items that My Friend dehydrates that I would have never thought of. The first is tomato sauce. She uses the tray insert for the dehydrator that you would use for making fruit leather, and sure enough, she gets sheets of tomato sauce that look like a fruit roll-up! Amazing! The second thing that she showed us was dehydrated Bush's baked beans. Wow! I would have never thought of that! My Friend Lauren stressed that it is important to have some fully-cooked foods that can be reconstitued and then simply warmed, in order to save cooking fuel (if fuel availability is a concern).

The amazing thing is the transformation that occurs when water is added to the dehydrated food. My Friend showed us some dehydrated corn and it pretty much looked like little rocks. However, she brought a large pot of soup that she made from her stash, and the corn looked as beautiful as ever! Bananas and some other foods can be a little brown, but Lauren's new motto is, "Brown is beautiful!"

Okay, now that we are all dehydrating, what will we do with all of this dried-out food? There are many books out there with recipes for dehydrated food, but My Friend Lauren was especially excited about a book that she had just bought: "The Dehydrator Bible". She let me thumb through it and I recall seeing a recipe that called for a hunk of tomato sauce, and it even gave the size of the piece that you need! My Friends love their fruits and vegetables, and I am a big berry lover, and there were recipes in this book to keep all of us cooking and eating for quite awhile!

Where did My Friend Lauren gain all of this knowlege and skill about food storage? A lot of it was obtained by just forging ahead and trying things (she's just that kind of gal!), but she swears by a certain website. Dehydrate2Store is an incredible resource that she highly recommends, and it will give you a good background to get you started.

I am so excited about learning this new skill! Thank you, My Friend Lauren!

Start Your Garden "On a Roll"!

When is an empty bakery box not really a bakery box? When is an empty toilet paper roll more than just a toilet paper roll? Answer: When you put them together and they become a mini-greenhouse! This is actually two separate ideas that I got from two separate magazine articles, but I decided to combine them. You just need to make sure that your empty container has a little height (growing room) to get the best results. Then you simply cut the toilet paper roll in half. Stand the rolls straight up in the container, fill with potting soil, plant your seeds and keep watered, and you can get a jump on your garden. When the final frost has passed and it is time to transplant your young plants, since the cardboard roll is bio-degradable and is also open on the bottom, you simply place the plant, along with its roll-container, directly into the soil (at least that's what the article claims). It's less expensive than buying the bio-degradable peat moss pots. I can't wait to try this!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

My Favorite Food Storage Gadget!

One of the hurdles that many people face when thinking about food storage is wondering where to put it. I have stuffed it in the hall closet, under the bed, really just about anywhere I could think of. You do what you have to when you want to accomplish a goal, and I made it work for as long as I could. The main problem that I had is that I would forget where I had put things, and by the time that I had found them, it was already past the expiration date.

Then I saw a commercial on BYU television that changed my life in terms of food storage. This commercial showcased the most wonderful system! It was a free-standing rack that held cans. Lots of cans! The neat thing is that you load the new cans into the top of the appropriate row, and you use from the bottom of the row; therefore, you are always using the oldest food first.

I ordered my unit from a company called "Shelf Reliance". They have units in various sizes, and they even have little racks that fit on your existing pantry shelves. I won't lie to you -- it definitely was what my budget would call an "investment piece", but I figured that if it helped me to keep my food storage from going bad, it was worth the money. Plus, I waited until they had a sale, and I got a really good deal on it. They do have sales from time to time, so I would advise that you check with them often.

There are other companies who sell "first-in, first-out" can rotation devices. If you want to shop around then I would suggest searching the internet for "food storage racks" or "food can racks". I cannot vouch for this particular item because I have not tried it personally, but there is a site that has plans to build your own -- great if the ready-made rack is cost prohibitive for now. (I would love to know about anyone's experience with this.)

Whichever option is best for you, there is organizational help for food storage out there!

Help From Someone Who Knows! (The Queen of Food Storage!)

When it comes to striving toward the goal of long-term food storage, no one has helped me more than a lady by the name of Wendy DeWitt, and I've never even met her. She came and gave a presentation in our area a few years ago. I didn't go, but the Old Coot Who Married Me went, and he came home and told me all about it. What I heard changed my attitude about my ability to actually achieve having a decent level of food storage for our family.

For years I had been under the impression that having "food storage" meant having a ton of wheat -- with which I had absolutely no idea of what to do! Wendy DeWitt changed all of that! Her message was simple: store what you eat (plus a few of the basics). Instead of accumulating immense quantities of things I wouldn't normally use, I started looking at what we would normally eat for breakfast and dinner for one week. I then made a list of the ingredients that I would need to make all of those meals and multiplied it by 52 weeks. This would be what I would need to have a year's supply. I could then start buying items while they were on sale, and fill in my menu ingredient list. If you would like more ideas on buying food storage, including setting a food storage budget, The Idea Door has some great ideas!

Is a year's supply a little too overwhelming for you? Then strive for a 3-month supply. Is three months still a little much? Start with striving for a 2-week supply. Why two weeks? Because if there was ever a "health" scare that required a quarantine (is anyone thinking "swine flu"?), you could expect it to last a good two weeks.

The good news is that if you missed Wendy Dewitt's presentation, too, then you can watch it thanks to the internet! She also has a blog that is worth checking out, and she wrote a neat little guide on food storage and solar cooking called, "Everything Under the Sun".

I hope that you find her as inspiring and informative and "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I have found her to be! She truly is the "Queen of Food Storage" for me!

How Long Will My Food Stay Fresh? Ask an Extension Agent!

Whether you are looking at long-term food storage, or just keeping the groceries for the month fresh, it's important to store items in the proper way and have a good idea of each item's shelf life. This is where I have found state/county extension services to be a great resource. Whether it is food storage, gardening, or emergency preparedness, extension agents have a wealth of knowlege to share and I always have found them to be more than happy to help.

One of my favorite information sheets on food shelf life is from the Texas AgriLife Extension: "Safe Home Food Storage" . Another good information sheet is from the Virginia Cooperative Extension and is called "Food Storage Guidelines for Consumers".

Our area is prone to thunderstorms with high winds and we sometimes lose electrical service; the longest that we have been without service is about a day and a half (just enough to start worrying about the refrigerator!). I found the information from the Texas AgriLife Extension Service that tells how long refrigerated food will stay fresh after the power is off to be very helpful. In fact, this website has a whole list of great information about disaster preparedness and recovery!

Friday, October 2, 2009

Whole-Wheat Pancakes

For those of you who have some wheat stored away, here's another recipe to help you use it. The thing that I really like about this one is that there is no wheat grinder involved -- plus, almost everyone likes pancakes! ("Gan"-"Green Thumb" likes pancakes "drowning" in maple syrup!)

Whole Wheat Pancakes
1 cup milk
3/4 cup wheat
2 eggs
1/8 cup oil
1 Tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
Place milk and wheat in a blender and blend at high speed for 4 minutes. After 4 minutes, turn blender off and and add eggs, oil, and honey, then blend on "low" speed. After these are blended in, turn blender off and add baking soda, salt, and baking powder; turn blender on just long enough to get these ingredients blended in -- DO NOT OVERBLEND! Pour batter as normal and cook. Makes about twelve 5" pancakes.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

A Great "Hy-Bread" Recipe!

Through the years many people who were involved in food storage saved mainly the basics: rice, oats, beans, and of course, wheat. Wheat is a great staple, but only if you know what to do with it. The "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I are not especially experienced with baking bread. That makes the bread machine that my mother-in-law gave me several years ago even more valuable. There truly is nothing better than home-made bread, and with today's bread machines doing the work for us, even the busiest family can have some.
The Old Coot who married me comes from a family who actually makes the real deal, but even his aunt had a recipe for a bread machine. The reason that I like this recipe so much is that it allows you to incorporate some of the wheat that you have been storing into this recipe, without it being too much. The wheat that I add is a little coarser than most people would probably use. This is mainly because I don't have an electric wheat grinder, and running it through the manual grinder ONCE is enough for me. If you don't want coarse wheat flour, by all means, feel free to run it through the mill another time or two (or invest in an electric grinder). Either way, this bread is great! ("Gan"-"Green Thumb" told me that it wished it had a nose so that it could smell it baking!)

White/Wheat Hybrid Bread for Bread Machine
1-1/3 cup ice water
1/3 cup oatmeal
1 cup wheat flour
2 cups white flour (you can use regular flour, but flour for bread machines gives a lighter loaf)
2 Tablespoons powdered milk
1½ teaspoon yeast (rapid rise works best)
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1½ Tablespoon butter or margarine
Mix the dry ingredients (except for margarine) in a mixing bowl. Put ice water into the bread machine first, add the dry ingredients, and add butter last on top. Use the “rapid rise” setting (or whatever setting on your machine is closest to 3:20).

In Case of Emergency: Put Your Cell Phone on "ICE"

This was a tip that I saw on a local news broadcast. If you were in an accident of some kind and were unable to speak for yourself, who would you want to have notified? This news story offered that your cell phone could be a tool that emergency responders might use to reach the one person who needs to know most if you are incapacitated. By having an entry labeled "ICE" ("In Case of Emergency"), you are able to designate who you want to have notified first in case of emergency. This is an especially good idea if you have teenagers out there, driving around on their own. Of course, it's not a surefire thing: if you have your phone password protected, it might take emergency assistance personnel/healthcare providers awhile to figure out how to get into your phone, and phones are sometimes thrown clear of an accident scene. So it's a good idea to have other emergency information on you in other forms. But if you have a simple, ancient, no frills phone like this old lady has, and if you keep that phone in a purse, etc., it is another tool that offers some measure of help!

Things I've Learned About Gardening:

  1. It can actually be too hot for things to grow. Depending on what you want in your garden, if you live in Texas, find a way to plant early.
  2. Organic gardening is hard! At my house, insects and fungi thought many of those organic tonics were snacks. Next year: DDT or a flame thrower! (Just kidding!)
  3. Squirrels and birds can eat even more fruit than people do.
  4. Don't plant vine-type plants in a "square-foot" garden without a trellis. They take over everything!
  5. It takes four blueberry bushes to get one pint of blueberries.
  6. If you have a bald spot in your yard, plant a vegetable there. The grass will grow like crazy as soon as you do!
  7. If you use popsicle sticks as plant markers, squirrels and dogs will steal them out of your garden and use them for chew sticks.
  8. If you figure out the price per pound for home-grown food (for those with a toxic thumb), it's probably about $30 a pound. But the experience you gain toward being self-sufficient: priceless!

Let Me Introduce Us!

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to my thumb. At the beginning of my venture into gardening (summer of 2008), I was praying that I would have what is commonly called a "green thumb" (even though it is short and stubby, and distinctly unmanicured). After two summers of gardening, I have come to the sad realization that my thumb is not "green", but alas, it is actually "gangrene". It is tainted, diseased, and toxic to all plant life. Whether it's planting too late in the season, or attracting every pest and fungus in the state, I don't seem to be on top of the gardening thing. But, I want to keep trying! I feel it's important.
I first realized that gardening, and self-reliance in general, are important after Hurricane Katrina. Seeing what the people there went through after the hurricane made me realize that sometimes the most reliable help is yourself. I truly think that the difference between being a victim and being okay can often be the knowledge and skills that you acquire before an emergency strikes.
The second motivation came when I was called to be the "Emergency Preparedness Specialist" at my church. It is my job to teach our church members about food storage and general emergency preparedness. I'm pretty sure that the local church leaders picked me after a discussion that went like this:
"Is there some knit-wit that we know who has never made bread, done gardening, does not know how to sew, and knows nothing about emergency preparedness?" our Bishop asked.
"I think I know someone," came the reply.
"Good," came the answer. "Let's call her to this position."
So I have had to learn as I have gone along. I am the first to tell you that I AM NOT AN EXPERT IN ANYTHING! The only thing that I have going for me is that I have found some really good sources of information, which I would like to share with as many people as possible. Oh, and there's the fact that I actually am enjoying learning about all of these things. There are things that I didn't know that I didn't know. I even enjoy my feeble attempts at gardening. When you are not very good at it, it makes every tomato and pepper that you harvest even more of a treasure.
The main thing is that I believe that the time to learn is NOW. I figure that I can learn what works and what doesn't during this early time, and hopefully by the time I really need to know what I'm doing, I will have it all worked out. I can honestly say that this year's garden was much better than last year's, and the things I learned this year will help me be more successful next year.
If learning about self-reliance and being prepared appeals to you, and if you are not faint of heart, then I invite you to follow the adventures of my thumb and me as we wreak havoc with nature and try to survive. Check in with us often (we plan to post items frequently). We need all the cheer leaders that we can get!