This weeks preps check-in

[user 7704]

My old dog barks at them, but doesnt chase them.

 

[Brent S]

I had one determined squirrel a while back eating the plumbs. If he would eat the whole thing I would have felt better but he would take a bite out of multiple ones. I set a lawn chair in the pole bard and sat very still with a pellet gun across my lap. He made the mistake of forgetting about me after 15 mins or so and the problem was solved. Of course he has about 30 cousins but it was a step in the right direction.

 

[Amish Heart]

Our two barn cats, Jayrod and Kevin do a great job. A mama cat arrived the other day with 4 babies in tow. They are in the basement, and can go in and out through a little window. The cats know to come in if it's too cold. I never have mice in there. Will be shutting one in the milkhouse soon, though, just for the night. Did that in one of our bigger buildings and it's now mice free for the moment. Another barn cat who is not friendly has taken over the roundtop, which is great because we've had packrats near the tractor and ride em mower.
My special deal for the day, actually for our middle child, our son, who loves cardamom in his coffee. I bought 6 glass jars of it for $1.49 each. A steal.

 

[SHTFPREPPER]

Back when I lived in the suburbs, we had squirrels n raccoons BAD. I set up a chain link dog run with hardware cloth wired tightly on top and put my nuts etc to dry in there. They couldn’t get to the food.
Just a suggestion for others.

 

[Brent S]

Worked some on the house today. Not specific to prepping but am trying to finish all repairs and improvements here so I can have less to do later on. Especially if I am right about an economic situation where materials and supplies become a lot worse to obtain.

 

[user 7000]

Worked some on the house today. Not specific to prepping but am trying to finish all repairs and improvements here so I can have less to do later on. Especially if I am right about an economic situation where materials and supplies become a lot worse to obtain.

That's a tandoori oven. The tackiness of the dough makes it sear itself to the sides.

 

[user 7704]

Just went to HARBOR FREIGHT to get another crank/solar lantern. Dont have them. Bummer

 

[Brent S]

Just went to HARBOR FREIGHT to get another crank/solar lantern. Dont have them. Bummer

I’m not crazy about the quality of much at harbor freight, but their prices are hard to beat. There are some things I don’t need the best quality in, and I do shop there too some. Especially now that I’m retired and want to make sure my savings last as long as I do. I can live with one that won’t last as long now since I’m not going to be using it as hard.

 

[dirtdiva]

This week I added 20 pounds of shelled roasted black walnut pieces to the freezer. This will make a wonderful addition to oatmeal, trail mixes and my Christmas fudge. Still shelling and roasting them with about 6 five gallon buckets to go.

Also added 12 pounds of dehydrated figs to mylar and put in food safe dried fruit buckets. I like to store my dried fruit in small mylar and then in bucket with gamma lid.

Also added 3 pounds of dehydrated blueberries also in mylar.

I am hoping to find some apples on sale to dehydrate in the near future since I do not grow my own. I have plenty apple sauce canned and pie filling also. But I prefer to dehydrated small chunks for addition to my breakfast oatmeal and to eat out of hand.

Looking for citrus sales to start around Christmas this year. If it drops down low enough I will make some citrus blends in jars and can in a very light syrup. One of my favorites.

Also bought case of Tetley English Blend and a case of Earl Gray to add back to the stash. Yep I am a tea girl

 

[dirtdiva]

I’m not crazy about the quality of much at harbor freight, but their prices are hard to beat. There are some things I don’t need the best quality in, and I do shop there too some. Especially now that I’m retired and want to make sure my savings last as long as I do. I can live with one that won’t last as long now since I’m not going to be using it as hard.

Brent I take advantage of their sales. I stock up on things like microfiber cloths and zip ties and assorted hardware. I am not real happy with the life of their small batteries. Also be very cautious. My husband bought a couple jacks there and while using on to jack up and level a small outbuilding it failed. Luckily no one was under there and hurt. Later he saw where they were recalled by the company.

 

[GeorgiaPeachie]

This week I added 20 pounds of shelled roasted black walnut pieces to the freezer. This will make a wonderful addition to oatmeal, trail mixes and my Christmas fudge. Still shelling and roasting them with about 6 five gallon buckets to go.

You have me drooling over the abundance of walnuts and thoughts of Christmas fudge!!

 

[dirtdiva]

Just a heads up now is the time that stores are clearing gardening supplies. I bought 3 large bales of peat moss and a potting soil from the farm co-op for half price. Also bought a couple large bags of vermiculite for seed starting that was reduced.

 

[SHTFPREPPER]

Just went to HARBOR FREIGHT to get another crank/solar lantern. Dont have them. Bummer

Saw some on EBay week before last

 

[SHTFPREPPER]

Going to start measuring windows at my son’s house today. Going to sew them window quilts for the kids’ rooms and the spare guest bedroom to try to keep the cold out. Then I’ll start on some more for my 1900 farmhouse. Gotta cut propane use down to bare bones usage this year. We have wood stoves but they don’t (rental farmhouse). Already bought the grandkids very heavy blanket sleepers. We have lots of “pajama days” when I babysit!

 

[user 7704]

Cut another utility wagon full of wood. My chainsaw shut odf so I'm guessing it got hot. It has oiland gas and I clean after every use.

 

[user 7704]

And just cut another. I'm done for the day. Hello ice pack

 

[Amish Heart]

You are a brute, robinjopo. Way to go.
I did a ton of housecleaning (not prepping, I know), but I did put stair treads on the stairs because I slipped and fell down them last month. The bruising wasn't pretty, and I think these will help. Cleaned up my pantry food prep area where I repackage stuff. Unloaded the dehydrator and refilled it again with tomatoes. This will be a continual project till they are all gone. Lots and lots of green ones

 

[Brent S]

Our temps drop Saturday night so I still have plenty of time to bring up more firewood. It was on my list today but the porch construction ended up being an all day deal. Plus I had to put everything away as calling for rain all day tomorrow. Began installing the vinyl soffit today. Got about half way through. Feels good to see finish work happening but I’m far from being done yet. Once I’m done I’ll build a bench seat that stores firewood in it. I love having fires in the house but it sure makes a mess. I’m doing everything I can to camouflage some of it.

 

[Amish Heart]

It does make a mess, but I love it anyway. Our woodburning stove is in the kitchen, and we use a number of medium sized wood bins, and one kindling bucket. Still, I sweep the area alot.

 

[jimLE]

I'm still putting my food saver to work.as well as my new blender.i bought 4LB'S of bacon.in which I fried.then turned that into bacon bits with the blender.then vacuum sealed.. got me a hand crank coffee bean grinder and a bag of coffee bean.thinking of trying that tomorrow.

 

[Mountain trapper]

It does make a mess, but I love it anyway. Our woodburning stove is in the kitchen, and we use a number of medium sized wood bins, and one kindling bucket. Still, I sweep the area alot.

We use wood for 99% of our heating. I just finished the wood shed thats about 10 steps from our front deck and it holds 7 cord, at least. We're also stack about a weeks worth of wood next to the front door.

 

[Amish Heart]

We have a big covered porch with the door going into the kitchen. Have two racks on the porch of dry firewood. So, we don't have to go very far. The rest of the wood is in the yard, but I get on to the grandkids if one porch rack is empty, and then they need to fill it again.

 

[Amish Heart]

Alot of amish are switching to propane heaters for two reasons. One is that many have their wood burners in the basement, and the elderly amish have a hard time up and down the stairs to keep the heat going. Another is that many of these farmhouses are pretty old (ours is from 1908), and many chimneys haven't bee cleaned correctly or taken care of properly, and then there's the roof fires. So instead of all that plus a new roof, they'll switch to propane.

 

[GaRp58]

This week I added 20 pounds of shelled roasted black walnut pieces to the freezer.

Also bought case of Tetley English Blend and a case of Earl Gray to add back to the stash. Yep I am a tea girl

You just reminded me that I need to crack and freeze about 10 lbs of walnuts too........
I have a dozen types of tea and the Earl Gray and Orange Pekoe are my favorites, Helena can't drink any of it tho, she cannot take any caffein. Camilla, Mint and Rosehips...

 

[GaRp58]

got me a hand crank coffee bean grinder and a bag of coffee bean.thinking of trying that tomorrow.

You are gonna love the exercise with the grinder and the flavor of the coffee. I have two different ones here, we get fresh beans, roast the in the oven or in a cast iron pan and the grind them. Super coffee.

 

[GaRp58]

We heat with natural gas since it is so cheap and has no work involved. We also have a wood fired heater in the living room and in the garage where we sit with the dog and cat and Helena does not smoke in the house. We only use the wood for keeping the garage warm while sitting out there for hours daily. Got an extra fridge there for cold beer and wine in summer too.

 

[Brent S]

You are gonna love the exercise with the grinder and the flavor of the coffee. I have two different ones here, we get fresh beans, roast the in the oven or in a cast iron pan and the grind them. Super coffee.

I’ve thought about getting a grinder for the beans but have not really thought about roasting the beans as well. I have not looked but is it common for raw beans to be on grocery shelves? I wonder if it would be better to grind them before roasting to evenly heat them more?

 

[Mountain Dragon]

I own an manual coffe grinder if the electric power will be missing and i feel like enjoy an fresh brewed coffee.... All my coffee storage is already roasted and the grinder works well with roasted beans.
If you're taking an look to an professional coffee roastery they all are working with the whole beans to roast (proably they are more or less all in same size). I can imagine myself if you try to roast grinded coffee you'll get burnt, extremly black coffeepowder without an nice taste....

 

[Dostoyevsky]

Going to start measuring windows at my son’s house today. Going to sew them window quilts for the kids’ rooms and the spare guest bedroom to try to keep the cold out. Then I’ll start on some more for my 1900 farmhouse. Gotta cut propane use down to bare bones usage this year. We have wood stoves but they don’t (rental farmhouse). Already bought the grandkids very heavy blanket sleepers. We have lots of “pajama days” when I babysit!

OK, total ignorance here as I'd never heard of a window quilt before. Is it the same as a bed quilt and you hang it up like a regular curtain? Like these: 12 Instructions with Free Patterns to Make Window Quilt | Guide Patterns How do you fix it in place? If it's in one piece can you roll it up if you want to let light in? (I'm guessing they would make the room totally dark, so you'd be spending more on lighting, but it would probably be a great idea anyway.)

We have the opposite problem here of keeping heat out rather than cold, but I'm wondering if this would work for me. How long does it take you to make one? If I've got a big window could I just fix a bed quilt in place somehow? Do you use the same kind of internal layer as for a bed quilt? Would that be bamboo? You've got me thinking, thinking, thinking, as our hot weather will be here soon.

 

[KateMTx]

OK, total ignorance here as I'd never heard of a window quilt before. Is it the same as a bed quilt and you hang it up like a regular curtain? Like these: 12 Instructions with Free Patterns to Make Window Quilt | Guide Patterns How do you fix it in place? If it's in one piece can you roll it up if you want to let light in? (I'm guessing they would make the room totally dark, so you'd be spending more on lighting, but it would probably be a great idea anyway.)

We have the opposite problem here of keeping heat out rather than cold, but I'm wondering if this would work for me. How long does it take you to make one? If I've got a big window could I just fix a bed quilt in place somehow? Do you use the same kind of internal layer as for a bed quilt? Would that be bamboo? You've got me thinking, thinking, thinking, as our hot weather will be here soon.

I don't know exactly what they are referring to as window quilts. I do know that here in the US you can buy thermal window curtains which can be used for insulating windows. So I suppose a quilt could serve the same purpose if hung in a window. I have a sliding glass patio door, which in addition to being a security nightmare, is terrible when it comes to insulation. I have been planning to get some thermal curtains for use in the summer so the electric bill won't be so high because of the air conditioner running constantly. They will also come in handy if we have another "winter storm" like this past winter to keep me nice and warm.