Home Food Storage

Our church has always counseled us to be self-reliant. And one of the ways they encourage us to do so, is by having 3 months to a year's worth of food store up. This is nice to have when there is an unexpected decrease in income such as a lay-off or illness. This also makes it possible to not be completely dependent on the grocery stores. When a natural disaster hits, your local Walmart shelves can be swept clean within hours. Stores don't stock things like they use to and it may take days maybe even weeks before they are restocked during a disaster. We've all heard the news in the last couple of years, times are tough right now. So when something, like any of these scenarios, happens it is good to be prepared. I've heard it said that it's better to have money invested in a year's worth of food than to have that money in the bank. For instance, what if that same natural disaster makes it impossible to get to the bank and get your money out. How would you feed your family during that time? There is a certain peace of mind that comes during these tumultuous times when you know all is prepared and stored safely away.

So how do you go about gathering a year's supply of food? I know this can sound overwhelming but if you start slowly, like buying a few extra cans or boxes of the foods your family normally eats and check out some of the links I have listed, you'll be off to a good start. And you'll feel more at ease the next time, say, your car brakes down and needs repairs.
www.homestorage.crookedtreefarm.com
http://www.lds.org/Static%20Files/PDF/Magazines/Liahona/English/2009/LI_2009_03_04___04283_000_005.pdf

Once you've gotten the idea of what food storage is, I have some tips to help you get started...
1. Sit down and make a 2 week menu (including all ingredients) of the meals your family is use to eating. This is no time to get creative and try out new dishes. If your family is under extreme stress there is nothing like comfort food to make everyone feel safe and secure. So write a menu of the foods you're use to cooking and you know your family likes. Double this menu. Families usually eat the same thing twice during a month. Make sure you've included breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. This should give you an idea of what kinds of foods to stock up on.
2. Buying in bulk can be good as long as you can eat all of the food before it goes bad.
3. Once you start bringing your food home, make sure you mark and rotate your food. The idea is to eat the food you already have and rotate in new food as you use it. To do this you'll need to get a permanent marker and mark (on the items)the date you bought the items you bring home from the store. This system helps you see immediately which items are new and which are older. The reason for doing this is to try and cut down on waste. We've all found food in our cabinets that we are not sure if it's still good or not. Wasted food means wasted money.
4.An excellent way to get your food storage up is by growing a garden. You can then put up your harvest by canning, freezing, and/or drying it.
5. We've also been counseled not to go into debt to get our food storage. Just do it a little at a time, bit by bit. And you will be blessed for your efforts.

Our church also recommends that we have a 72 hr kit for every one in the family, in case we have to leave our homes quickly and suddenly. This allows us to be able to get our kits and walk out the door within a moment's notice and have everything we need to survive for 3 days. Here is a couple links for disaster preparedness.
www.fema.gov/
www.redcross.org/
http://www.osha.gov/dts/oohn/disasterrecovery_shchecklist.html

I am making this entry not to alarm or scare anyone. I just wanted to bear testimony that if we do all in our power to be prepared, we will feel at peace even if the world around us is in discord.

Community Supported Agriculture ( CSA )

We have a farm down the road from us (Randle Farms) that allows those in the community who are interested, to be able to pay for a share of the farm's harvest. So I bit the bullet and went for it. I'm so excited to get fresh produce that still has its nutrients in it. Did you know that by the time most produce arrives at the supermarket it has lost almost all of its nutrients. And don't even get me started on pesticides. SO other than growing my own garden (WHICH I HIGHLY RECOMMEND) this is the next best thing. You may be asking yourself why I don't just grow my own garden, and my lame excuse is that I'm a one task at a time kinda gal. And with just starting Home Schooling this year, I'm not ready to start another project just yet. But I do intend on making gardening part of our HS routine in the near future.
If you are curious about CSA Farming, just click on Randle Farms up above, and it will take you to the page where they explain this service. Then maybe you'll want to google a farm near you. Its a wonderful thing, you get to support local farms and you get fresh produce. Truly a win/win situation.

The ABC's of Preschool

It probably seems like my little one's get left out a lot, when in fact we have been very busy with reading lots of books and learning how to count, recognizing our colors, and learning our ABC's. We have also been on field trips to the farmer's market, the library, the fire station, and Shakey's Pizza to learn and make our own pizzas. But even if we do periodically focus on the older two the younger ones are always listening and learning too.

When I first decided to homeschool last year, my older two were given the opportunity to go to Texas to stay with my sister for the summer. This is something they really needed and deserved. They got the chance to step out of their role as older brother and sister, and were allowed to just be kids and have fun.

While this was happening, I took the opportunity to focus on my little ones; fearing that when the older two got back they would be neglected. So this summer, me, the little ones, and Grammee did a thematic study on farms. We read books like The Ox-Cart Manand Stories from Treasured Tales from Beatrix Potter, and we read nursery rhymes(ALL HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). We sang songs like "Old MacDonald". I had a puzzle of a farm and all the animals in groups from one to ten. For example: one cow, two chickens, three mice, ect. And we put that together counting and making the noises of all the animals. We also discussed all the different jobs and purposes of all the animals on a farm. We did an art project making a picture of a barn yard out of beans and macaroni. After we read Beatrix Potter, we got clay out and made turtles, frogs, and other things that went along with the stories.

For food we picked blackberries from our own back yard, we made homemade bread, and we made our own butter. *This is actually very simple, you get small containers like baby food jars, buy some heavy whipping cream, add a little salt, and then shake, shake, shake, shake,shake..........until it turns into butter!!!* This was a lot of fun, plus it tasted SOOOO GOOD on our warm homemade bread! You could even drizzle some honey over it and talk about bees and the job they do. If you look at things creatively enough, every situation can turn into a moment to teach. We also made some homemade ice cream. Delicious! Ok so we used an electric ice cream maker, but it's still considered homemade in my book after all we did add all the ingredients ourselves. :-) And the kiddos thought it was cool.

I really wanted to visit a working farm, but at the time I didn't know where one was. So we settled for visiting the local farmers market and talked about how farmers plant, grow and harvest food so that we can have good food to eat. This too was a lot of fun.

Next year I plan on having a garden so that we can carry this theme even farther. I imagine that planting our own garden will be very rewarding and exciting for our family. Hope this is helpful for someone.

Love, Haben