Water

One of the exercises in last week's 7 Day Challenge from the Food Storage Made Easy website was to act as if there was a water outage for the day.

At the time, I had no water stored at all. Had that been an actual emergency, I'd have been in deep trouble. To make things even worse, I had empty water containers in the garage. I'd have been kicking my dry, parched, dehydrated self.

Happily, those containers are now full and I have 36 gallons of water at the ready.

 

Thirty-six gallons is a start, however it's not nearly enough for us. Our three horses will need a bare minimum of 30 gallons of water every day. Add to that one gallon per person per day for drinking and cooking, plus another one gallon per person per day for basic hygiene. Realistically, we need about 50 gallons of water per day.

 

I have found a unique bucket designed to fit into modern well pipes. Lehman's Non-electric sells a nifty one for $70. A real bargain considering that's about the only option we have for getting water from our well in the event of a power outage.

 

Rain barrels are also in my plans for water storage. I'd put a few at the house and a few more at the barn.

 

 But I digress....I was talking about storing water in containers.

 

We have well water, so it is not chlorinated. I added 16 drops of regular, unscented household chlorine bleach to each gallon of water in those containers.

 

 



 



The bleach helps keep icky bacteria from growing in the stored water. I will still boil this water before I'd use it for drinking or cooking.

 

 

It's a good idea to rotate your water storage just like food storage. Water in containers such as these is probably good for six months. After that, use it up and fill the containers with a fresh supply.

 

I strongly urge you to educate yourself on safe water storage. Below are a few links to helpful sites. I cannot be held responsible for any mishaps or illness you may experience if you store water based on the personal experiences I have detailed here. Please read what experts have to say on the subject!

 

Food Storage Made Easy - Water Storage

 

 



FEMA Web Page on Water Storage

Over the last year or so, I've been saving empty 2-liter soda bottles and have a few dozen on hand. I filled those up with water and eight drops of the bleach for safety. Soda bottles and plastic bottles from juice are fine for storing water. Don't use milk jugs though. It's impossible to get them completely clean from milk and the plastic is the kind that degrades quickly.

I know there is much more to do before I can feel comfortable with our Plan B for water. But at least I have some water stored now.

The second "crop" is in

The lettuce I planted six days ago has sprouted. There are about a dozen tiny plants so far. In the photo, it's the out-of-focus green thing to the right of the stick. Sorry about the fuzzy photo.

Nothing yet from the spinach, chard or collards.

I picked up six strawberry plants on clearance at one of the big box stores. They are the Elam variety.

This 2' x 10' bed is one of several I have planned for strawberries.

I filled it just like the others with chicken wire underneath landscape fabric, paper and the Square Foot Gardening mix. Since I had some empty paper bags from the vermiculite in the SFG mix, I used them instead of moving boxes and packing paper to help keep the weeds down inside the bed.

I staggered the plants in the bed to give them some room to stretch and grow.

I need 14 more plants to fill this bed. There's an ad on the local Craigs List from somebody selling their extra strawberry plants for $1 each, so I'm going tomorrow to get some. I've realized that Craigs List is a really helpful resource.

By next year at this time, these plants will have sent out runners and I may be able to separate some of them to plant in another bed. Within a few years, these original plants should have enough "babies" for me to expand the strawberry patch to several other beds....such as the empty one there in the background.

This 3' x 3' bed is for garlic. Fall is the time to plant it.

  I'm putting in Spanish Rojo hardneck garlic. Hardneck garlics are hardier and more suited for growing in Northern climates. Softneck varieties will store better/longer than hardneck, but grow best in milder, Southern climates.

 

 

You just break the garlic head apart and plant the individual cloves.  Put them in with the pointy end up and the root end down. Push them in about 2 1/2".

 Each square foot of the bed gets nine "seed" garlic cloves. I used scrap PVC pieces to mark off each square foot section.

Once I got all the garlic heads broken up, I only had about 70 cloves, so some of the square foot spaces didn't get the full nine. However, that's still quite a bit of garlic for a 3'x3' bed. This is why SFG is so wonderful....you really maximize minimal space!

Once winter arrives, I'll put about 6" of mulch over this entire bed to protect it. Since there are a lot of pine needles around, that's what I'll use for mulch.

The asparagus plants I ordered have been delayed in shipping again and aren't scheduled to arrive until December now. Ugh! I think that will be too late for "fall" planting and they'll have to wait until spring to go in the ground.

Swiss Chard Soup

Occasionally, I will have guest contributors to this blog. I've asked people from all walks of life to share their experiences, projects and recipes with you.

This morning, I'm honored to introduce my very first guest contributor....my Mom! Yay, Mom!

Mom tried a new food and a new recipe at the local farmer's market.


FROM MOM:

"I read about you planting Swiss Chard, and want to tell you about how I found a good recipe for Swiss Chard Soup.

"At our local Farmers' Market a man had a booth where he was cooking this soup, and was giving free samples of it, with the recipe. The soup tasted delicious, so I bought a bunch of Swiss Chard, which I had never eaten before. I had the other ingredients at home, so I made a pot of the soup, and shared some with my next-door neighbors. The soup is similar to Wedding Soup.
"
Here is the recipe:

SWISS CHARD SOUP


3 cups small pasta
4 cups chicken broth, with 4 cups water
4 cups chopped Swiss Chard, stems included
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves minced garlic
1 Tbsp pepper
3/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Bring broth and water to a boil. Add all the ingredients, except for the cheese.
Reduce heat, and simmer until pasta is cooked.
Serve in a bowl, adding two Tbsp cheese to each serving.
Makes about 6 servings

The 7 Day Challenge: Day 7

Today is the final day of The 7 Day Challenge by Jodi and Julie at Food Storage Made Easy. This is the only one I know I can do. Despite the fact that I went into these last seven days feeling pretty good about my efforts to be ready for disasters, the challenges exposed gaping holes in my preparations.

Initially, I was upset with myself over it. But then I realized what a blessing these challenges have been. Better to find the gaps in my emergency plan now when it's only a test, than when it's a real emergency.



Today you felt a prompting to do an act of service for someone in need. A dear friend is really struggling and it would be very helpful if you brought him/her a meal or a special treat. You have a super busy day with no time to run to the store, but you still want to make something NICE.
Goal: Have a go-to meal or treat on hand for “emergency” acts of service

Today’s Tasks:

• Cook either a full dinner or a special treat for someone in need (be prayerful/thoughtful about this and really try to find someone you can do this for)
• Use only ingredients from your food storage
• Make a list of 2 meals and 2 treats that you can always create from your storage that would be nice enough to give to another family. Make sure you keep the ingredients on hand for them (add to your report card if necessary)
• Once you have performed your “act of service” you are DONE with the challenge!
• Compile all your report cards from the week into a master list of things to do, learn, and buy (use our master plan outline to help guide you)