Food preserving - If hard economic times hit....

[calfoxwc]

Whether it's weather disaster caused, or a depression, or jobs losses (here in Stark County, unemployment has

skyrocketed)...

 

what to do? How do you cut corners ? How can you make lemonade out of the lemons?

 

The first hint I have, is drying fruit. You can slice apples up into 3/8 slices, the actual width

 

isn't a requirement - and with a dehydrator or oven at 135 degrees, dry them.

 

The apple slices will last, eight months to a year, especially if you vacuum seal them (if you have one of those),

 

and/or refrigerate them. My brother-in-law and his wife made some a year ago. They are kept in a plastic

 

jar in the basement... and those apple chips were very, very good.

 

So, we have been making them a LOT. Ida Red apples are fair to good, I am trying Pink Lady today.

 

But the very best so far, is the Granny Smith apples. What a burst of flavor. I recommend a dehydrator, because

 

you have air flow with the heat. That is quicker.

 

Instead of the cookies or chips or twinkies etc, bought from the store, what better snack, especially for

 

kids for lunches, than wholesome apple slices?

 

Apples ripen and lose their crispness over time, some far quicker than others.

 

But the slices just preserve that food, and you don't use preservatives etc, that the commercial

 

dried fruits companies do.

 

We have done pears, which also turned out fine, and bananas, which don't really seem to be worth the trouble.

 

While you slice them, put the slices in water with "fruit fresh" or something like that, even salt water, to keep

 

the fruit from oxidizing, that is, turning brown.

 

And, the pineapple we did? Priceless. Two whole pineapples didn't make a lot of slices though,

 

but the end product was very excellent. Everyone is wild about the dried apple slices. It's great for

 

kids, and the rest of us.

 

and, if you have a neighbor or friend with an apple tree on their property - that is priceless.

 

that is easily a year of having great fruit in your house. A little bit of work, don't need a freezer or

 

canning equipment. But if I take the dried slices and use my vacuum sealer jobbie, and toss the packages

 

in the refrigerator or freezer, I think I could enjoy them well after a year.

 

Also works for peppers and tomatoes.... it's a great hobby, and prevents loss of food that gets overripe too quickly.

[calfoxwc]

Canning takes more work, equipment, and information to do it PROPERLY.

 

I recommend you buy a copy of Ball's "Blue book" of canning recipes. With canning, you must

 

closely follow the directions, and you will have good results.

 

The upside is, after a full year and a quarter, I still have a few jars of canned tomatoes that

 

I use for chili and my own home made soup. The tomatoes taste terrific right out of the jars, even still.

 

Always check your lid - that it is depressed and solid and not easy to pry off, before you try your canned goods.

 

 

[admin]

We mix a lot of the dogs food with rice or bread, and add in a lot more table scraps ... feeding two dogs, even though they are small is getting tougher in harsh times.

 

My wife and I both have been blessed with consistient jobs, but with four teenagers (and a 9yr old), our grocery bill is between $300-$500/wk!

 

The kids also get a lot of rice, potato, or pasta type side dishes and more water & Koolaid than pop or juice.

 

We try to keep after-school snacks around a $1/per, such as Michelina dinners and left-overs.

 

I think the tennagers kill us with school lunches. We pack and provide them with probably too much, but put a lot of individual items in there that they snack-on from as soon as they depart for school through most of the day. We've switched to packing bottled water instead of the small juice box type drinks. They can also re-fill the water bottle using the school drinking fountains. Lunch meat kills us, but the school lunch is a one-shot type of thing and they are hungry before and after ... plus, if you give teenagers cash they spend it on everything but a school lunch and when we put money into a school account for them, they still found a way to buy junk with it instead of a meal.

 

The Kids are our biggest problem, keeping them out of the cubboards between meals and after school is a real chore. However, by-law we are required to feed them, we've checked.

 

[calfoxwc]

do you have your own garden? That's an upcoming addition to this thread, I probably shouldn't make a separate one.

 

We grew 900 tomato plants last year, and 420 peppers. There is one pepper we grew, a big sweet banana pepper, that

 

was so good, kids loved the free samples I was giving out. Dried, they are a treat.

 

I know T and I have been doing big, serious gardening. we grow most all of our own plants, except the big

 

candy onion sets this year, and pototoes.

 

I need to go find a study on home food savings that can be saved by having a home garden.

 

I want to put in a fishing pond this year, since I'm not working this past year, and can't afford a new pontoon boat,

 

nor can we afford a Lake Erie boat like we used to have.

 

Dad and I are talking about stocking large Italian bullfrogs in our bog... @@

[Mr. T]

We had a fairly ;arge garden last year and we had plenty of food top go around. I only wish that we had not had so much stinkin rain though in July. It brought on the blight and harmed our potatoes and tomatoes, otherwise we would have had a much better year. The peppers and onions did fine.

 

The one crop that did fail was the kentucky wonders green beans. so we replaced all of thois plants and replaced them with pole beans and managed to get enough to last the winter.

 

I have already started a few seed trays about 80 tomatoes to start and some radishes and green onions, those are my favorite.

 

But I need to find a good source for some seed potatoes before they are gone. I cannot find a good source here localy

[calfoxwc]

T, our experience is, that the blue Lake green beans are superior in taste, and grow very well.

 

I'd order your pototes - from E&R , in Indiana. I can get you the phone # if you want me to.

 

I have to get some thornless blackberry bushes going... and more blueberries.

 

I wish my orchard was mature.

 

"sigh"

[Kosar_For_President]

T, our experience is, that the blue Lake green beans are superior in taste, and grow very well.

 

I'd order your pototes - from E&R , in Indiana. I can get you the phone # if you want me to.

 

I have to get some thornless blackberry bushes going... and more blueberries.

 

I wish my orchard was mature.

 

"sigh"

 

I wish I had the land like you Cal. I would be growing all sorts of shit. Especially, the expensive stuff at the market. Like red and yellow peppers and blueberries. I might be moving into a place with a nice fenced in backyard on the OBX, with some blocked off areas that have good clean soil from what my girl tells me. I wonder what grows good there?

 

If that happens I will be asking your advice. When is a good time to plant? Hopefully the middle of April is not too late down there?

[calfoxwc]

If you are talkin N.C., T is the expert there.

 

But tomatoes are the biggest money maker at farmer's markets, outside of berries.

 

Man, you can sell blackberries and blueberries for $5 a quart, sometimes $3 a pint.

 

I was all set to go pick a bunch of blackberries last year to sell and can,but the farmer who sprays

 

the land next door, sprayed too close to the fence line with all the berry bushes, and fried em.

 

son of a....

 

in our orchard, I have mcintosh apples (2), sour cherry (1), sweet cherry (1), a red bartlett pear tree (1), two peach trees....

 

but they are young.

 

year before last, we canned 64 quarts of green beans. They were excellent. Frozen, no, they get mushy and lose their taste bigtime.

 

I still have a few quarts of tomatoes... they are really great. And, a year later, I still have several quarts of transparent cooking apples

 

frozen. They are oustanding even now.

 

Need berry bushes. The neighbor is letting us plant his field with hay - that is a good money maker around here.

 

Herbs and flowers will grow in the little old 10x12 hard shell greenhouse. Well, as soon as I liquid nail the stupid flimsy panels back in..

 

they flipped out of their clips and went sailing like klingon death machines all the way 30' in the air, past 6 acres and fell

 

in front of the woods.

 

And the new used 14' by 32' hoop greenhouse will hosue all the veggie plants. We supply our couple of neighbors and some friends with plants.

 

I have to go trim the old orchard out in our woods in the morning, and later, go cut several big wild cherry trees down for the old farmer neighbor - he wants them gone, and I want all the wood.

 

I have to oil spray the orchard before the buds come out, and after it stops freezing at night.

 

this week, we have to cover the big greenhouse, so we can start all our veggie trays with seed to transplant some things into the ground

 

about May 21, the rest just before Memorial Day here in Ohio.

 

I would have started today, but Bernie Kosar had cabin fever, like me, and we took a 2 hour walk around a neighbors' grassy field,

 

and all the way across our fields, to our woods. A few days ago,he spied what had to be a young skunk in our woods...

 

I have a holster for my H&R just in case I see him again... @@

 

So much work to do now. yikes.

[Mr. T]

Peppers grow the best in this climate, We planted the red, yellow and green bell peppers along with jalapenos and chili peppers. I didnt cut all of the plants down and back in january we still had a few growing. crazy I know we even had some lettuce that came back up.

 

I have always had trouble with tomatoes here. Maybe that is why they run close to $5 per lb. down here.

Someone could capatalize on the tomato market here. Not very far from my house a nice couple who relocated here from Medina have a produce stand they run most of the summer. they are always running out of green beans and tomatoes and he gets a good price for them. $8 for fresh green beans.

[calfoxwc]

Dang. I fell asleep while reading "Carrots love tomatoes" in my big sofa chair and just woke up.

 

You need to test your soil. Chances are, down there, you may have too much nitrogen in your soil,

 

which goes to the plant growing, but not so much the tomatoes.

 

Sweet corn loves nitrogen in the soil...

 

About dehydrating - I found out that the Pink Lady is a very excellent apple ! It is not as sour, to me, as a nearly ripe

 

Granny Smith, still very crisp...

 

You can slice them without coring them, but the corners are kinda wasted, unless you want to just eat those.

 

also, I would peel the apples. If you buy them in a store, they are probably coated with a thin coat of wax.

 

And, with the peeling so thin, when it's dehydrated, it tends to be a tiny bit bitter, probably depends on the apple?

 

Also !

 

When you get your dehydrator, it should come with a few plastic trays with no holes. This is great for making jerky,

 

and you can make your own fruit roll-ups. You won't have to buy them, you know your fruit is healthy, no preservatives,

 

and they didn't cost you much if you have an apple tree, or were given them by a friend. Look up recipes on that...

 

those fruit rollups can get expensive if you buy them much.

 

I still have dried green and ripe tomatoes I put in chili, soups, and meatloaf... or I just eat a dried tomato.

 

If you or someone else doesn't really care for tomatoes, try some sweet cherry tomatoes.

 

There is a chocolate tomato that we are growing a lot of - it was a big hit with kids last summer when I was giving out

 

free samples. I know some couples who came from a half hour away to buy our tomatoes, especially the "chocolate" cherry tomatoes.

 

Just chocolate brown, with a really great, great taste. When they had movie night, they snacked on those cherry tomatoes, they were so good.

 

Also, there is a kind of very round, very golden cherry tomato that is super sweet, like "Sugargold" or Sungold"...

 

Some of the regular cherry tomatoes are more for salads.

 

z-z-z-z-z-z.;

[Mr. T]

If you dont have a bunch of money for storage and want to freeze you can always use the ziploc vacuum freezer bags, we used these and they worked well. I didnt think it would work, boy was i suprised.

 

 

[ballpeen]

Using a regular freezer bag and a straw can achieve nearly the same thing.....zip the bag until only a straw can be inserted, and suck out the air...use your thumb to seal off the bag as you remove the straw and finish zipping the last qtr inch...a little air may enter, but not so much you don't extend freezer or storage time a great deal.

[kpolen4]

If you are talkin N.C., T is the expert there.

 

 

. And, a year later, I still have several quarts of transparent cooking apples

 

frozen. They are oustanding even now.

Those apples make the best home made apple sauce ever

[calfoxwc]

Tip of the day:

 

If times get tough in this country.... you want to be prepared. While you easily can, go to Sam's club, and buy

 

the big box of instant mashed potatoes - the Idahoan mashed potatoes are excellent. You can buy several boxes,

 

and just have them in a food storage closet for later on, if tough times hit. One box makes a LOT of mashed potatoes.

 

Instant milk, canned milk...

 

I'm not -predicting- a depression like crisis, but my instincts just tell me to think outside the box of what

 

could happen to make our lives a tough way to go, instead of cruising more or less like we have for a long, long time......., and different ways you and you neighbors might be in a dire situation, money wise, energy wise, food wise...... Spagetti sp? is pretty cheap,

 

especially if you have an Aldi's store near you, or a Marc's... think of things to get for later, that don't go bad.

 

I have instincts telling me to be prepared for tough times....

[Kosar_For_President]

Tip of the day:

 

If times get tough in this country.... you want to be prepared. While you easily can, go to Sam's club, and buy

 

the big box of instant mashed potatoes - the Idahoan mashed potatoes are excellent. You can buy several boxes,

 

and just have them in a food storage closet for later on, if tough times hit. One box makes a LOT of mashed potatoes.

 

Instant milk, canned milk...

 

I'm not -predicting- a depression like crisis, but my instincts just tell me to think outside the box of what

 

could happen to make our lives a tough way to go, instead of cruising more or less like we have for a long, long time......., and different ways you and you neighbors might be in a dire situation, money wise, energy wise, food wise...... Spagetti sp? is pretty cheap,

 

especially if you have an Aldi's store near you, or a Marc's... think of things to get for later, that don't go bad.

 

I have instincts telling me to be prepared for tough times....

 

I do have a stash of food and water, which really goes back to me living on the OBX. I did need it once, I am sure T and attest to this. I get canned veggies with protein like peas, spinach, chickpeas, etc. and store them. I am still waiting to get a job to get my first Berkey with some back up filters. I don't expect a depression, but why not be prepared?

 

Like the potato idea, they don't go bad and have protein.

 

[calfoxwc]

One of the important things, is learn to have a garden. Your own tomatoes, corn, sugar snap peas, onions, green beans,

 

peppers, squash, cucumbers, radishes, etc etc etc...

 

Has anybody noticed? that (one of my favorite peppers), the golden bells... is about 3.99 a pound?

 

A garden can help any family lower food bills.

 

And, get a good recipe for making your own bread and butter pickles, and you won't want to buy them in the store !

[Mr. T]

I do have a stash of food and water, which really goes back to me living on the OBX. I did need it once, I am sure T and attest to this. I get canned veggies with protein like peas, spinach, chickpeas, etc. and store them. I am still waiting to get a job to get my first Berkey with some back up filters. I don't expect a depression, but why not be prepared?

 

Like the potato idea, they don't go bad and have protein.

 

 

We made our own purifier out of two 5 gallon buckets and two filters. $aved about 150 bucks this way.

You can buy the filters off of ebay.

 

And yes, we try to keep a well stocked pantry, you never know when you will be needing it due to tropical storms or hurricanes. Generators, gas, Bleach and plenty of ice.

 

Thanks for reminding me I need to check my yearly inventory.

[Kosar_For_President]

We made our own purifier out of two 5 gallon buckets and two filters. $aved about 150 bucks this way.

You can buy the filters off of ebay.

 

And yes, we try to keep a well stocked pantry, you never know when you will be needing it due to tropical storms or hurricanes. Generators, gas, Bleach and plenty of ice.

 

Thanks for reminding me I need to check my yearly inventory.

 

T, are you sure those are air tight with no leakage, it just seems a bit flimsy.

[Mr. T]

We made ours similar to how this guy did.

 

 

 

[LeBrent]

Thanks for the posts.

 

I just bought a food dehydrator and have tried it a couple times on fruit. So far pineapple has turned out the best.

 

Another good tip is lemon zest. Peel some lemon zest onto a mesh tray and when it dries, grind it up for lemon powder for seasoning.

[calfoxwc]

I mentioned before, maybe, that I tried Gala and Jonagold apples. They were mild...

 

the great apple results so far, are Granny Smith and Pink Lady, the Pink Lady is slightly less

 

tart, but they both keep well as apples, and make very excellent chips.

 

I have dehydrated sliced bell peppers/green tomatoes, ripe tomatoes... and use them in soups and chili.

 

I make home made soup with dried veggies, a quart of canned tomatoes (still good from a year and a half ago),

 

browned lean hamburger (or yankee pot roast if all the bills are paid GGG), chopped veggies out of the garden, or

 

a frozen bag or two of store bought veggies sometimes, a few beef coullion sp? and a can of mushroom soup.

*************

 

http://www.lehmans.com/

 

HOWEVER, what I really wanted to post, was one of our favorite stores. It is Lehman's hardware, in Kidron Ohio, Amish country.

 

This huge store is kinda very famous in these parts. We're going to their huge auction Sat.

 

Lehman's Hardware

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Lehman's Hardware is a retail store located in Kidron, Ohio. Originally specializing in products used by the Amish community, it has become known worldwide as a source for non-electric appliances. The 32,000 square-foot facility bills itself as a "Low Tech Superstore" and a "Purveyor of Historical Technology." It is also a popular tourist destination. Lehman's also maintains a smaller, more traditional hardware store in Mount Hope, Ohio, where their Amish customers may shop with less interference from curious tourists. In addition to the two stores, there is also a catalog and online business.

 

 

View of the Lehman's Hardware campus from the main entranceContents [hide]

1 Location

2 History

3 Physical expansion

4 Manufacturer and distributor

5 Relationship with Amish community

6 Tourist attraction

7 Non-electric products

7.1 Traditional or historical

7.2 Contemporary

8 Motion pictures using period merchandise

9 References

10 External links

 

 

[edit] Location

Lehman's Hardware is located in Kidron, Ohio, an unincorporated community in Wayne County, Ohio. It is located in a tri-county area of Northeast Ohio that is home to the nation's largest population of Amish, some 56,000 in number.[1] Its location made it a natural place from which to do business with the area's Amish population, and its proximity to Ohio Route 30 has also made it a popular stop among tourists who are visiting Amish Country.

 

[edit] History

Jay Lehman, an area businessman, founded Lehman's Hardware (called simply "Lehman's" by locals) in 1955 with the intent of selling non-electrical products to the Amish community. He began the business by purchasing a combination hardware store and gasoline filling station that had been in business since 1915.

 

The store did a modest business, with a mild boost from tourism, until the 1973 oil crisis. As domestic supplies of oil began to dwindle, people began to look for low-tech equipment to help them deal with the shortages. According to Jay Lehman, "The oil embargo put us on the map."[2] The oil crisis secured the store's reputation, with each new disaster or potential disaster bringing in new customers. Other events that increased Lehman's customer base include the Year 2000 problem, the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the northeast blackout of 2003."[3][4]

 

As a result of this change, there has been a marked shift in the demographic makeup of Lehman's customers. In the early years, the Amish community accounted for 95 percent of Lehman's sales. Now it makes up between 6 and 8 percent.[5]

 

Besides the Amish, tourists, and jittery citizens, the store is a resource for homesteaders, missionaries, environmentalists, survivalists, and doctors in developing countries, to purchase items needed for simple living. Lehman's also counts among its customers the American Red Cross,[6] Peace Corps volunteers, and Hollywood set designers also use the store to find historically accurate items for decorating period sets.

 

[edit] Physical expansion

The Lehman's Hardware store added a number of expansions over the years, often in a piecemeal fashion. However, in 2007 the store doubled in size to 32,000 square feet - about 1/4 the size of a typical Target store.[4] Lehman's built most of this addition inside an 1849 barn moved from Orrville, Ohio and reassembled at the store site, using the original hand-hewn timbers and wooden pegs.[4][6] Lehman's asked an Amish staffed construction company to perform the deconstruction and reconstruction to honor the store's Amish heritage and give the structure the same integrity as it had when first built.[6]

 

[edit] Manufacturer and distributor

As the store did business, it often found it difficult to find suppliers of certain items as manufacturers quit making the obsolete technology or went out of business. This forced Lehman's to look other places to develop new suppliers or become their own supplier.

 

In the case of cast iron wood-burning parlor stoves, the Amish only accept the product in black, so Lehman's arranges special manufacturer runs, typically buying a three-year supply at a time.[2]

 

Lehman's also deals in replacement parts for many of their products, tracking them down from individual manufacturers, or at times reverse engineering them. When there is a lack of manufacturers for needed parts, they often obtain the casting parts and hire out the work, or do the manufacturing themselves, frequently without regard to profit.[7]

 

[edit] Relationship with Amish community

Many Amish served by the Lehman stores are now vendors, building 40 to 50 of the products that Lehman's sells.[2][8]

 

Lehman's ability to tap into the Amish tradition of craftsmanship came from its decades-long commitment to providing the Amish with the goods they needed to maintain their lifestyle. In turn, now Amish craftsmen provide Lehman's with exclusive lines of products that would otherwise vanish.[2]

 

The needs of the Amish community still remain a priority at the store, and Lehman's often refuses to defer their needs to meet those of fad or panic buyers.[7]

 

[edit] Tourist attraction

Besides their line of products and their location in Amish country, tourists are also attracted to Lehman's because of the museum-like quality of the store. Actual period pieces are on display throughout the store. There is a small theater where workers demonstrate the use of old-fashioned tools, and the Lehman's bookstore shows films on Amish life for visitors.

 

Lehman's popularity has made it an important tourist destination in Northeast Ohio's Amish Country. Some 4,000 visitors come on a typical Saturday,[4] while the annual figure is around 500,000.[3]

 

[edit] Non-electric products

Lehman's claims they are the world's largest supplier of Non-Electric goods.[4] The items offered range from traditional or historical items, such as a selection of 30 different axes or the Victorio strainer, which is used to make apple sauce and tomato juice, to more contemporary emergency items such as crank powered radios and flashlights.

 

[edit] Traditional or historical

Apple Peelers

Bottle Cappers

Brass cowbells

Cast Iron cookware

Crank butter churns

Foot pedal sewing machines

Graniteware

Grist mills

Hand crank ice cream machines

Hand driven washing machines

Hand water pumps

Kerosene lamps

Pitchforks

Water pump

Wood and coal cook stoves

Wooden barrels

Wooden buckets

[edit] Contemporary

Composting toilet

Crank powered flashlights

Crank powered radios

Gas powered washing machines

Propane powered refrigerators

Lehman's also has employees whose job is to teach customers how to use their new low-tech acquisitions.[8]

[Kosar_For_President]

We made ours similar to how this guy did.

 

 

Did you test the water after it was drained?

[Mr. T]

It wasn't any different than what we get from the stainless steel berkey.

[Kosar_For_President]

It wasn't any different than what we get from the stainless steel berkey.

 

Nice I'll try it out when I got some extra cash, thanks.

[kpolen4]

I mentioned before, maybe, that I tried Gala and Jonagold apples. They were mild...

 

the great apple results so far, are Granny Smith and Pink Lady, the Pink Lady is slightly less

 

tart, but they both keep well as apples, and make very excellent chips.

 

I have dehydrated sliced bell peppers/green tomatoes, ripe tomatoes... and use them in soups and chili.

 

I make home made soup with dried veggies, a quart of canned tomatoes (still good from a year and a half ago),

 

browned lean hamburger (or yankee pot roast if all the bills are paid GGG), chopped veggies out of the garden, or

 

a frozen bag or two of store bought veggies sometimes, a few beef coullion sp? and a can of mushroom soup.

*************

 

http://www.lehmans.com/

 

HOWEVER, what I really wanted to post, was one of our favorite stores. It is Lehman's hardware, in Kidron Ohio, Amish country.

 

This huge store is kinda very famous in these parts. We're going to their huge auction Sat.

 

Lehman's Hardware

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Lehman's Hardware is a retail store located in Kidron, Ohio. Originally specializing in products used by the Amish community, it has become known worldwide as a source for non-electric appliances. The 32,000 square-foot facility bills itself as a "Low Tech Superstore" and a "Purveyor of Historical Technology." It is also a popular tourist destination. Lehman's also maintains a smaller, more traditional hardware store in Mount Hope, Ohio, where their Amish customers may shop with less interference from curious tourists. In addition to the two stores, there is also a catalog and online business.

 

 

View of the Lehman's Hardware campus from the main entranceContents [hide]

1 Location

2 History

3 Physical expansion

4 Manufacturer and distributor

5 Relationship with Amish community

6 Tourist attraction

7 Non-electric products

7.1 Traditional or historical

7.2 Contemporary

8 Motion pictures using period merchandise

9 References

10 External links

 

 

[edit] Location

Lehman's Hardware is located in Kidron, Ohio, an unincorporated community in Wayne County, Ohio. It is located in a tri-county area of Northeast Ohio that is home to the nation's largest population of Amish, some 56,000 in number.[1] Its location made it a natural place from which to do business with the area's Amish population, and its proximity to Ohio Route 30 has also made it a popular stop among tourists who are visiting Amish Country.

 

[edit] History

Jay Lehman, an area businessman, founded Lehman's Hardware (called simply "Lehman's" by locals) in 1955 with the intent of selling non-electrical products to the Amish community. He began the business by purchasing a combination hardware store and gasoline filling station that had been in business since 1915.

 

The store did a modest business, with a mild boost from tourism, until the 1973 oil crisis. As domestic supplies of oil began to dwindle, people began to look for low-tech equipment to help them deal with the shortages. According to Jay Lehman, "The oil embargo put us on the map."[2] The oil crisis secured the store's reputation, with each new disaster or potential disaster bringing in new customers. Other events that increased Lehman's customer base include the Year 2000 problem, the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the northeast blackout of 2003."[3][4]

 

As a result of this change, there has been a marked shift in the demographic makeup of Lehman's customers. In the early years, the Amish community accounted for 95 percent of Lehman's sales. Now it makes up between 6 and 8 percent.[5]

 

Besides the Amish, tourists, and jittery citizens, the store is a resource for homesteaders, missionaries, environmentalists, survivalists, and doctors in developing countries, to purchase items needed for simple living. Lehman's also counts among its customers the American Red Cross,[6] Peace Corps volunteers, and Hollywood set designers also use the store to find historically accurate items for decorating period sets.

 

[edit] Physical expansion

The Lehman's Hardware store added a number of expansions over the years, often in a piecemeal fashion. However, in 2007 the store doubled in size to 32,000 square feet - about 1/4 the size of a typical Target store.[4] Lehman's built most of this addition inside an 1849 barn moved from Orrville, Ohio and reassembled at the store site, using the original hand-hewn timbers and wooden pegs.[4][6] Lehman's asked an Amish staffed construction company to perform the deconstruction and reconstruction to honor the store's Amish heritage and give the structure the same integrity as it had when first built.[6]

 

[edit] Manufacturer and distributor

As the store did business, it often found it difficult to find suppliers of certain items as manufacturers quit making the obsolete technology or went out of business. This forced Lehman's to look other places to develop new suppliers or become their own supplier.

 

In the case of cast iron wood-burning parlor stoves, the Amish only accept the product in black, so Lehman's arranges special manufacturer runs, typically buying a three-year supply at a time.[2]

 

Lehman's also deals in replacement parts for many of their products, tracking them down from individual manufacturers, or at times reverse engineering them. When there is a lack of manufacturers for needed parts, they often obtain the casting parts and hire out the work, or do the manufacturing themselves, frequently without regard to profit.[7]

 

[edit] Relationship with Amish community

Many Amish served by the Lehman stores are now vendors, building 40 to 50 of the products that Lehman's sells.[2][8]

 

Lehman's ability to tap into the Amish tradition of craftsmanship came from its decades-long commitment to providing the Amish with the goods they needed to maintain their lifestyle. In turn, now Amish craftsmen provide Lehman's with exclusive lines of products that would otherwise vanish.[2]

 

The needs of the Amish community still remain a priority at the store, and Lehman's often refuses to defer their needs to meet those of fad or panic buyers.[7]

 

[edit] Tourist attraction

Besides their line of products and their location in Amish country, tourists are also attracted to Lehman's because of the museum-like quality of the store. Actual period pieces are on display throughout the store. There is a small theater where workers demonstrate the use of old-fashioned tools, and the Lehman's bookstore shows films on Amish life for visitors.

 

Lehman's popularity has made it an important tourist destination in Northeast Ohio's Amish Country. Some 4,000 visitors come on a typical Saturday,[4] while the annual figure is around 500,000.[3]

 

[edit] Non-electric products

Lehman's claims they are the world's largest supplier of Non-Electric goods.[4] The items offered range from traditional or historical items, such as a selection of 30 different axes or the Victorio strainer, which is used to make apple sauce and tomato juice, to more contemporary emergency items such as crank powered radios and flashlights.

 

[edit] Traditional or historical

Apple Peelers

Bottle Cappers

Brass cowbells

Cast Iron cookware

Crank butter churns

Foot pedal sewing machines

Graniteware

Grist mills

Hand crank ice cream machines

Hand driven washing machines

Hand water pumps

Kerosene lamps

Pitchforks

Water pump

Wood and coal cook stoves

Wooden barrels

Wooden buckets

[edit] Contemporary

Composting toilet

Crank powered flashlights

Crank powered radios

Gas powered washing machines

Propane powered refrigerators

Lehman's also has employees whose job is to teach customers how to use their new low-tech acquisitions.[8]

ha your down my way in good ole amish country. you ever been to millersburg? thats where i live. just down the road from berlin the capital of amish country

[calfoxwc]

Sure, been to Millersburg and Berlin.

 

I forgot to go to the maple syrup thing....

 

so much to do....

 

we'll have to get a group in our area together sometime.

 

 

[kpolen4]

Sure, been to Millersburg and Berlin.

 

I forgot to go to the maple syrup thing....

 

so much to do....

 

we'll have to get a group in our area together sometime.

ya millersburg isnt anything special but thats where i call home for now until i get through college.

[calfoxwc]

Survivalist frenzy is a boon for business

Thanks to “teotwawki,” terrorists and tectonic shifts, companies and consumers are getting in touch with their inner survivorman. Are you prepared to profit from them?

 

By Eleanor Beaton

 

Article ToolsEmail this articlePrint this article Smaller | Larger TextShare thisFace Book Digg Stumble Upon Del.icio.us Newsvine Reddit Buzz up!

Story Tools Related articlesYour Next Big Thing: 2010 opportunity guideYour Next Big Thing: Generation YGrowth Markets: Where to find franchise fortunesThe previous decade saw its share of disasters and near misses: Y2K, 9/11, the South Asian tsunami, the Northeast Blackout of 2003, Hurricane Katrina. And if the forces of terrorists, tectonics and power grids weren't enough, the global economic meltdown sealed 2000s' fate as one of the most disaster-prone decades in recent memory.

 

The result, according to Gerald Celente, director of the Kingston, N.Y.-based Trends Research Institute, is the rise of neo-survivalism. Neo-survivalists, also known as "preppers,"prepare for the worst, be it environmental catastrophe, war, famine, disease or various other scourges. Think Lost meets Robinson Crusoe meets The Day After Tomorrow.

 

A recent hash of books and movies predicting teotwawki — "the end of the world as we know it,"in survivalist shorthand — give cultural credence to the trend. American novelist Cormac McCarthy's best-selling book, The Road, and the movie of the same name tell the story of a man and his son fighting for survival after an apocalyptic event destroys modern society, while disaster flick 2012 focuses on the end of the Mayan calendar.

 

But don't let the bad news depress you; where there is potential crisis, there is opportunity, says Celente: "As the neo-survivalism trend grows, the survival business will boom."

 

The trend is picking up extra steam south of the border, where natural disasters such as hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, earthquakes and forest fires in California and twisters through the Midwest have been particularly prevalent. The American Red Cross had 160,000 more volunteers in 2009 than it had in 2008 — a dramatic rebound from the drop of 82,000 from 2007 to 2008.

 

Jim Rawls, the Moyie Springs, Idaho-based editor of SurvivalBlog.com, saw his readership double in the past 12 months to 220,000 unique visitors each week. What's more, his readership has gone mainstream. When he launched in 2005, readership surveys suggested mainly conservative Christians were visiting his site; today, surveys show his average reader is just as likely to eschew the Bible and drive a Prius. "This trend crosses the spectrum,"says Rawls, a former army intelligence officer.

 

Rawls points out that although the market for emergency-preparedness kits is filling up, there are still lots of opportunities in the sector. For example, "People are completely clueless about long-term food storage,"he says. Companies that can provide "survival foods,"such as nitrogen-packed edibles with long shelf lives, could tap into this trend, Rawls says, especially if they can also educate their customers about how to store them.

 

Michael Baruch, president of American Family Safety Inc., a Toronto-based survival-kit distributor, recommends focusing on school boards, governments and businesses. "They've been the biggest drivers in our business,"says Baruch, who founded his company in 2003 following the blackout that left much of Ontario and a chunk of the U.S. without power.

 

And for organizations, disaster expertise is in short supply, says Adrian Gordon, president and CEO of the Burlington, Ont.-based Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness. "Awareness levels about the need for preparedness have gone up, but people still aren't sure where to begin,"he says, adding that the need for expertise is especially great among smaller companies that can't afford to hire a major management consultancy to develop a preparedness plan. Gordon cites a recent American Express Small Business Monitor report, in which 58% of the 500 businesses surveyed said they were not prepared for an emergency. "They know it'sneeded, but need help getting it done."

 

Chuck Wright, director of the Toronto-based World Conference on Disaster Management, says there are also opportunities for firms that bring personal and organizational preparedness together. More and more of the CEOs who attend the annual conference are looking for personal preparedness plans for their employees, he says.

 

Rather than the more common company-wide preparedness plans — which create a blueprint for how companies should deal with server breakdowns, ammonia leaks, power outages and the like — personal plans are tailored to individual employees and lay out how they'll carry out their job function in the event of a disaster. Wright says such plans address personal concerns such as having adequate food and water, and care for children.

 

Another opportunity, according to Celente, is to create schools and courses that provide training in self-defense and close combat. Scary? Perhaps. But when it comes to teotwawki, any preparation is better than none.

 

 

[Kosar_For_President]

I've been saving my nail clippings since I was 8, I heard it makes a good stew.

[calfoxwc]

Now that's just plain awful. @@