The Stupendous Crisis Survival Thread

[calfoxwc]

local store - half of the cold isle was empty and dark.

the crisis involving russia could explode into war.

It's history - could repeat itself.

Times could get very hard, just with a nationwide Trucker strike.

russia has Belarus now.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/03/politics/belarus-russian-troops-worries/index.html

Russian troop buildup in Belarus is a 'big worry' to US and European officials

" to signal the West, NATO and to put some military coercion to NATO by having Russian troops in great numbers right across the NATO Eastern border, the areas bordering Latvia, Lithuania and Poland."

[DieHardBrownsFan]

Just on the news that Russia is removing troops from Belarus.

[calfoxwc]

2 hours ago, DieHardBrownsFan said:

Just on the news that Russia is removing troops from Belarus.

that's a good thing - except they still have their troops on their shared border with Ukraine.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/russia-to-pull-troops-out-of-belarus-following-exercises

Putin has deployed more than 100,000 troops to Russia's border with Ukraine and sent thousands of others into Belarus, a country with borders closer to Kyiv.

[calfoxwc]

well, that was back in early feb. Now, russia is on the warpath now that we

are helpless with a corrupt, totally incompetent wh. russia may cyber attack out grid, and worse.

This thread was way, way in advance of big serious trouble that we have now.

Now it's a war.; I said there was going to be a war.

gas around here is now over 4 bucks a gallon.

we could crash, spiral into serious, runaway inflation. It might

snowball - we are seeing just the beginning.

I've used acorns to make flour - just an experiment - but it isn't that good to make again.

Here is zucchini flour - this is terrific and I'm going to make a lot of it this summer:

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

 

SunStone Orchard & Rabbitry

Y9estefS0rday87o4ni8 at cso10r:5164 eAMd  ·

 

Zucchini flour.

Might be old news to some, but you never know right. With rising concerns on wheat costs just thought I’d share it.

There’s probably fancier ways of doing this out there, but here’s how I learned. Easy peasy. Nothing to it.

We love and make tons of zucchini flour every year. You may have heard it called Amish flour or troops flour before. It’s a Staple in Amish and Mennonite household for generations here. It was also embraced in the 1940’s during rationing.

You let your zucchini grow, oversized is actually better. Large to extra large. Marrow sized. I peel mine with a carrot peeler, into thin even strips for less drying time. Or slide it through a mandolin for speed of prep.

Run it through the electronic dehydrator or just thread it. . No large seeds if possible for finer texture. Everything else is fine. It must be absolutely dry. It’s essential. If in doubt always dry it more, any moisture will ruin it during storage

Then run it through a food processor or hand grinder until you have a powdered consistency. It will be a marbled green looking power. Texture is similar to a good quality whole wheat flour. That is zucchini flour. Three large zucchini is about four or five cups for me finished.

It can be used to replace 1/3 of flour in most recipes without any change to the finished products, acts as a thickening agent for gravies, great for breading fish but we really tend use ours for tortillas and bannock since those are our quick go to breads. It also makes great dumplings and brownies.

Store in air tight jars , or we often vac pac ours

For us, we still purchase grains from a local family owned grist mill. So this is free, sustainable, easily produced on site and it has a mild taste. Most people wouldn’t pickup on it. It cuts our flour usage by a third . You can do the same with sweet and regular potato, other squash acorns, and pumpkin. I just find myself zucchini is the least flavoured. Plus we get overloaded by the darn things.

Shared

[calfoxwc]

btw, I got out some dehydrated strips of mango, and red grapes - from fall 2020. They were excellent, and I only put them in a plastic baggie.

Put em in a clean glass jar, with an oxygen absorber in it, last years longer.

If we crash, hope you planned for what we assumed might not ever be close.

It's close now. We'll see.

[calfoxwc]

Meanwhile, I've been dehydrating sliced strawberries and bananas. Bananas are different -

you need to slice them up about a quarter inch, and dip them in lemon juice or citric acid,

and then put them on the tray....

you can also dehydrate dates, and grind them up into sugar.

and it's time to make my own sauerkraut again. that is some excellent stuff.

 

[calfoxwc]

meanwhile.... russia seems to be threatening to use their hypersonic low yield EMP weapons. They can't WAIT to use it.

with the withdrawal of russian troops, is that a sign that russia will do it?

who knows.

and EMP attack would kill millions, it's said.

Not so silly maybe now,....

https://www.askaprepper.com/could-an-emp-be-putins-revenge-against-america/

[calfoxwc]

On 3/11/2022 at 11:24 AM, calfoxwc said:

you can also dehydrate dates, and grind them up into sugar.

btw, I dehydrated two big bags of dates I deseeded and cut up. Over many hrs, even a few days, they are still chewy. So much so far for trying to grind them up into date sugar. But they are EXCELLENT FOOD almost two months later....

Next, I am researching gmrs/frs radios. It's confusing. Don't know which one I will go with. Stay tuned.

[hammertime]

Try cold smoking those dates.   Then dehydrate.

 ✅

[calfoxwc]

16 hours ago, hammertime said:

Try cold smoking those dates.   Then dehydrate.

 ✅

Interesting. I'll have to look that up - I think it would change the flavor so much that....

interesting. The texture is great, a bit like taffy that doesn't stick to your teeth.They taste GREAT.

[calfoxwc]

About GMRS - I have decided to go with the Radioddity GM-30. It's a great radio at a great price. Not the fanciest, but it has the bells and whistles that I want. It will be with us camping, fishing, hiking, traveling, mostly for emergencies. This is the only one that uses USB to recharge. Has a keyboard to go to a desired frequency, can switch from high power (about 4 watts), to low power to legally talk on FRS and MURS channels. I'm knew to all this, so there's a learning curve, you betcha.

   It isn't waterproof, which is something I wanted, but waterproof ones cost about way over a hundred bucks or perform poorly compared....and it is easier to keep the radio in a baggie, and buy a waterproof mic to plug into it.

   Biggest reason - for the areas that have no cell phone reception. It would give us a strong? chance of finding help locally. May happen that you could come across someone who is hurt, etc. with no cell phone signal.

  About the government. I registered to get my id # - it was a easy, and got my number immediately in an email. I did this in late afternoon. Except the first three tries it told me I wasn't registered after I got the email when I went to apply for the license.

  Then the trouble started. I applied for the GMRS license, about midnight....and it kept telling me my established password, was invalid. No, it was not. Then after several tries, I got annoyed and tried various versions of my password. Nothing worked. Finally, it kicked me off being able to try.

dammit.

So, I tried my correct password again, said it was invalid. So, I left it up on screen and went to bed.

This morning, came in here, pressed "enter" and it accepted it immediately. 

So, I went to pay with our credit card - was 70 bucks, but dropped to 35 bucks Apr 19th...and more trouble. Filled out the form, said my credit card number was invalid.

dammit. It was not. I did enter it with no spaces , unlike on the card, so I tried that. Nope, field only big enough for straight digits. So, I deleted everything, retyped it exactly as they wanted it..... said it was invalid. I tried again and again.

    So, I went and made myself some tea, came in, deleted everything in the field, stared at it for a few seconds, and retyped it in again.

  Worked fine, accepted payment. Pretty poor programming, really poor performance.

   You really don't want to depend on the gov for your survival.

[calfoxwc]

I now have the GMRS license. Haven't ordered the radios yet. This stuff is complicated - just read the 50 page manual. It's going to take months to get around to learning all the acronyms and terms. lol

From what I have read, it also covers your family members with the same license.

  

[Vambo]

On 5/18/2022 at 11:25 AM, calfoxwc said:

I now have the GMRS license. Haven't ordered the radios yet. This stuff is complicated - just read the 50 page manual. It's going to take months to get around to learning all the acronyms and terms. lol

From what I have read, it also covers your family members with the same license.

  

 

[calfoxwc]

I now have a set of Radioddity GM-30 radios. very excellent - the sound is terrific. I can listen to FM radio, weather channels (with scan), I'm still looking up acronyms. If you ever go camping, hiking, or vacationing where there isn't any cell phone service..... they would be great to have. You can call home base, call friends, call for help....they are not waterproof, but I ordered a waterproof mic if we are fishing on some big lake and get windswept to a far side of the lake in a storm.

or, anything like that.

[DieHardBrownsFan1]

[calfoxwc]

still time to run out to a walmart and buy some cans of Keystone beef and pork.

It's really good.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/america-s-beef-supply-is-expected-to-shrink-as-drought-and-rising-production-costs-prevent-ranchers-from-growing-herd-sizes

[calfoxwc]

So - what to do if the power goes out? Meat in the freezer? Like, about 200 bucks worth?

It's tough, if you aren't ready to handle the situation. Preppers just want to be ready ahead of time.

   So much despair and panic when bad times hit.

Meat in the freezer will eventually start to thaw in so many hrs.

Here's some ideas:

   A. If the meat is already cooked, you could slice it and make jerky out of it. with no refrigeration, it may last months. depends.

B  I bought a Presto 16 quart Pressure Canner and cooker. If I find a great deal on meat, I can it in sterilzed mason jars. You have to follow the instructions carefully. Sure, they are on the internet, but the power is out, right?

NOTE: I love this cooker/canner. A friend who researches bigtime on all this stuff - this is the one she uses. They come in two types - the pressure gage type, and the weighted type. The pressure gauges have to be./should be recalibrated every year. The weighted types - you have weights that are equivalent to the pressure required. You simply see what the pressure is, and use that particular weight.

I pressure canned pork loin - a bunch of it was on sale, so, it's canned. Will last for months, if not years. I'm getting ready to research canning baby back ribs.

   Meat - must be pressure canned. the meat gets a preliminary cooking to a point, then the sealed jars are cooked in the canner per instructions.

   Vegetables must be pressure cooked. Like green beans. etc.

Let's say you have bags of your favorite vegetables - green beans, corn etc - frozen in the freezer. Power goes out.

  You could pressure can them - but since they are already blanched (boiled in water for a correct amount of time) before freezing, you can simply put them in a dehydrator and dehydrate them.

Generally, you put the dehydrated veggies into mason jars with a couple of small oxygen absorbers and they will be good for months.

I did several jars of hash brown and sliced potatoes in jars. I think ten lbs of dehydrated potatoes filled a quart? jar. Something like that. It's amazing. Before you cook them, simply pour boiled water over them, let them sit for so many minutes, then cook them up. It works great.

     Fruits do NOT need to be pressure cooked ! Just a boiling water bath in canning jars.

    If you have frozen blackberries etc - you can let them thaw in their bags, deseed them (if you want to, and have a deseeder), and make jam. they get water bath boiled and will last at least a few years.

   There was a big run on those canning jars - when covid broke out early on. It's a tough time maybe, to have those jars and lids and a good book on canning (I use the Bell one) and know how to use them.

  

   

[hammertime]

Basic stock items?  How to store them?  Rice. Pasta. 
 

side of beef?  

[calfoxwc]

seeds, rice, beans bought in big bags etc, spaghetti, dried potato slices etc, can easily be stored for years in mason jars (I run them through the dishwasher by themselves) ...with a few 100 size oxygen absorber packets - for food storage use.

 https://osoris.com/best-oxygen-absorbers-for-food-storage

there are two sites I and friends have used to purchase these kind of items - at times:

Emergency Essentials

https://beprepared.com/

and the Ready Store

https://www.thereadystore.com/

3 years ago, prices were not so high for a lot of things. There are lists of other resources etc, too.

One favorite is the freeze dried pineapple. Still expensive, look for sale items.

 

 

 

[calfoxwc]

I am a big fan of dehydrating. Apples, ,cored and sliced (with very cool little hand turned machine jobbie) - dehydrated, have lasted for months even in ziplok bags.

However - NOTE: plastic bags do not stop air from affecting your stuff. Eventually, over time, your slices etc will get soft. That is why the mason jars, with canning lids, and the oxygen absorbers.

If you have never canned, the idea is to cook the air out of the jars - you can tell when it's right - the flexible upward bubble will pop down. The oxygen absorbers also create a vacuum.

Oh, and snacks - popcorn, pretzels, baked cookies etc can also be put in clean mason jars with canning lids and absorbers. Flour and corn meal, too. At the two sites I listed, you can buy powdered milk and eggs that will last ten years.

More expensive now, though.

Buying your own freeze dryer is really expensive - never done that.

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

   dehydrators can be bought at Walmart, I'm sure. You don't have to pay big bucks for one. I will tell you - my old extra trays, fan at the top one - has lasted for years. But the fan is getting a big noisy.

   The new one, if I didn't say already? - burned out because I did leaves for tea, and some pieces fell down into the bottom fan, and jammed it from turning, and the heating element burned out. Threw it away.

    The digital ones can be easily timed to shut off when you want them to. Personally, I like that function a lot, but still wouldn't leave home with it running. Different things dehydrate at different temps.

Like meat - 155 degrees F. or something. It's usually listed  .somewhere.....95 degrees for leaves for teas...fruits 135, depending.

I've done strawberries, kiwi, bushes of apples, bananas, frozen green beans, frozen corn, squash, blueberries, etc. sliced tomatoes (tomatoes are actually a -fruit- ). I've blanched cabbage and dehydrating a lot of it, too.

NOTE: I said fruits at about 135 - but bananas often will turn blackish/brownish. ugly. Same thing with tomatoes. The trick is to run the temp lower- about 120. That works pretty good.

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

    You can also order online - 50 lb bags of organic beans, etc if you want to. I don't remember the good site for that.

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

    I buy bags of beans, and cook them til they are half soft, then I drain them, and dehydrated them. Works awesome. And the cooking time is so much less. Great for chili etc.

Remember, frozen veggies have been blanched already.

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

    if you find great deals on food - like blueberries on sale before they go bad - our local grocer had two ten lb bags of idaho potatoes for 8 bucks. That was a great deal. Buying in bulk, like large bags of rice, and beans etc at a Sam's Club or BJ's, etc, you can reseal stuff to last for several years.

    NOTE: You don't have to use jars - you can use mylar bags. Find your best price, hopefully on a good sale, in the size you want, and put a lot of beans etc into it, seal the top after putting some aborbers in it - you can reseal the bag when you take some out.

   If the absorbers get stiff - the packet is used up. Replace those before resealing.

   So much to learn, it takes time. I have made tea from mayberry, blackberry, mint, common mallow (great tea for fighting congestion like a cold etc)...

  Elderberry is very, very healthy - after cooking - raw - slightly ? toxic. Went and bought some at the drugstore - 19 bucks. So now I have two nice plants growing at the garden.

[nickers]

16 hours ago, calfoxwc said:

seeds, rice, beans bought in big bags etc, spaghetti, dried potato slices etc, can easily be stored for years in mason jars (I run them through the dishwasher by themselves) ...with a few 100 size oxygen absorber packets - for food storage use.

 https://osoris.com/best-oxygen-absorbers-for-food-storage

there are two sites I and friends have used to purchase these kind of items - at times:

Emergency Essentials

https://beprepared.com/

and the Ready Store

https://www.thereadystore.com/

3 years ago, prices were not so high for a lot of things. There are lists of other resources etc, too.

One favorite is the freeze dried pineapple. Still expensive, look for sale items.

 

 

 

I use Silicon moisture absorbers for my Diabetic medication... They work great... My meds tend to acquire a fishy odor without them...

[JAFBF]

Do you all know what this is ?

 

 

 

 

It's just a simple Indoor Garden   .   .   .   but it is also a :

 

 

 

Think about it.

 

Anyone familiar with "Victory Gardens" ?

 

People used to growth a lot more of their own vegetables, but almost no one does today.

Free money (you're not paying for it), free food (you grew it for the price of seeds / watering).

There are actually some amazing videos out there showing how to "regrow" your vegetables - I'll post a few as I come across them again.

 

 

Cal, I'm thinking reheating (Oven) can recover/restore those absorption bags, but I'm not certain on that.

Could be a research project for someone.

 

Dried Beans (Pinto / Black Bean/ Seven Bean / Spilt Peas / etc) are generally common and inexpensive to pick up, just repackage them I think will aid in storage life.

 

Rice is good as well, just spread out the consumption as Rice is generally a bit high in Arsenic, and the Chinese crap has Plastic mixed in (yea, it sucks).

 

Spam, Vienna Sausages, Stews, Soups, Tuna, Salmon, Sardines, etc. and the like are good in moderation (high Sodium from Canning), but are tolerable.

 

I agree with what Cal is saying, but not everyone has the ability / time too cover all those bases.

 

MRE's are great, but expensive and a bit high in Sodium.

 

 

Cal, feel free to correct me on these, I defer too your experience, these are just a few things I do which may not be optimal.

 

Also note that different parts of the Country have different "abundances" of items.

On the West Coast, we have a ton of Salmon/Fish/Apples/Grapes(Wine)/Blackberries/Marion Berries/Blue Berries/Seafood and so forth, whereas the Midwest is more Corn/Wheat/Soy/Apples (Northern OH).

 

CA and FL will have Citrus, and other Southern States will be Peaches/Pecans/Nuts   .   .   .  

 

Pretty amazing Country of diversity when you think about it, but ideally, we all work together.

 

[Vambo]

Pemmican is the ultimate survival food: very easy to make, calorie dense and can last for decades.

---

Ingredients

 

• Red meat: Traditionally game meat is used, but now beef is most common. 5lbs of meat will make 1lb of dried meat
• Fat (suet): You will need to render the fat into tallow. Instructions below. Use about a 1:6 ratio of fat and dried meat, but you can experiment.  The ratio doesn’t have to be exact!
• Salt: 1tsp salt per pound of meat
• Optional: dried berries, herbs, spices, honey

---

Instructions

1. Cut fat off of the meat: You should only dry the meat, not any fat on it!
2. Salt the meat: This will help inhibit bacteria growth and make the pemmican taste better.
3. Dry the meat: Instructions follow.
4. Turn the dry meat into a powder: A meat grinder is best, but you can also use a blender or food processor. It needs to be almost a powder with no big chunks in it.
5. Turn the berries into a powder: Same as with the meat.
6. Mix the powdered meat and powdered berries together.
7. Heat the fat so it liquefies.
8. Pour the fat over the powdered meat/berry mixture. The ratio of fat to dried mixture is about 1:6, but you can experiment.
9. Let cool and form into balls or bars.
10. Wrap in wax paper or plastic bags and store!

How to Dry the Meat

The easiest way to do this is to use a food dehydrator.

You just cut the meat into thin strips and put them on your dehydrator rack. Follow the dehydrator instructions for drying time and temperature.

If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can dry meat for the pemmican in your oven.

1. Turn on the oven to 170F.
2. Cut the meat into really thin strips and put them on a baking sheet. You can also put the strips directly onto the oven rack, but some drippings might get inside your oven.

The meat will need to dry in the oven for about 15 hours – occasionally open the oven door to release the moisture which builds up.

The meat is done when it is VERY CRISPY. It is very important that the meat is dry or else the pemmican will not last as long.

You can dry berries in the same way as the meat.

How to Render Fat into Tallow  

Fat will eventually go rancid. But, if you render it first, then it can last virtually forever.

Rendering fat into tallow sounds complicated, but it is actually really simple and has a lot of health benefits.

It is best to use beef fat for pemmican, but you can also use lamb fat. You can get these at your local butcher, and they might even give it to you for free. The fat is also known as suet.

1. Remove any remaining meat which may be on the fat.
2. Cut the fat into chunks. You might also want to put it into your food processor to get it even smaller.
3. Put the fat into a big pot.
4. Cook on the lowest setting. For each pound of fat you render, you will need to cook it for about 1 hour. Yes, this will take a while! You don’t have to monitor the fat the entire time, but do occasionally check in, so it doesn’t burn.
5. The fat will melt, but you will see bits floating on the top.
6. Once the bits on top are golden brown and the fat stops bubbling, then the rendering is done.
7. Strain the fat through a sieve or cheesecloth into a jar. You just want the liquid parts and not those crispy bits. When the fat (now tallow) cools, it will be a pretty golden color.

*You can also use a slow cooker to render fat into tallow. Just put the fat into the slow cooker, put it on the Low temperature setting, and let it render for a few hours. You’ll know it is done when the fat is liquid with crispy chunks floating on top.

[DieHardBrownsFan1]

 

[Axe]

Harkens/hearkens back

[calfoxwc]

https://wildplantsguide.com/book/?hop=lostherbs&hopId=653de288-a76f-448c-aba4-66519a5e603d

[calfoxwc]

You can eat the entire cattail plant, I fry up dandelion blossoms and make some great dandelion jelly, one American Indian tribe was known as tree bark eaters - the inner soft layer cambium layer, the layer next to the hardwood - of SOME edible trees - like maple, etc. 

• https://www.healthline.com › nutrition › purslane

  Purslane - A Tasty "Weed" That is Loaded With Nutrients - Healthline

  Purslane is a leafy green vegetable that grows in many parts of the world. It is high in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, but also contains oxalates that may affect some people.

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

  I"ve also collect the larger maple tree "wings" - the seeds of some maple trees - peeled the seeds out, and toasted them.

  Really good. with a little salt....

     so many plants that have nutritional and medical use.

  You will NEED to have more than one resource to learn, to not make serious mistakes.

   

  Sting nettle tea - very cool, very good for you. Lambs Quarters, etc etc etc.

   Plantain for healing cuts, like Yarrow, for the same.

   

  Common mallow tea for colds/congestion....

   

  just really interesting.

[nickers]

1 hour ago, calfoxwc said:

You can eat the entire cattail plant, I fry up dandelion blossoms and make some great dandelion jelly, one American Indian tribe was known as tree bark eaters - the inner soft layer cambium layer, the layer next to the hardwood - of SOME edible trees - like maple, etc. 

• https://www.healthline.com › nutrition › purslane

  Purslane - A Tasty "Weed" That is Loaded With Nutrients - Healthline

  Purslane is a leafy green vegetable that grows in many parts of the world. It is high in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, but also contains oxalates that may affect some people.

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

  I"ve also collect the larger maple tree "wings" - the seeds of some maple trees - peeled the seeds out, and toasted them.

  Really good. with a little salt....

     so many plants that have nutritional and medical use.

  You will NEED to have more than one resource to learn, to not make serious mistakes.

   

  Sting nettle tea - very cool, very good for you. Lambs Quarters, etc etc etc.

   Plantain for healing cuts, like Yarrow, for the same.

   

  Common mallow tea for colds/congestion....

   

  just really interesting.

I imagine you have had Pemmican... What is it really like?

[calfoxwc]

26 minutes ago, nickers said:

I imagine you have had Pemmican... What is it really like?

I have, it's really good, but it depends on what ingredients you use.

I've only used wild blackberries, but want to try with blueberries and pineapple...

I plan on re-packing my hiking waist pack, and will include some pemmican, Right now, I am researching bear spray and will order a few cans for our trip out west.  I want to figure out the best meat to use...

https://www.fieldandstream.com/survival/homemade-pemmican-recipe/

https://www.skilledsurvival.com/how-to-make-pemmican/

 

[calfoxwc]

so, if communist chinese hackers take down our grid....

watcha gonna do when no water or food comes to you?

https://www.facebook.com/reel/216585854741254