Frog Legs

Spring in New Hampshire is an awesome, nasty, sloppy mess especially if you live in the woods, half way up a mountain. Spring was also noisy. Yes, noisy. You would not believe how noisy it could be. The mud that made our dirt driveway impassable (the truck sat stuck in it for weeks) did not make any noise. The leaves sprouting on the poplar trees that surrounded the house made no noise. Neither did the small patches of leftover melting snow. The noise was from the FROGS!
That small ditch pond we so happily skated on through the winter was now the mating and nesting grounds of thousands of frogs. You would never have guessed such a small pond (maybe 30 ft x 20 ft) could produce such sound but it did every spring.
It was impossible not to hear then. It was a loud, steady drone the whole day through. I had walked down and seen that the pond was covered in frogs but I didn't know that my father had taken notice as well. He never mentioned it and he didn't walk down there to check them out like I did. Just one day he took his pole. This caught mine and my brother's attention immediately. I was a girl but I was such a tomboy and I loved fishing. However, my father didn't take bait. He went to the ragbag where we kept the leftover fabric scraps and got a small piece of red felt. He didn't tell us what he was doing but we got poles and followed him as he knew we would. My father wasn't a secretive person but he liked to surprise us and I think he believed in teaching by example.
Once we were down by the pond you couldn't hear to talk anyway. That was how much noise those frogs made. We watched him cut off a very small square from the red felt, put it on his hook, dangle it in front of a frogs face, and SNAP! a second later the frog had snapped it up and he was caught. My father hit its head on a stone from an old stone wall bordering one side of the pond and put it in a plastic bag he had also brought.
Both my brother and myself asked for a bit of red felt and we were off catching frogs. Oh we knew they were for eating, we had had frog legs once before but one frog set of frog legs does not make much of a meal. We were out there for hours, my father went in before we did but we kept catching frogs. We caught 47 the first day and went out again the next day and caught 54. This didn't even make a dent in the frog population or noise level of our little pond.
My father cut and skinned the frog legs and put them in a cast iron frying pan. Then quickly slapped the lid on it. He then lifted it a bit and showed us how the frog leg reflexes would make the legs jump if he didn't have the lid on and they did, they jumped like they were still a attached to the frog!
We, my brother, my father and I, happily ate the frog legs after they were cooked (yes, they taste quite a bit like chicken) though my mother and sister thought it was gross and would not eat any.

What's in the Bag?

I hesitated to write this one. If you "prep" too much people think you are strange. I can't explain to people that I am not really a "prepper" when I post things like this. I have a "bag" in my car and Phil has one in his truck. It is NOT because we think the world will eventually collapse and we think we might have to "bug out". We really don't believe that but we do have "emergency bags" in our vehicles. This is in case some natural disaster prevents us from getting home and we need to go on foot OR some disaster causes us to spend a couple of days somewhere other than home. Our emergency bags aren't complete however, they are just a work in progress.
My emergency bag is rather small but I have done it keeping in mind the amount that I think I can carry. Even then, it will still be heavy for me. Phil has a much larger bag because he can carry more. I tend to pack a few more medical supplies in mine because I work with over 100 children and I always have the fear that we will have a tornado or something while I am there and any medical supplies at that time may be helpful. I am missing some things and even today I added a few more things that Phil had in his bag that I didn't know about until we were taking these pictures and I wanted them in mine as well.
Here is the bag I keep in my car:

This is from one of the small pockets on the front: Binoculars, hand warmers, and sewing kits. 

Another small pocket on the front: muscle creme, Pepto Bismol, scissors, face masks, bacitracin an some antibiotic pills--amoxicillin, an ace bandage, some lip balm and a bottle of aspirin and the stuff in the zip lock bag which will be in the next picture.

This is just a couple of plastic ponchos, tooth paste, a firestarter and a salt and pepper container that I need to fill.

In the Ziploc bag I have eye drops, another ace bandage, thermometer, thermometer covers, bandages, cleansing pads.

The first large pocket contains: a flashlight, extra batteries for the flashlight, a multi-tool, a knife, matches in a bag, lighters in the bag, q-tips and different cotton balls and pads, extra water filters for the water bottle, glucosamine (because I need it), multi-vitamins, a little first aid kit, 550 cord, glove, an extra quart zip-lock bag and feminine pads.

The next large pocket contains the food, wipes, two sterno cans, a firestarter, duct tape, a head lamp and drink mix. There are two metal bottles of water that didn't make this picture for some reason.

This is the bottle I have strapped on the outside with the iodine pills and the other ones to make the water taste good again ( I really need a larger bag). I eventually would like to have a blanket and tarp strapped here.

This folding shovel and MRE stay in my trunk with the bag because they won't fit in it. 

This is what is strapped on the outside of the bag, an extra knife, some clips and extra rope. 

I did miss one whole pocket in the food section that had Slim Jims, more peanuts and a folding fork/spoon set.

I am now going to move on to Phil's bag but I don't know what everything is in his bag so you will have to figure it out from the pictures. As you can see Phil's bag is bigger than mine.

Just his first pocket has all sorts of stuff. I know there is a whistle, compass, glow stick (I have these in my bag too. I think I lost a picture somewhere...), a map of the area, a mirror, scissors, binoculars, and I don't know what he rest of the stuff is.

 

This is a survival  book, glasses, ponchos, not sure what else the other stuff is exactly.

Here is his gloves, hatchet, headphones, spoon and fork, a pot and folding stove for the Sterno (I bought that for him) and cord. Oh and I think that is a fishing kit. I want one of those in mine!

There is food from an MRE in this one, wipes, muscle rub, antibiotic ointment, Vaseline, towels (those are the round things), hand sanitizer, and I think that is it.

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Here is some first aid stuff he has in there.

Then he has a pocket for flash lights, knives, knife sharpener, clips and 550 cord.

After looking through Phil's bad to do this post, I added some Moleskin (I had never heard of it) and a 5 in 1 tool I found at Wal-mart that has a waterproof container for matches, a compass, a mirror, whistle and fire starter.  I want to add a blanket and tarp still but other than that, this is probably what I will have in my emergency bag. I can't say that it hasn't come in handy. I have gotten things out of it several times at work. The duct tape has come in handy and so has the thermometer when I had a child who was sick at work and our thermometer's battery had died. I have a work bag too and tools in the car that come in handy all the time. Nothing like being prepared~

Why Most Wouldn't Survive

I know, very unlike me to do a "gloom and doom" post and I really don't believe any major catastrophe would ever happen..however...just for the sake of argument (and I'm sure there will be some) I wanted to explore that topic a little bit since I see so many post about people who think they could survive one just because they have expanded out into the country and now have chickens...really?
This way of thinking is why most people wouldn't survive a major catastrophe. They think they know so much but having chickens that eat feed store food---already prepared for you--does not make you a survivalist.

You have to be more than that...and it isn't about what you have already done..although that helps. It helps if you have the knowledge on how to butcher animals and eat wild plants and tie knots...sure...if the catastrophe allows there to be wild animals and plants and rope still....but it might not.
Sure the more you know the better...that just makes sense. Learn everything you can!
However, I really think that the people who would make it through a major catastrophe are the ones who can make due with what they have. They are the people who can:

-fix a plumbing problem without calling the plumber
-make a fire without a match or a lighter or a store bought "fire stick" etc.
-gather wood without an ax
-make or find clean water without a filter
-find food
-find or make shelter
-take what they needed if necessary

The list could go on and on but basically, it is the people who can "Think".  Those who can make something out of nothing ...and you can't "teach" that.
Well, maybe you can. I grew up "doing without". I grew up "making due". It comes pretty naturally to not buy what I can make--to actually shun buying what I can make.

But that isn't all..you would have to have the ability to take what you needed if all else failed and you couldn't get it yourself...and some people think they would never do it...and I think they wouldn't make it...or they don't really understand how the survival instinct in humans works because we can justify a lot of things..but humans have been justifying taking from others to survive for a long time now and in a catastrophic situation they would be justifying a LOT and if you couldn't do it...you wouldn't make it.

Like I said, I don't believe in catastrophic occurrences...I think our society is pretty much beyond that now but if one did occur, I think we would be left with only the people who could "think and live with change".

The Generator Is Here!

So our new generator arrived today while I was at work.

It is just a small one but should provide us with some real comfort the next time the power goes out. We are going to get some gas and oil for it tomorrow and test it out to make sure it works. I'll post an update when we do.
I also ordered a small greenhouse today since the greenhouse we built has now been taken over by shade and cannot be moved (since one side of the greenhouse now makes up one side of a chicken pen). I just wanted a little something to grow a few things in. We'll see how it goes when I get it in as well.

Food Storage Article from Guest Author

The following article is from a guest author Lee Flynn

Getting Food Storage Off Your Shelves and Onto Your Dinner Table

A depressed economy and turbulent environment are just two factors that have recently led to a heightened interest in food storage. It seems that now, more than ever before, people are conscious of the possibility that catastrophe (in any one of its ugly forms) could strike at any moment. While it probably isn’t good for your mental or emotional health to live in fear from day to day, it is certainly a good idea to prepare the best you can in case things do take a turn for the worst. And food storage is certainly one of the fundamental ways that you can be prepared.
Building a good supply of food storage requires a lot more than just buying excess food. Acquiring and maintaining your food storage can be simple but it does require effort and persistence in order to ensure that you prepared for tomorrow, next month, or two years from now.
The most obvious and essential item to begin with when building your food storage is water. Experts suggest that adults should drink around 2.5 liters of fluid per day (while any fluid will do, water is the cheapest and safest to store for extended periods of time without refrigeration) so you will want to ensure you have plenty stored away. Grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, meats and beans should be the staples of your food storage. Flour, rice, and macaroni are easy to find in large quantities and will last for a long time. Dried fruits and vegetables, powdered milk, yogurt bites, and freeze-dried cheeses, as well as dried beans and freeze dried meats will ensure you have the basic food groups covered.
Once you have a well-balanced and well-stocked food supply you are not going to want to just forget about it until disaster strikes. The immediate value of food storage is more than just peace of mind – there are plenty of ways to utilize your food storage every day so make the most of your investment by putting it to use often. Plus, constantly using items from your food storage and then replacing them will provide a nice rotation that helps to keep your supply fresh.
Using food storage daily can be easy, will save you money and should never mean that you have to compensate for taste. There are dozens and dozens of recipes out there that can help you get food storage off your shelves and onto your dinner table without your family even knowing that the ingredients came from your food store. You can probably even find a number of full and varied recipe books that are centered entirely on using food storage as ingredients for meals. There really is an impressive variety so you’ll have to do a little research of your own if you are looking to make a specific dish. That being said, there are some simple ways that you can use standard food storage items as fillers for common ingredients that are called for in a lot of recipes—using beans instead of butter or oil is one example.
If you’ve built up your supply of food storage correctly then you will most likely have a good supply of beans, whether they are pinto, black or white. Many people aren’t aware that you can use beans as a replacement for oil or butter in many of your desserts. In addition to being much cheaper, beans provide additional fiber and protein so they are actually healthier too. And no, they won’t make whatever you are preparing taste like beans (they may influence texture, however, so if you want a chewy texture for cookies etc. you may want to do half beans and half butter/oil). Here are the basic things you’ll want to keep in mind when substituting beans in these recipes:
-If the recipe calls for butter you will use cooked, dried beans. If the recipe calls for oil you will use bean purée (beans blended to a liquid).
-Match measurements and match colors. If a recipe calls for ½ cup of butter, use ½ cup of beans. If you are making chocolate cake, use black beans. If you are making a white cake, use white beans.
-Follow the recipe just as if you were using oil or butter. If it asks that you add the oil in the first step, add the bean purée in the first step.
This is just one simple way that you can use the food storage items you already have to supplement your meals on a day-to-day basis. Utilizing food storage consistently is more affordable and, in many cases, more healthy. And if you do it right, your family won’t even know the difference. Take some time to look into recipes that specifically call for food storage items, you may even come across your new favorite dish.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lee Flynn is a freelance writer and expert in long-term food storage and emergency preparedness.

PVC Knife Sheath Part 2

After the sheath was flattened he made the lines to cut the tip. These are cut off with the rotary cutter.

Then he heated the sheath again. He heated where the knife was going to go in. Then he slid the knife in the sheath and held it with the board so it would make a nice pocket for the knife.

He heated the very tip and curled it around a screwdriver to make upward curl he wanted. In the next step it is bent back so the curl is on the side towards the persons body.

Then the final heating and bending for the part that the belt will go into.

It was basically done then but it needed sanding,the points filed off and three rivets added to the bottom.

And here is the final product except he is going to paint it later.

PVC Knife Sheath Part 1

This was a project of Phil's today. He has been researching it for a couple of days and attempted it today. I feel it turned out really good. You start with a piece of PVC pipe. His was a 1 3/4 inch piece by approximately 15 inches. He was making a sheath for a knife that was 10 inches long in all.
You start by making your lines. You want to cut off half of the top part. The bottom will be your sheath so you  measure it with your knife to see how much room you will need. You then drill holes in the corners and use the cutting blade on any dremel type rotary tool to cut it out.

It then should look like this (I hope the pictures are better than my explanation).

He then took his heat gun and heated up the round end. It must be heated all the way around.

So that you can flatten it with a board. Use those gloves, it is hot!

You must hold it until it cools (a few minutes) otherwise it will spring back into its round shape.

You then need to heat up the other side so that you can flatten it.

Flatten that side as well. 

It should look like this.

Doesn't look like much yet but stop by tomorrow for part 2 (too many pictures to put it all in one post)! 

This Weeks Deals

There weren't many. I got a 10 lb bag of potatoes for $2.99 which I will need to can if I have any jars left. If I was home for dinner I would use them just the way they are but I don't ask Michelle to peel potatoes for dinner. I am sure she could but I just don't want her to have to. I got a package of fresh mushrooms marked down to $ .99. I had two of them last week which I ended up dehydrating. This package will partially be used for supper tonight (marked down steak because we are so tired of pork now) and the rest will probably be dehydrated.
I also got two small packages of dehydrated oyster mushrooms marked down to $ .75 each. I have never tried any mushrooms besides normal button mushrooms and have seen several sites and videos on how easy oyster mushrooms were to grow so this was a chance to try them. I tested them out with lunch and they are quite nice so will have to look into growing them myself.
The best deal of the day was found at the flea market though. Yes, it is another lamp.

I think it looks a bit bigger than it really is in this picture. It is just a medium sized lamp. I could have bought 10 things on the table that had this lamp (he had a dehydrator for $5 and while I have two already, it was a  hard deal to pass up!) but funds and space made me just get the lamp. It was $2! I have 9 oil lamps now. Is that excessive? I guess, we'll see  how we feel about that the next time the power goes out for more than a day.

Cutting and Lard Making

I wasn't sure if "larding was a word :)
 I don't mind making lard at all. Yeah, there's the smell but by the time you start filling your jars--one now, one an hour or so later etc., it starts to smell really good to you. With this pig there was a LOT of fat! Yeah! I saved all I could too. Right now I have two of my larger crock pots going (I had to dig one out of the cupboard, haven't used it in years- since I got the newer one) and they were full of fat. Plus I have a whole gallon bag full of more fat to make into lard. Unfortunately I didn't think to take pictures of the fat before I started cooking but here the crock pots are now after I have gotten 3 quarts of lard out.

The older crock pot definitely cooks slower than the newer one. I had to turn the newer one down (just goes to show that people want slow cookers but apparently not quite as slow as they used to be). I, obviously, have a couple more quarts to go which is fine with me. I don't do a lot of baking in the summer so haven't used up much of my 4 pints from the last pig (we don't use it for every day frying stuff because I keep so much bacon grease) but I am pretty sure that what I get from these two pigs should last me the whole year and I shouldn't have to buy any kind of oil or shortening. This is one of the reasons I never want to do the cost per pound vs feed on an animal. If I could do it (which I can't), I would rather do a cost to feed vs the cost it would save me on the price of the same products- or products I will substitute what I have for- if that makes sense.

The other chore today was cutting up the meat and trying to find a place for it in the freezer. We didn't quite succeed at this. I have 8 packages of bacon (approx 5 lbs each) in the frig curing in bags. That was all the room we could find since there are two hams still sitting in the frig. as well. That was just one half of the bacon belly (the other half is..bigger). I got the roasts cut off, the shoulders and hocks cut and bagged, the heart, tenderloin, and loins cut (what a lot of loin! We normally cut it and use it as boneless pork chops but the taste is SO much better than store bought pork chops), there is the sausage meat and the bag of fat in there as well and all the ribs.

We would have gotten the other ham at least in the freezer (to cure later) but we ran out of freezer bags so will have to do it tomorrow after work. It is in the big cooler with the huge other slab of bacon (I cut up the ribs to the loin to get more bacon). I will keep adding ice to it but we will get the other ham done tomorrow and hopefully in the freezer, and the bacon will get cut into approx 5-6 lb chunks and put in the freezer to freeze for later or put in the frig to cure--whichever has more space.
Was sick all morning and it wasn't my sinuses but still got the job done and animals fed. Can't say that I missed having to feed the pig.

Thrift Store Find

So today my thrift store shopping resulted in a new shelf. I was running out of shelf space in the spare (storage) room and had taken to setting canning jars on the book shelves wherever they would fit. Today at the thrift store I found the perfect shelf. It was in its original box which was "tore up", as we say here, but I was really hoping it hadn't lost any pieces. It had a metal framed shelf with wooden shelves. I also hoped that I could fit it in the storage room without having to move one of the existing shelves. I got lucky. It fit perfectly in the only space that was left. The only thing that bothered me was when we got home Michelle saying, "I bet Phil will have fun putting that together when he gets home." I asked her why she thought that I couldn't put it together. The instructions were in a different language but there was pictures and it isn't exactly rocket science. It took me about 15 minutes to get the shelf all together and then some time to move all the jars but here it is.

The jars are 3 deep on each shelf and the buckets on the bottom are flour and sugar.  This isn't nearly all the canning jar food as the cupboard in the laundry room is still full but it definitely freed up space on the book shelves and the shelves that hold extra store bought goods.

The Colony Part 3

We are about to start The Colony Part 3 on the forum. We are thinking we will change it some. This time we are going with some type of severe (apparently) solar storm whose geomagnetic storms would cause us to lose all satellite communications, electricity, phones etc. If you have any thoughts on this or would like to join in with our Colony posting please post on the "The Colony" board on the forum. We would love to have more "players" this time with more input.
http://simplyselfsufficiency.yuku.com/forums/104

The Colony Part 2

Our Colony on the Simply Self Sufficiency forum is about to start over. We decided that at day 60 we would start over and we are now (most of us) on day 54.
What is the Colony?
It is an exercise in survival. We kept it real simple. All the food in the world is poisoned and you can't buy any more from the store. You have to eat what you already have or can produce. Yes, we know this is an unlikely scenerio but that wasn't the point. It was to see how self sufficient we we really were.
In our first Colony we found out we weren't nearly as prepared as we thought. Some of us, myself included, thought that if we were self sufficient we wouldn't need stores of food. When we started the Colony post we realized how foolish that was. We weren't nearly that self sufficient yet. So we have started stocking up on the things we realized through the Colony postings that we were lacking.
The idea of starting over is to see how much better we would do now and how we would do at different times of the year. Obviously winter will be harder than say fall so we need experience in all of them.

We'd like to invite everyone to come post with us after Christmas when we start again. The idea is to use only what you actually have in your house or could acquire without going to the store (because in our minds most people would be out looking for food and not worrying about their cashier jobs). Some of us keep count of the days though we don't post a Colony post every day and some of us just jump in on whatever day the others are on or some of us start in the middle and post from day one. It really doesn't matter how you want to post. If you cheat and pretend you have a lot more food or a lot more other resources, you are the only one who will be losing out because you won't get the full benefit of the experiment. We hope to get a lot more people to join in this second time. To join at the Simply Self Sufficiency forum all you have to do is post on one of the boards and you are automatically a member. We hope to see you there!

http://simplyselfsufficiency.yuku.com/