Free book mix-ups

I've heard from many people who did not get an email of the blog posts for free books.... until the day after the book was free. 

I got on my computer first thing in the morning and made the posts, assuming that everyone would be notified later that morning, or at least by noon.

It turns out a lot of people didn't get the notice until the next day.  I am SO sorry about that.  They're auto-sent by BlogSpot, and the blogs I follow, such as my husbands, sent a notice within a few hours of him making a post. 

All I can say is that next time I'll put the notice up a day ahead of the free days, but you will have to look carefully at the date and make sure you go to amazon on the correct day of the free download promotion.

I will make sure these books run on free download again sometime soon so those who missed it can try again. 

Thank you.
Susan 

Please leave comments below or email them to: povertyprepping@yahoo.com

Maintenance and storage of pressure canners

I wish I had a picture of the safety overpressure plug that I threw away several years ago, from one of my pressure canners.  I was naïve and didn't realize these things needed replacing from time to time.  I'd use my pressure canners and when I was done for the season, I'd wash them well and store them in a shed where I kept cases of empty jars and extra rings and such.

This particular safety plug was literally crumbling.  The rubber was aged and eaten away from it's edges.  I'd started a load of jars through the canner and air kept escaping around the plug.  I tried (foolishly) to pack a towel over it and weight it down, but it just soaked the towel with steam.  I shut the canner off and let it cool down, then finished my canning with my other canner.

Next time we were in town I stopped at the Hardware store and showed them my plug.  They sold me a box with half a dozen plugs in it for a few dollars. 

The years passed and then one of my canners started leaking around the seal.  I tried holding the handles down tight, to stop the escape of steam.  It worked sometimes.  While I held it down tight the pressure would build and then the canner sealed and I was able to continue that load of jars.

I tried oiling the seals to buy time.  These are the old seals made of rubber.  Oiling did work...for a while.  Then the seals were so stretched it was hard to keep them in the lid as I put it on the canner.  sometimes it took a few tries to get the lid on with the seal in place.  That was stupid.  I should have gone straight to the hardware store and bought new seals. 

Even though it seems like the canner is up to pressure and the weight eventually jiggles and everything seems to be going right, it's possible those old seals or plugs are not really letting the canner reach it's proper pressure, and without that, the contents of the jars may not reach a high enough temperature to safely preserve the food.

Nowdays I take that seriously.  As preppers we should always have spare parts stored away for when we need them, but for anyone who uses pressure canners (or anything else important to their survival), it's nice to have the parts on hand when you need them!  Then you don't have to stop in the middle of canning a batch of something to run to the store to buy what you need.

My canners are made my Mirro and have the model number stamped on the bottom.  It's good that they do, because it's not in the book that came with my canners.  I hunted all through the book and finally found a page with replacement part numbers.

Replacement parts list for my canner

 



It was buried at the end of the section in English, right before it went into other languages.  My canners are from the 1980s, before there was internet, and it assumed you would order parts direction from them.  Now days I'm more likely to hop onto amazon and just order the parts.  Here's a link, in case you want to check and see if they have the parts for your brand and model of canner. 

Amazon, Pressure canner seals, safety plugs, and other parts

They're considerably cheaper than the hardware store, and more likely to have the part you need in stock. 

Winter is a great time to look over your seals and safety plugs, and see if you need to order any replacements.  It's a good idea to order extras to stock up and have on hand. 

When my extras arrive I check to see that I have the right ones, then I put them back in their box and vacuum seal them in food saver bags to slow down oxidation.  Then, just like the food that I preserve, I store them in cool, dark places.  Heat and light can break down the material just like it does to food.

Some newer seals are made of silicone or plastic and don't need as much care to maintain them.  The old rubber seals like my canners use can dry out and crack over time.  The old wives tale of soaking them in water isn't really effective.  Rubber doesn't absorb water.  If you feel the need to "soften" or preserve them, spread a thin layer of cooking oil (any type) on them.  Wipe excess oil off with a paper towel before use.  The mirro company warned (in my instruction book from the 1980's) not to over-do the oiling of the rubber seals, but didn't explain why.

My standard practice for storing my canners over the winter was to put a light layer of oil on the seal and the safety plug.

The seal is laying on the canner lid.  The safety plug (and it's hole to the left) are

in the black circle.  Behind the canner is the jar of coconut oil I used on them.

I have a vacuum sealer now, but I don't use it for this because I never know when I'll randomly acquire something to can, or decide to do up a batch of beans (from dry) or something.  So I still just put them in a ziplock bag.

Then I toss it inside the canner and put the lid on.  My mother always said not to store the canner with the seal in place and the lid on tight.  Again, she never said why.  My speculation would be that it might compress the seal, sitting in storage, and reduce it's lifespan. 

Seal and safety plug, lightly oiled, stored in canner

in ziplock bag.

I store the pressure weights elsewhere, in a safe location in my kitchen.  They're too expensive to replace.  Around ten years ago I misplaced mine and it was going to cost $30 just for that little round weight that sits on the spindle on top of the canner.  Now they've come down to around $20.  (Canner weight for my Mirro Canner)

It's no badge of honor to be able to brag that you got ten years out of a gasket seal for your canner, or that you've never had to replace the safety plug.  Canning is more than a hobby, or a necessary activity for food preservation or survival.  It's a serious issue of safety and proper management.  Be sure to include extra parts in your storage, and store them for the longest shelf life possible.

Please leave comments below or email them to:

 

povertyprepping@yahoo.com

 

 

Thank you!

Susan

Preserving Everything, Every Way

A few months ago a compilation of all three of our food preserving books were

combined into one large volume.

 

They are still available individually as well.

 

If you've already bought one or two of the volumes this wouldn't save you money,

but if you're just starting out, it's cheaper to buy the compiled book with

all three volumes in it.



 

Preserving Everything, Every Way

Dehdrating blueberries and huckleberries

 

Just-washed blueberries

Most years we pick wild blueberries, known as 'huckleberries' in our area, on the mountainsides around our valley.  This year because of the wildfire, the roads were closed even though most of the berry patches were lower down on the mountains.  I ordered a ten pound box of blueberries through our local food co-op and in the picture above I'm putting washed berries onto dehydrator racks.

My husband, Steven, picking huckleberries

 

 

It's about a 12-mile drive to the turn-off up to the berry patches, then seven miles on a dirt road, winding ever upward.  We cross several small, clear streams cheerfully splashing over rocks as they tumble down to meet the river in the valley floor.

Seven picking berries alongside a long-fallen tree.

 

Blueberries and huckleberries have to have the right conditions to grow, including acidic soil.  Our pine forests are a great habitat for the berrries, but they only grow on certain hillsides in a certain elevation range.  They're around 4,000' to 5,00' elevation in our area.



Huckleberries on a bush

 

It's a long, slow process to pick the gallons of berries we use every year.  Depending on the size and amount of berries in a given year, we pick from three to nine gallons a year.

 

Susan, the author, gazing with binoculars

 

It's usually pleasant to be up on the mountainside.  We can hear the stream below us and the sound of the wind whispering through the pine needles, and feel the warm sun on our backs.  Sometimes the flies or mosquitoes drive us nuts, and sometimes it's rained recently and the underbrush soaks our legs. Our backs get tired bending over and our legs get achy standing on the slope all day.  But mostly, it's nice to be there.

Sometimes we look out on the scenery and appreciate it.

 

Sometimes the scenery runs past us! 

We've seen bears a few times too.

 

Huckleberry stains.  Usually our hands are worse than this after

a day of picking berries, so this must have been a light day.

 

Berries being cleaned.

 

Now it's time to wash the berries.  We usually fill the buckets with water full enough to cover the berries.  Running our fingers through the berries, up and down and around, we bring sticks and leaves to the surface where we pick them out.  Bugs sometimes float to the surface too.  It takes a while to really be thorough and get all the sticks, leaves, and bugs out.  It's also a good time to pick out unripe or overripe berries.

 

Next they're spread on screens.  There are going to be air dried.

Ignore the bowl of peas!  They're not relevant.

Although, dehydrated peas and dehydrated blueberries look much alike

except for color.  I used to put the jars side by side and tease people that

the purple ones are an exotic pea.

These berries are on dehydrator racks from our Nesco dehydrator, but they are being

air-dried in our gas oven over the pilot light.

 

Here are the dehydrated berries.

 

This is another type of dehydrator we own.

 

We live off-grid with solar electric power.  On a long, clear summer day I can run one dehydrator for several hours during the middle of the day, after our household battery bank is fully charged.  On those days it's sometimes charged by 10 Am.  While the air-drying berries were in our oven I ran this dehydrator pictured above) off the solar power.  I didn't have enough hours of power to finish them, but when it approached evening I unplugged the dehydrator and spread the racks out across teh counter to keep them from spoiling over night.  We live in a very low humidity climate, which helps with air-drying.

 

In an electric dehydrator it will take anywhere from 12 to 20 hours to fully dry blueberries or huckleberries.  If your dehydrator has a temperature control, set it at 135.  Otherwise rotate the racks every few hours for even drying if you can't adjust the temperature.  Watch for excessive heat and scorching of berries.

Sorting through dried berries.

 

When the berries are dry I dumpe the into a cake pan or in (pictured above) a pizza pan, and sort through them.  I break apart any that are stuck together, and I look for soft or gummy berries.  Some berries just simply won't dehydrate, even if you put them back in the dehydrator.  I pluck those few out and put them in a cup in the refrigerator and use them soon.

 

Berries ready to store.

 

The jar on the left is a gallon jar..  The other jars are here to show scale.  I prefer to use glass jars with tightly-fitting lids to store dehydrated huckleberries and blueberries.  You can use plastic but I would not consider that long term.  If you vacuum-sealed them in vacuum sealer bags they would keep longer.  Even better would be to toss in an oxygen-absorber packet (or Co2) and then vacuum-seal it.  Better than that would be to put your vacuum-sealed bags in a mylar bag-lined bucket and seal that, for really long-term storage.

 

Some metals can have a chemical reaction with the berrries an give them an 'off' taste.  If you must use metal containers, try lining it with a bag and putting the berries in the bag.  Make sure it has a tight-fitting lid to keep moisture from getting in.  Instect infestation is another, but less likely, possibility if it's not sealed well.

 

Store them in a cool dark place.  Daily or seasonal temperature fluctuations can also shorten the shelf life, so try to find a place with as stable a temperature as possible.  A bedroom closet or under a bed are places to consider. 

 



Dehydrated berries about to be rehydrated for pancakes.

 

To rehydrate berries, soak them in luke warm to almost-hot water for 15 minutes to half an hour.  You can just toss the dry berries into pancake or muffin batter and they'll slightly rehydrate and be a blueberry-flavored chewy bit, which is also fun.  Our grandkids like that bettter than fully-rehydrated berries.

 

Testing a rehydrated-berry pie on my son.  I bribed him with the ice cream.

The pie passed his taste test!

 

More ideas for preserving and using blueberries and huckleberries can be found in my book, Preserving Fruits, Nuts, and Seeds.  In the book there are also directions for canning and freezing blueberries.  A delicious condiment can be made by pickling blueberries but it is a short-term storage food.

 

 

Please leave comments or questions below, or email them to:

povertyprepping@yahoo.com

 

Thank you!

Susan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 







Our summer of drought and wildfire, and what that meant to us as preppers.

Marston complex fire



 

As preppers we take into consideration what sort of natural or man-made disasters could be a risk in the area where we live, especially when we approach the possibility of buying a house or property. In the area where we live the main risk is wildfire, with extreme cold as another possibility. We have had one mild earthquake, merely a tremor. that we could actually feel (in 2006), but we don't get tornadoes or hurricanes and we don't live near a volcano or power plant, though some people could consider Yellowstone's caldera 400 miles SE of us to be a risk.

We've had weather as cold as 35 (F) degrees below zero, but the forested mountains have protected us from winds that could have given that a deadly wind chill. It's still weather to take seriously, but for the most part we stayed in the cabin with a fire in the woodstove and only went outside to check on the animals.

For our first twelve years on this property we didn't experience any big wildfires close enough to worry about. The few small lightning strike-started fires in our valley were put out while they were still only a few acres. There were a couple of dry summers that had us nervous but we fared well. Then came this year. This was the summer of drought and extreme fire danger.

Our 'rainy season' is usually from mid-May until the end of June. Some years it rained every day and we planted the garden in ankle-deep mud. Some years the cold weather persisted and we had frost and snow flurries clear into the middle of June. But all of those years, including the 'dry' ones, had plenty of rain in May and June. Not this year.

There were a few rains in the first half of May, and then a light shower on May 23^rd. That was the last rain we had until a light shower on July 5^th. There was not a single drop of rain in June. Everything dried up and on the bright side, we didn't have to mow again for weeks, and then only because it looked scraggly. June, normally our cool month of rain, turned into an inferno of heat and dryness. The last week of June and the first week of July brought us temperatures well over 100 degrees, some days as high as 105 and 106. This, at a time of year when we think it's too hot if it hits 80.

We joked about escaping to the coolness of the forest and mountains.... and laughed because we live up in the 'coolness' of the forest and mountains where most people go to escape the heat. And there was no escape. We don't know anyone with air conditioning out here because most years it's not necessary. We usually do hit close to 100 degrees a few times a summer but it's brief and goes away before it drains the life out of you. Not this year. We sweltered day after day.

But still, there were no wildfires in our valley, and nothing big anywhere in our county. We watched sadly as Glacier National Park, to our east, suffered two big wildfires in late July and early August. We saw terrible wildfires on the news in places like California, Washington, and Idaho. But here in NW Montana, we were pretty quiet on the wildfire scene.... until mid-August, when it seemed like the whole west end of the state went up in flames.

On the night of August 11^th a lightning strike high on the shoulder of Mt. Marston was captured on a security camera at a nearby golf course. Their cameras are not just for security, they also capture wildlife such as deer, elk, bears, and the occasional mountain lion. They cover the mountainsides above and behind the golf course. They've caught beautiful lightning strikes, cloud formations, and other interesting phenomena. This night they captures the lightning strike that changed our valley.

Smoke high on the shoulder of Mt. Marston



By morning a column of smoke was rising from the location of the strike. Dispatch started receiving calls of smoke and flames, spotted from a lake below the fire. The forest service sent their first crews up to check it out. The wind picked up, causing the fire to race uphill. At the top of the mountain is a fire look-out building, one of the few “manned” lookouts still being used. The forest service evacuated the woman who was this summer's look-out person.

The smoke filled our valley.

Smoke on the flank of Mt. Marston.

 

As the fire raced uphill, the forest service raced to protect the historical look-out building. They wrapped it in a fire-retardant material and covered that with sprayed-on fire resistant foam. Then they left, hoping the building would survive as the fire raced toward it. They had hoped to stop the fire at the top, since fire tends to burn upward, but this fire spread out to both sides and burned slowly down the mountain too. Initially the fire died down at the top and didn't start over over and down the other side. The forest service checked the building and it had survived. 

 

The look-out building on Mt. Marston,

taken a few years ago.

Later when the fire to the sides send the flames around the back side of the mountain it once again roared up to the top and this time it scorched the look-out tower but the building survived. For days, we didn't know it's fate. The thick smoke veiled the mountains and we waited. It took more than a week for the smoke to clear enough to see the look-out building on top of the mountain, a local landmark visible for miles.

The pre-fire view from the look-out tower.

This building is manned from July to September with a smoke-spotter.

The fire spread out over five mountains along the east side of our valley, staying mainly on the National Forest. Fire breaks were made above the houses closest to the fire, and the local fire department was on standby for days, to defend the homes and buildings if necessary. No evacuations were ordered but a few people left anyway.

Crown fire with flames shooting dozens of feet into the air.

Our house is a few miles west of the location of the fire, and there are a lot of houses and structures between us and the fire. We were never really at risk of it burning all the way to our home, even if the wind changed direction and the fire jumped the highway and headed toward us.. The only personal impact the fire had on us was the thick smoke. It burned our eyes, noses, and throats. We couldn't see the far side of the yard through the fog-like smoke. The sun couldn't pierce the smoke to charge our solar electric power system.

A Chinook helicopter dips water out of a pond at the golf course

The National Guard was called in to help the weary fire-fighters, who's numbers were spread thin over the 103 wildfires burning in western Montana in late August. Chinook helicopters dipped water out of the nearby lakes and ponds with large canvas buckets hanging from a cable underneath; a 'cup' of water around 1,500 gallons at a time. Watching from across the valley it seemed hopeless each time the water trailed out of the bucket onto the fire. Like a drop of water sprinkled on a campfire. But slowly the fire lines stopped advancing as the helicopters circled back and forth between fire and water, hour after hour after hour.

A helicopter drops water on the fire.

 

From the Stonehenge Air Museum at the golf course:

 

"Day 12. 8-23-15
They have been steady again today. There are 3 helicopters going now. Wind has picked up again and so has fire. They are making a round trip every 4:00 minutes. With all three copters running that means 4500 gallons times 15 = 67,500 gallons an hour when they are in the air.
Warmer weather predicted this week so looks like they will be going hard.
Sure glad the Governor called on our National Guard"



A Chinook helicopter hovering over a lake.

The helicopter on the left has just left with water, and the one on the right is

coming in for water.

Full of water, ready to go drop it on the fire.

It's very well coordinated where they are to take each load of water.

The potential for fire at our property became more real when a timber company started logging just off our western boundary during the fire east of us. There are strict rules for loggers during fire danger. They have to stop work at 1 pm (because humidity levels drop in the afternoon and increase fire danger), they have to have fire-fighting equipment on site, and they had to leave someone to watch for fire or smoke for at least two hours after they quit for the day. We were still concerned. We moved valuables to one of our kids' homes 70 miles away in Kalispell.

The valuables we moved were pictures/photos, journals, financial and tax papers, memory cards and flash drives, and laptop computers. Here at home we put hunting rifles, chainsaw, tools, and similar items in our camper. If we had to evacuate, we'd drive that out. Those things are valuable to us, but they are replaceable. We moved our rototiller, garden tools, and wheel barrow to the center of the garden, farthest from potential flames. My canners went to the root cellar. Now we could only wait, and cough and choke on the smoke, which seeped into the cabin despite our efforts to keep it closed up.

 

An airplane drops fire-retardant slurry in a backdrop of smoke.

A black & white photo from the golf course cameras.



After two weeks of fire and smoke, the temperature dropped and the rains came. And came and came, in the wild, crazy way of unexplainable excesses of dry and wet, heat and cold. After a couple of days of rain the fires were reduced to a few wispy columns of smoke from hot spots that continued to smolder. For the last week, it has rained nearly every day, sometimes all day. The grass has the first green it's had in about two months. Our valley has heaved a huge sigh of relief and sits, exhausted, recovering.

7,200 acres of forested mountains along the east side of our valley are charred. In my life time it will never look like it did, but the forest is a renewable resource, and my children will see it in it's green beauty again.  The cost to fight just this one fire:  $6,200,000.

In accordance with the recommendations for properties in wildfire-prone areas, over the last dozen years we cut out the pines and other extremely-flammable vegetation within 30' of our house. We thinned those beyond that, out to 50' to 75' from the house. We pruned branches up until they were 10' to 12' above the ground. The reason for this is that a ground fire rolling through won't 'climb' a tree like a ladder if there are no low branches for them to catch. A ground fire can have flames 6' to 8' high. The forest is littered with pine needles and flammable plants like Kinnikinnick and Juniper bushes.

In a roll-over the safest place is to be in our house. Our cabin is built with Larch logs, which take longer to ignite than the surrounding dry grass. After the fire rolls through we would have time to escape from our house if it begins. Second-best place to go would be the center of our garden. We could scoop out a depression in the dirt and lay our faces in there for better and cooler air. Hopefully we would be far enough from the heat of the flames. 

Smoke is one of the deadliest aspects of a fire, but super-heated air can fry your lungs and kill you. Flames are less likely to be what kills. Obviously if we had a chance to safely evacuate that would be the best plan. However we'd want to make SURE the route ahead of us was safe before we started out. We have three miles of a one-lane dirt road winding down through forest before it hits a small paved county road. The possibility of fire blocking the road is a danger, and if we tried to return to our home the fire might have blocked the road behind us as well. If we're not sure we can make it to safety, we'd hole up here.

I've been told that our root cellar would be more dangerous in a wildfire roll-over than staying in our house or going to the middle of our garden. Something about the duff on the ground and roots burning underneath causing smoke or heat that could kill us in the root cellar. Yet that was the first place I thought of as a safe place in a fire.

Crown fires burn the tree tops. We watched the fire burn trees on the steep mountain slope. Like candles, one right after another would flare up and send flames 20' or more into the air, and the next one above it would go up, then the next. Wildfires can create their own wind and send embers and burning twigs ahead of them to start new fires. Ash and burned twigs landed all over the golf course at the foot of the fire.

Our biggest danger at home is a crown fire that would throw burning debris onto the roof of our cabin. Even with the evergreens cut back so far from the house the flying embers can travel quite a ways and land on our roof. We have aspens and willows in the yard, but they are much less flammable. If a fire approached and we had time, we'd grab the chainsaw and cut them out as well.

Our gardening efforts suffered this year. Since we don't have a well we rely heavily on the rainwater that usually fills all of our tanks and barrels in early summer. We were not able to haul enough water to keep the garden in good shape in 100+ degree heat and extreme aridity. We weren't able to pick huckleberries up on the mountainside since the road up to the berry patches was closed because of the fire. We normally pick 6 to 9 gallons a year. We don't know yet whether the berry bushes escaped the fire. Hundreds of acres of berry plants graced the side of the mountain below where the fire started.

Huckleberries (like a wild blueberry) that we picked last year.

Fortunately most years we have an abundance of foods to preserve from our garden, foraging, fishing, and hunting, and some things have accumulated over the years. This will give us a good chance to clear out and eat those foods, and hopefully next year will be a normal year and we'll have lots of delicious food to preserve again.

And that's the concept behind prepping (preparedness) and food storage. It's there when a person has lean years... for any reason. A lot of people focus on world-wide and political or economic conditions regarding preparedness, and here we had a situation right here at home between the drought and the wildfires, which affected our ability to provide food for ourselves. This winter we'll eat from the extra we preserved over the last few years, along with the buckets of flour, grains, sugar, etc. that we stored. And over the next couple of years we'll replenish what we need to use this year. 

We in this area are emerging from the drought and wildfires to begin living again, and to get back to the normal activities of this time of year, such as firewood cutting, bow hunting, and getting the garden ready for the winter. We were very lucky compared to other places. In Washington, California, and Idaho they had dreadful fires. Homes and lives were lost. We lost none of either here.

Billowing smoke behind the golf course

 

Photos courtesy of and used with permission from

Stonehenge Air Museum at Crystal Lakes Golf course

Fortine, Montana



A similar write-up on my blog at Mother Earth News can be read here

Please leave comments or questions below, or email them to povertyprepping@blogspot.com





Packing Grain and Beans for Food Storage (The way I do it)



 

As part of my prepping plan I practice what I wrote about in my book "Poverty Prepping: How to Stock up for Tomorrow When You Can't Afford to Eat Today" (Click here to see the book).  I buy one or two 'extra' of something every month, even if it's just a one dollar bottle of a spice. 

 

In times when I have a little more money to spend I buy things like a big bag of rice, beans, flour, or sugar.  This month we were able to buy a 50-lb. bag of wheat and a 50-lb. bag of oatmeal (rolled oats).

 

Our wonderful acquisitions!

(I don't know why both bags are upside down)

 

We've been lucky in being able to get buckets with tight-fitting lids from a grocery store bakery where one of our adult children works.  Most of them are about 2 1/2 gallons, which is a good size for me.  I have a hard time carrying full five-gallon buckets, so these smaller buckets are great.  We do have a few five-gallon buckets but I need the wheel barrow to move them from the shed to the house.

 

Scooping oatmeal into a bucket.

 

These buckets have been used over and over.  When I empty them I wash them and stack them in the shed until I have something to put in them again. I keep a bag nearby for lids but somehow I always seem to have more buckets than lids. 

 

I set the bucket on a stool and then I sat on a chair and scooped oatmeal with a 6-cup plastic measuring cup until the bucket was full.  But wait.... was the bucket really full?

Holding a plate on top of the oatmeal in a bucket.

 

Some foods compress better than others, but no matter what grain or bean I'm packing into buckets, I tap on the sides to help it "settle".  If you've ever bought things like cold cereal or potato chips at a grocery store you'll see that the bags or boxes appear to be half empty when you open them.  This is because the food settles in shipping.  When you first put foods like oatmeal or flour into a bucket there is a lot of air in with them.  By tapping on the side of the bucket you can jiggle it enough that the food settles and there will be more room at the top.  Then you can add more of whatever you're putting in the bucket.

 

I like to place a plate on top and hold it down while I tap the sides of the bucket.  This helps keep the oatmeal, or whatever food, from shaking out of the bucket, but more importantly, it helps push the food down as you tap on the sides.

 

There are two reasons I like to get as much air out and pack as much into the bucket as I can.  One reason is that the more I can fit into the buckets, the fewer I need and therefore I have more buckets available when I have food to put in them.

 

The second reason is that air oxidizes food and reduces it's storage life.  Some people buy oxygen absorbers or Co2 packets to put in the buckets when they pack them.  I figure the best I can do is to get out as much air as I can by packing the food as tightly as I can into the bucket.  This works especially good with foods like flour and oatmeal.  If I'm patient I can pack an amazing amount of flour into a bucket by tapping and by tamping it down with a plate.  Hard grains like wheat are harder to compress this way, but you can still tap on them to jiggle them as snugly together as possible, and reduce the amount of air in the buckets.

 

Being smaller it's easy for us to use the food in the buckets quickly and keep them rotated.  If you're packing five-gallon buckets for long-term storage you might want to buy oxygen absorbers to place inside the buckets.  Here's some available on amazon so you can see what they look like and get an idea of price: Oxygen absorbers .  This pack is $9.99 for 100 ct.



Six buckets of oatmeal, ready to be moved out to the shed.

 

The buckets have wonderful things on the labels, like donut glaze and pink icing and cream cheese frosting!  But inside they have oatmeal.  We also have wheat, whole corn, barley, rice, pinto beans, black beans, and kidney beans in similar buckets.

I date the buckets so I can keep them rotated.

This is the wheat being scooped into a bucket.

 

Recently I also put rice in buckets.

 

I have some of these buckets stored in the house in various places where they're not in the way, but most of them are in our sheds.  I try to put them near the ground on the north side of the shed, and cover them with old blankets to make sure they stay dark.  I don't like to set them right on the floor so I put a pallet in the shed and I set the buckets on that.  The air can then circulate under the buckets and help keep frost or condensation off of them.  I've never had moisture get inside one of these buckets, but it's still unnerving to go out on a winter morning and see frost on the outsides of the buckets. 

 

The storage life of all foods is lengthened by being kept cool and dark, in addition to removing or reducing the oxygen.  Wide swings in temperature are hard on foods, including grains and beans.  Daily swings are harder than seasonal swings, but to some extent we can't do anything about that.  I cover mine with several old blankets and then stack other things on or around the buckets.

 

It helps to have a master sheet of what you packed into buckets and when you did so.  It's constantly changing in our case, since we actively eat out of our buckets, so I keep my master list on the computer where changes and updates are easy to make.  But if my computer goes down I will lose my list, so I am planning to start printing it up a few times a year so I at least have a somewhat-recent copy of what we have stored in buckets.

 

Many stores with bakeries will give away or sell the buckets that frosting and other food comes in.  Check with stores near you.  Wal-Mart and other stores sell food-grade buckets, usually in bigger sizes such as 5-gallon. 

 

In addition to oxygen absorbers some people line their buckets with mylar bags to further extend the storage life. They usually come with oxygen absorbers as well.  These inside a bucket with a good seal can give you many years of storage life, often in excess of ten years.

 

Please leave comments or questions below or email them to:

povertyprepping@yahoo.com

 

Thanks! 

 

Susan

 

Another notch on my writing belt!

 

I have had the honor of being asked to be a regular writer on the Mother Earth News website, for their section on food preservation. Here is my first post, and new ones coming every-other week:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/drying/dehydrate-potatoes-for-various-uses-zbcz1507.aspx

I'll still be making posts here on this blog as well, on subjects not only relating to food preservation but all aspects of food storage and prepping, as well as gardening and homesteading.  My aim is still toward the more frugal aspect of these things, since many of us are at least somewhat financially-challenged! 

Sometimes there will be links back and forth, such as a link to the "Chicken Enchiladas from food storage" post from the upcoming post for Mother Earth News on canning chicken.  And I will go back and insert a link to the "Canning Chicken" post on Mother Earth News from the Chicken Enchilada post. 

Thank you, and please keep enjoying this site!  Please leave comments or questions below, or email them to:  povertyprepping@yahoo.com

Susan