Baking Soda

 

A reader, Amanda, pointed this out to me last week: "My dad received the book last night. Read it and loved it. But I think baking soda needs a promotion. Baking soda can be used for dental health and, to me at least, something with a dual purpose is twice as valuable. We can live without shampoo, totally, but I just have this uncanny affection for my teeth...lol"

 

She's right!  I briefly mentioned it in the Poverty Prepping book as just one in a list of minor stock-up items, primarily as an 'ingredient' for cooking with the basic food storage items.  Yet we buy it in bulk bags and use it for a lot of things, and I consider it an essential part of our own storage. 

 

I did a quick search to find lists of uses for baking soday and I came up with dozens of sites; "35 uses for baking soda" "52 uses for baking soda" "18 uses for baking soda", and so on.  So I'm just going to write about how we use it here at our house.  I welcome more ideas from you readers.

 

As Amanda said, it can be used for dental health.  We've used it for tooth brushing at times, and as a mouth rinse when we had tooth aches or mouth sores. 

 

We use it for shampoo.  It works especially good with soft water.  Once our hair is wet we sprinkle about quarter cup of baking soda over our scalp.  It doesn't lather, and you have to be careful to work it all the way in to your scalp.  Sometimes you have to duck your head into the water for a second to get it wetter so you can spread it.  As you rinse it out, work it down through the ends of your hair, if you have long hair.  I started doing this about three years ago, as a way to reduce chemicals in my life, and to save money.

 

We use it for body soap.  It's slightly abrasive, which means it exfoliates the skin.  It leaves the skin soft.  The only 'down' side of using baking soda for hair and skin is that it has no fragrance.  Your hair and skin will just smell like hair and skin, and it can take a little getting used to.  One of my daughters makes soap with things like oatmeal, coconut oil, and green tea in it, so I sometimes use that instead.

 

We use baking soda as laundry soap.  It does a great job cleaning clothes and removing odors.  Again, though, it has no scent.  It was even weirder getting used to clothes that didn't smell like laundry soap.  Even the "unscented" soaps have a scent, and we spend our lives accustomed to that, so clothes that have zero scent are strange to get used to.  We hang ours outside to dry, which helps a little.  The clothes smell like fresh air, sunshine, and pine trees.  I experimented with adding scent to my laundry water.  In the summer I'd pick and throw in a couple handfuls of rose petals.  Sometimes I add a couple drops of vanilla extract.  Probably the weirdest but most pleasant things I've done is to make a strong "tea" of spices, strain it, and pour that in the laundry water.  My favorite is a pickling spice that is heavy on cloves.  I like to pour about half a cup pickling spice tea in my laundry water, and my clothes have a faint scent of cloves and other spices.  Another good one is cinnamon and/or pumpkin pie spices. 

 

We use baking soda to wash dishes, instead of dish soap.  It cleans even the greasiest dishes, it's abrasive action cleans residue off of pans and other dishes, yet it's gentle enough not to scratch the surfaces.  We keep one sink filled with dish water and one with rinse water.  We put white vinegar in the rinse water, and I've never had such sparkling glasses and clean silverware.  I always wash each spoon, fork, and knive separately and thought they were clean, but the baking soda wash and vinegar rinse has our silverware looking "Wow!" clean.

 

I sprinkle baking soda on the counters and stove when I wash them, and I use it to clean the oven.  For baked-on stuff in the oven I lay a soaking-wet dish cloth over it for a while, then remove the wash cloth and sprinkle baking soda on the 'stuff' that needs cleaned off.  About an hour later I come back and clean it up.  Usually it gets everything off.

 

We use baking soda in the water we mop the floor with.  Then I give it a rinse with just water, and a final mopping with white vinegar in the water.  Yep, I end up going over the floor 3 times, but it's quick, it's cheap, it looks nice, and it's chemical-free.

 

I use baking soda to scrub out 'smelly' things, like coolers and the fridge.  I've sprinkled it on our throw rugs and rolled them up for half a day, then shook them out good and hung them on the line for the other half a day.  It keeps them fresh-smelling.  I've done this with sleeping bags before we went camping, to 'freshen' them.

 

My husband uses baking soda to clean the battery terminals in our vehicles.  He mixes a little with water and pours it over the battery posts and cable ends.  It dissolves all that 'crud".

 

We work it into our dog's fur as a 'dry shampoo', then brush her out.  We've sprinkled it on the car seats and floor matts, then vacuumed it out the next day, to deoderize the car.

 

Baking soda usually comes in a small box which, I think, is about a pound.  It's under a dollar.  If you have ( or know someone who does) a Costco card, they sell it in 13.5 lb. bags.  It used to be 14 lb. but I noticed when I took the above picture that it's now 13.5 lbs.  They cost somewhere around $7.  Sam's club might have them too, but they're not in our part of the country, so I don't know for sure.

 

I dump the bag into a 2-gallon air-tight, water-tight bucket.  The bags are heavy plastic and do work okay for storing it without opening it.  I keep a spare 1/4-cup measuring cup in the bucket.

 

Baking soda is a natural substance which is mined in Wyoming and surrounding areas.  For people who live in the inland western mountains and high desert, you can sometimes harvest it from the ground.  It's a white crust on the surface where puddles have dried up, out on the rangeland or in gullies.  Not all of it is baking soda, so test a tiny drop.  It should be slightly salty.  Scrape up a little bit and see if the county extension office will tell you, or take it to an agricultural school and ask. Farther south, in southern Nevada, we found what we thought was heavily concentrated baking soda.  It turned out to be salt!

 

Now it's your turn!  I'd love to hear of other uses.

 

Susan

povertyprepping@yahoo.com

 

 From the mailbox:

Dec. 16, 2012

 

"May I suggest that your husband wipe some Vaseline on the battery terminals. Of course it doesn't have to be the name brand but it will keep them nice and clean. This way he won't accidentally get baking soda in the cells. This is something I learned about 45 years ago or so, when I was but a wee lass and my dear old Dad would let me help him. 

I use vinegar and baking soda to clean the drains."  - Elaine

Guest Post - Raising your own beef calf

From the mailbox comes this excellent article.  Printed here with permission of the writer.

We raise our own beef, hogs, goats, & chickens on a budget. For cattle
you can purchase bottle calves for between $75 to $125 depending on
sex & size or age. Day- to week-old males are the least expensive.
These will be mostly dairy breeds, but still make delicious beef.

You will have to purchase a calf bottle & nipple for under $10 and a bag
of milk replacer for about $75. Yes, it seems like quite an
investment to begin with, but this will feed your calf for the next
4-6 weeks until it is completely changed over to feed and hay or
graze.

This cost can be reduced if you have a full-size dairy goat
which can produce enough milk to support a calf, especially if you can
milk it three times a day then immediately feed the calf. After your
calf is drinking water from a bucket and eating feed & hay or grass
reliably, you have milk for yourself. (For us we find the goat's milk
more palatable if we add a little water to it.)

The biggest component in keeping your calf healthy is keeping it dry,
warm, & relatively clean. No bath needed; just clean dry bedding which
can be straw, dry leaves, crushed corn cobs, wood shavings, saw dust
(which can come from your chainsaw when cutting firewood), newspaper,
etc. Use your imagination.

An 8x8 corner of a garage or outbuilding works well or any kind of "fence"
covered with a tarp. If it's winter time you can hang a drag light with a
spotlight bulb to add warmth or add another calf.

Calves need some physical contact & company too. They are herd animals.
I usually get in the pen with the calf at feeding time & rub, pet, talk to it, etc.
This makes your next steps easier as well.

After the first week or so we put a halter on the calf, which can be
purchased or made. There are a multitude of websites & videos to show
you how to do this. We almost never remove the halter except to put on
a bigger one as it grows. Now you can teach it to lead & tie it out to
start exposing it to grass. We use a long line or rope & a concrete
block & let it help mow the yard moving the block as needed & adding
blocks as needed. Since you have made yourself its herd, the calf
really doesn't want to wander far from you or the house it knows
you're in, so containment is relatively easy with the blocks.

We now have electric fence up, which is by far the easiest to install &
can be moved or taken down altogether. We charge it with a solar
charger. There are references online for this as well. We also use the
nylon cord or rope type fencing because of the price & ease of use.
When you first introduce your calf to it, you can lead him around the
inside perimeter so he sees it & learns where he is supposed to be.
Make sure your fence is on & "firing very hot" during the first few
days because once he has touched a hot fence that really bites him he
won't test it again. There have been times that our fence has been off
for days without any escapees. Electric fence is a psychological
barrier not a physical one.

We buy our calves in early spring from local dairy farms which don't
want all the males that are born. By the time we wean them the grass
is greening & very nutritious. We supplement with beef pellets from
any feed mill at $6 - $8 for a 50 pound bag & feed a pound or so a day
just to get him off to good start. We also provide a mineral block
that will last for months of calf licking.

As soon as the bull calf's testicles have dropped into the scrotum
they need to be removed or the meat will be inedible. You can have a
vet or experienced farmer do this or show you how. The easiest way is
to "band" them, which the tool required costs around $20 & the bands
are just pennies. It's worth the investment if you're going to
continue raising calves or you might be able to borrow a bander from
another person raising livestock. You use the four pronged plier like
tool to apply a rubber ring the size of a cheerio around the scrotum
above the testicles. The circulation is cut off then they dry up &
fall off in a week or so. You may not believe me because it surprised
me too, but the calf doesn't seem to experience any pain or even
notice what has happened. Most of ours don't even stop grazing when we
do it. There are other methods & you can explore bull castration
online.

When it was just my husband & me, we only raised the calf to a little
over a year old which was plenty of meat for the next year while
raising another calf. The concrete blocks worked fine & we got up to 5
or 6 blocks just before slaughter. We estimated approximately 500
pounds of dressed-out meat.

For free winter hay, let your yard grow as high as your mower can
still cut, then mow it. Let the clippings lay until completely dry,
spreading any clumps out by kicking them. After they are completely
dry rake them up or use a lawn sweeper to pick them up & store
anywhere that will stay dry. Plastic bags are okay, but they have to
be inside or under cover as well. The hay pokes through. We have some
bulk storage freezers from an ice factory that no longer worked.
Sometimes you can get large wooden containers from factories. Shipping
pallets work well as a floor then a sheet of plastic, your hay, then
cover all of it with a tarp or more plastic. I have a friend trying an
old family tent that the poles broke on that he is using it as a bag
making sure to keep the rain fly covering it. A little moisture will
cause some molding, which won't harm a calf in small amounts, but you
want to prevent it as much as possible.

When you feed your hay, feed in a quantity that can be eaten within a
few hours so the calf doesn't sleep in it or do other things in it. That
wastes a valuable resource. We used scrap lumber & boards from a
broken shipping pallet to build a manger just like what you see in a
nativity scene, only larger. The intersection of the crossed boards are
about 2 feet off the ground & the boards were 3-4 inches wide so that
is the gap between them. It keeps the hay off the ground & prevents
most wastage. You can make a circle out of livestock panels or wire
fence to keep your calf from nesting in your hay or there are many
other solutions too. When feeding the hay if it gets wet out in the
pasture it's not a problem. It will be eaten before it can mold.

We supplemented his diet with excess produce from the garden,
leftovers from cider making, kitchen scraps, stale bread & baked goods
from the bakery outlet, brewer's leftovers, wine making waste, pretty
much anything made of grain or vegetables or fruit. (And yes a cow
can get drunk. Feed such wastes in small amounts.)

As far as grain, we purchased feed during the winter, or as a treat
only, once the calf was off to a good start. Most of the grain (corn)
was what we picked up out of the neighbors' fields after they had
harvested. You would be amazed at the amount you can gather. We
shelled the kernels off & burned the cobs in the stove. We stored the
corn in plastic drums. Even if you don't want to raise critters, this
lost corn burns nice & hot in the stove. Not in a fireplace though;
some kernels will pop.

Shelter is not necessary after your calf is a couple months old, but
if you feel guilty, as we did, a lean-to made with a few posts & a tarp
worked for us. We attached the posts to post sections on the ground to
make it portable by dragging it with the mower, which we got out of the
garbage too.

To conclude this long story, on approximately a 1/2 acre of lawn we
raised a freezer full of meat per year without antibiotics, steroids,
or a feed lot, and enjoyed each & everyone of them as they grew. Cows
do have a lot of personality & all of ours had names, but from the
very first day we knew that one day we would kill it, process it just
like a deer or any other large mammal, and eat it. Our estimated
costs, even as our herd has increased & the lifespan has lengthened as
more family members are participating, each calf still has a little
less than 1/2 acre & after butchering them ourselves it costs less
than $2 a pound for anything from hamburger to Porterhouse steaks. Our
initial calves as described above, the costs were less than $1 a
pound.

This is in no way a comprehensive guide to raising bottle calves, but
it worked for us, and we keep things pretty uncomplicated and low effort.

Thank you for your time to read all this. - N.P.


.

    Thank you, N.P., for taking the time to write this.  My husband and I have been talking about getting a calf or two, to raise for meat.  I feel more encouraged to try it after reading this!

Susan
povertyprepping@yahoo.com

Bug-out Buckets

 

 

Meet B.O.B.

 

...which stands for Bug Out Bucket.

 

This is a 2-gallon bucket I got from the bakery department of our grocery store. It's air-tight and water-tight, and when filled with just about anything, light enough to carry and small enough to not be bulky. 

 

Since I can get them for free I've been using them to store beans, rice, flour, sugar, and anything else that'll fit inside the bucket.  When the lid is snapped on, the contents are protected from water, mice and other rodents, and insects.

 

My husband and I were talking about Bug-out bags a couple of years ago, and stories from friends came to mind.  They'd had trouble with things like water damage and mice getting into the backpacks they had made into bug-out bags.

 

We started talking about water- and rodent- proof containers.  The first thing that came to mind was plastic totes, but they're awkward to carry.  Then we thought of the buckets we'd been filling.  The disadvantage in comparison to a backpack is that your hands aren't free.  You can loop the handle of the bucket over your arm for limited hands-free use, but generally, you'll be carrying it.

 

There are some oddball options, such as packing a length of baling twine in the bucket; maybe a piece around 5' long, and you could tie each end to a bucket and drape the string across your shoulder, or tie them to a pole and carry the pole across your shoulders.  Strange, I know, but if we're tying to think of every possible situation and every possible solution, it's one.

 

When I packed two of these buckets for us, I was thinking 30-days of supplies plus whatever we can forage for, depending on the situation.  I planned to throw in basics that would go with those foraged foods, and possibly a few snared rabbits or squirrels.

 

Today when I took the lid off for the first time in two years, I was surprised at the bad choices as well as some of the good choices I'd made as I packed it.

 

First thing on top was half a dozen fast-food napkins.  Okay, not a bad choice for a filler item.

 

Let's look at the rest of the items.  The bag in the bottom right corner of the picture is white sugar.  I had packed it for the quick burst of energy from even a small pinch of sugar placed on the tongue.  I also figured it could be used with tea made from wild plants, as well as added to foraged berries for energy.  To the left of the sugar is a ziplock bag of mint hard candies.  Those, too, were for quick energy.

 

Below that is a small tube of toothpaset, and at the top of the picture are two new toothbrushes.  I left them in their packages to keep them clean and because the cardboard backing could be used to start a fire if necessary.

 

Next to the toothbrushes are some packs of matches and a vacuum-sealed pack of cigarettes.  None of us smoke.  These were acquired with a free coupon and sealed, to be used as a barter item if we had to bug-out, or as something to calm down an irate person we might meet along the way.  Our plan was to trade or give them away one cigarette at a time, never the whole pack at once.  We buy the matches in cases and distribute them among everything we store.  Fire can save a life, and matches are likely to be good trade items or gifts if things get bad.

 

The two jars with blue lids, laying next to the bucket, are bouillon cubes.  one chicken, one beef.  My line of thinking was to use them along with foraged greens and other plants, to flavor soup and provide sodium.  In every day life that much sodium might not be good for us, but if we're on foot walking and foraging, we'll need to replace the salt we'll sweat out,  Plus, we won't be eating as much other foods with a high sodium content, so it'll average out.

 

What I'm not sure about is why I left the cubes in the glass jars they came in.  The extra weight is probably not worth it.  Maybe I was thinking they would make good cups after they were empty?  I have no idea.  When I repack it today I'm going to dump the cubes into ziplock bags and leave the jars out.

 

Below the jars are two different sizes of bandaids.  Not much of a medical kit.  To the left of them is a pair of fingernail clippers.  That's a good choice, but the smaller, compact size might be an even beter choice.  Most Dollar stores sell them three to a pack for a dollar...at least the Dollar Tree near us does.  Two are small, one pair is bigger.

 

On the bottom left of the picture is a 1-lb. bag of black beans.  I'm guessing it was to be 'camp' food along the trail.  How I was going to soak them and keep a fire going long enough to cook them is beyond me.  I'm going to leave those out of the bucket this time.  I have some beans that I cooked and then dehydrated, and I'll be packing a bag of those instead.  They're like "Instant beans", in that all I have to do is add water to them.  They don't even have to be heated.

 

The reason I would still pack beans in this bucket is for the protein and iron.  I had intended to pack a jar of peanut butter in here, but I didn't find one.  That would be more ideal than beans.  A person could eat a spoonful (or finger-lick full, but don't double dip and get bacteria from your saliva in the jar, and second thought, you don't know what's on your finger, and it might cause nasty things to grow in the peanut butter!) and get a large amount of fat and calories.  One Tablespoon of peanut butter has 8 grams of fat and 100 calories.  It's ready to eat and delicious right out of the jar.

 

Digging deeper in the bucket I pulled out a jar of Vanilla imitation flavoring (above the bouillon cubes in picture).  What in the world was I thinking?  What possible plan could I have had for carrying a full, unopened bottle of vanilla seasoning?  I have no idea.  If I had to bug-out unexpectedly from my home and hoped to rely on the contents of this bucket to contribute in a big way to my survival...why vanilla?  It won't be going back in the bucket.

 

There's also a full bottle of Cinnamon.  I sighed when I pulled it out. I could see putting a little bit in a small, snack-size ziplock and tucking it in a corner, but why a full bottle?  It, too, won't be going back in.

 

You can't see it in the picture but I pulled out four regular rubber bands.  That's an okay addition.  Extremely light-weight and doesn't take up much space.  Could be useful.  There were about a dozen tea bags, green tea.  I'm not sure what I expected to make the tea in, but at least I had sugar along to sweeten it!  Using boiling water is the best way to make tea, but I've added a tea bag to the water bottle on my bicycle and let it sit there for a few hours as I pedaled in the sun, and gotten pretty good 'sun tea'.  So the tea bags can stay if I have room to slide them in between things.

 

Next I pulled out a can of hot cocoa mix.  I'm addicted to it, and I suppose I had room in the bucket, so I put it in.  Nothing would make a bad situation more bearable to me than to enjoy a cup of hot cocoa.  But again, what was I going to heat the water in, or drink the hot cocoa out of?  The glass jars from the bouillon cubes?  I don't know.  I should at least put one of those lightweight tin cups with a handle into the bucket.  I can stuff it full of things and it won't add much to the weight or bulk of the contents. The hot cocoa added 1 lb. 4 oz. of weight.  I'm undecided about keeping it in there.

 

Also in the bucket was a 2-lb. can of coconut oil.  That, I'm sure, I put in the bucket for calories and fat.  One Tablespoon has 120 calories and 14 grams of fat.  It has a very long shelf life, is stable in all temperatures, and tastes fairly good straight out of the can.  It could be used with the wild foods, and scientifically speaking, help the body absorb vitamins and other nutrients from the wild greesn and other food. 

 

Is 2 lbs. too much weight?  Too much volume?  For a 30-day survival bucket, it's not too much.  For a 3-day bucket, yes, it's too much.  I'd eliminate the coconut oil and just rely on the peanut butter for fat.  In the longer term you'll be struggling to get enough fat and calories.  Wild meat usually isn't very fatty, though there are exceptions.  Wild food is low in fat too, with exceptions like nuts and seeds.  Since this is a 30-day 'supplemental' bucket, the coconut oil will stay.

 

Lastly, there is a 1 1/2 pound can of salt in the bucket.  I think carrying salt in a 30-day bucket is a good idea, but perhaps only half that amount.  The bouillon cubes are also a source of salt, so I'd pour half the salt into a ziplock bag and put that in the bucket.  The total weight of the bucket did not seem all that heavy, so I was considering keeping the salt, but then I thought about carrying it for 30 days and I'm not so sure.  On the other hand, salt is a valuable barter item.  So I'm not sure.

 

There are things noticeably missing.  Maybe I had figured on those things already being on my person in a pocket, or in a survival belt bag.  There's no knife in this bucket.  Even a small, cheap pocket knife would have been useful.  Although there are matches, there is no lighter, which is something I usually pack into everything.  There is no flashlight and spare batteries, which is one of my staples.  I have dozens of them stashed everywhere, including in a few places in our car.  But none in this bucket.

 

There is no water or way to purify more water, other than the matches for starting a fire to boil water.  But then, what container would I use?  This is another use for that tin cup I mentioned.  Foil blankets and thin plastic rain ponchos are another cheap item that take up almost no space and are almost weightless that should have been in the bucket.

 

I'm really surprised at how unprepared I really would have been if I had had to grab this bucket and go in the last couple years.  Time to gather up some things and repack it, using my head this time!

My goal is to open the bucket once a year and rotate the items like peanut butter and coconut oil.  Peanut butter, especially, will go rancid after a while.  Twice a year might be a better idea.