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This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here. Saturday, December 27, 2008 New resources I've added Harvey and Ellen Ussery's website, The Modern Homestead, to the sidebar, as well as a site on food storage called Food Storage Made Easy. I'm unabashedly enthusiastic about the first one, conditionally so about the second one, for various reasons. Anyone who reads Mother Earth News will recognize the Ussery's. Harvey has a recurring column there, and they also write for Backyard Poultry magazine and for Countryside & Small Stock Journal. They live the life they write about, on a small piece of property in the Virginia mountains. I've found their site to be both informative and inspiring, and recommend it wholeheartedly.The second site is also very useful, but my built-in bias against a 100% reliance on stored foods makes me just a bit less enthusiastic. Stockpiling food and water is fine. I do it myself. So far, its primary usefulness has been as a free pantry for one of my kids who was having financial problems. But when the water went off a couple of weeks ago, I was darn glad we had both stored water and food that could be prepared without a lot of water. Yet depending solely on stored food and water makes the assumption that society will return to "normal" at some point. The power will come back on, the supermarket doors will re-open, life will go back to what we've gotten used to. I'm not so sure of that. So while I think it's a good idea to have food and water squirreled away, I'm slow to recommend sites that concentrate on nothing but that.My other concern about relying heavily on commercial non-perishables is that you need to actually eat the stuff. It's important to rotate your stock so it doesn't go out of date or become stale. We eat very little grocery store food. We eat fresh foods, and we eat food that I canned, dried or froze. Our milk, meat and eggs come from a local farmer. So it doesn't make sense for me to buy up large amounts of canned and dry goods, because we won't eat it during the normal course of events. It's good only in the kind of emergency that would make other foods either unavailable or difficult to prepare.All that said, however, if you're just getting started with storing food, this really is a good site. It's run by two young moms, and it is, um, cutesy. But if you can look beyond the pink color scheme and the heavy reliance on buttons, icons and art-deco graphics, you'll find a lot of information.The site concentrates on grocery store food, so don't expect to find much about how to can, freeze, dry or otherwise preserve your own. This is actually an advantage in one way, in that people who can't easily grow and preserve their own may hesitate to do anything at all. The site tells you what to buy, how much, how to actually store it, how to rotate your usage so the oldest gets used first, etc., etc. There are also some links to coupon sites and to related books, and a spreadsheet to help you determine what foods to purchase to make specific meals for a 3-month period.Note that if you are using Internet Explorer and do not have Windows Office installed, the browser may not give you access to the spreadsheet (even if you have other spreadsheet software on your computer). If that happens, you can download Foxfire. It will let you save the document so you can open it with your own software (I use Quattro, and it opened the spreadsheet just fine). It may be that Safari, Chrome and/or Opera would also allow you to save the spreadsheet, but I don't have any personal experience with those.Reading over the food storage site has made me realize that I do store substantial amounts of some foodstuffs--primarily the raw materials to make other things. More about that in coming posts. posted by Liz @ 9:46 AM | The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email toliz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3 KNITTING BLOGS Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits FINISHED PROJECTS -------FINISHED IN 2006------- Peruvian Cap Tutti-Frutti Socks Shelley's Socks Carol's Socks -------FINISHED IN 2007------- Chain Link Socks Baby Surprise Jacket Valerie & Friend Baby Bonnet Rainbow Baby Socks Girls Pixie Hood Mitred Square Heart Red & White Socks Coffee Cup Pot Holder Nubbins Dishcloth Garterlac Dishcloth Suede Booties Kate's Socks Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap Half Thumbless Mittens Red Mittens for Akkol -------FINISHED IN 2008------- SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE -- Blogs and websites -- Causubon's Book Club Orlov Food Storage Made Easy From the Wilderness In the Wake Listening to Katrina Survival Topics The Modern Homestead The Oil Drum Notes from a Hillside Farm -- Mailing Lists -- 12vdc Power Living on the Land Rainwater Refrigeration Alternatives Old Ways of Living POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES The political sites have moved BOOKS I'M READING How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising ARCHIVES February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 Feedjit Live Blog Stats
I've added Harvey and Ellen Ussery's website, The Modern Homestead, to the sidebar, as well as a site on food storage called Food Storage Made Easy. I'm unabashedly enthusiastic about the first one, conditionally so about the second one, for various reasons. Anyone who reads Mother Earth News will recognize the Ussery's. Harvey has a recurring column there, and they also write for Backyard Poultry magazine and for Countryside & Small Stock Journal. They live the life they write about, on a small piece of property in the Virginia mountains. I've found their site to be both informative and inspiring, and recommend it wholeheartedly.The second site is also very useful, but my built-in bias against a 100% reliance on stored foods makes me just a bit less enthusiastic. Stockpiling food and water is fine. I do it myself. So far, its primary usefulness has been as a free pantry for one of my kids who was having financial problems. But when the water went off a couple of weeks ago, I was darn glad we had both stored water and food that could be prepared without a lot of water. Yet depending solely on stored food and water makes the assumption that society will return to "normal" at some point. The power will come back on, the supermarket doors will re-open, life will go back to what we've gotten used to. I'm not so sure of that. So while I think it's a good idea to have food and water squirreled away, I'm slow to recommend sites that concentrate on nothing but that.My other concern about relying heavily on commercial non-perishables is that you need to actually eat the stuff. It's important to rotate your stock so it doesn't go out of date or become stale. We eat very little grocery store food. We eat fresh foods, and we eat food that I canned, dried or froze. Our milk, meat and eggs come from a local farmer. So it doesn't make sense for me to buy up large amounts of canned and dry goods, because we won't eat it during the normal course of events. It's good only in the kind of emergency that would make other foods either unavailable or difficult to prepare.All that said, however, if you're just getting started with storing food, this really is a good site. It's run by two young moms, and it is, um, cutesy. But if you can look beyond the pink color scheme and the heavy reliance on buttons, icons and art-deco graphics, you'll find a lot of information.The site concentrates on grocery store food, so don't expect to find much about how to can, freeze, dry or otherwise preserve your own. This is actually an advantage in one way, in that people who can't easily grow and preserve their own may hesitate to do anything at all. The site tells you what to buy, how much, how to actually store it, how to rotate your usage so the oldest gets used first, etc., etc. There are also some links to coupon sites and to related books, and a spreadsheet to help you determine what foods to purchase to make specific meals for a 3-month period.Note that if you are using Internet Explorer and do not have Windows Office installed, the browser may not give you access to the spreadsheet (even if you have other spreadsheet software on your computer). If that happens, you can download Foxfire. It will let you save the document so you can open it with your own software (I use Quattro, and it opened the spreadsheet just fine). It may be that Safari, Chrome and/or Opera would also allow you to save the spreadsheet, but I don't have any personal experience with those.Reading over the food storage site has made me realize that I do store substantial amounts of some foodstuffs--primarily the raw materials to make other things. More about that in coming posts.
The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section
RSS Feed
PERSONAL
WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT'
"If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart.
THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME
Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3
KNITTING BLOGS
Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits
FINISHED PROJECTS
SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE
POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES
BOOKS I'M READING
How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising
ARCHIVES
February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002
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