China passes Japan as world’s second largest economy.

The US is still number one, but this article begs the question: for how long?

Images like this always make me want to run out and stockpile food, but I wonder how effective that would actually be against this kind of widespread flooding. If your home is underwater and you’ve had to evacuate, there’s not really any way to get to your food, no matter how much you have. Which makes me wonder: What kind of backup plan you could have for this kind of situation, if you’re lucky enough to be able to escape the flooding at all?

Not to even mention, protecting yourself against the widespread disease they’re predicting. Yikes.

The point is I will be taking a break in order to deal with labor, sleep deprivation, and the other sundry things coming along right now. I do expect to pick up the thread again once the dust settles. In the meantime, I may post links or video I find interesting, but the written posts will be rare for a while, so fair warning.

Anyway – Wish me luck!

-Stacey

This week / recently:

1) Watched numerous YouTube videos about gardening and preparedness topics. I learned how to use my non-productive pea plants to help add nitrogen to the soil, to use a trellis, how to water from the bottom of a container (that one I basically knew already), and how to deal with floppy / spindly seedlings (obvious, but aren’t most of the things we don’t think of?). Feel free to check out my YouTube channel. I think I’ve watched most of The Survival Podcast videos now, and they’ve all been really helpful. Well, except maybe for the ones about eating grilled beef heart and doves. I know, I know…but yikes.

2) Dehydrated some huge bags of vegetables (peas and kernel corn) that we got from Sam’s Club and rarely used. I usually use fresh or canned corn, and we don’t eat a lot of peas. The bags were taking up space in the freezer – now they take up a lot less space, and once I vacuum seal the bags they’re going into, they should last a very long time. I can’t believe I never thought of dehydrating frozen vegetables before – what a Duh moment that was.

3) Also dehydrated applesauce to make fruit rollups for our food storage. We use a #10 can of unsweetened applesauce to make these. One can will yield about 10 enormous rollups in our dehydrator, being conservative, and it is so easy! The cans cost 3-4 dollars at Costco. This entry is cheating, though, since the rollups never last long enough to actually make it into the pantry. We all love them. I just wish they sold cans with other types of fruit puree.

4) Bought a decent knife for my purse. Decent for my purposes, anyway, which mainly consist of opening boxes and that kind of thing. It’s a Buck knife with an extra lock on the handle, which was what I was looking for since I am around children. It’s also yellow and pretty. There. Do I sound female again? Good.

5) Found a gun class. I mentioned this in a previous post.

That’s all I can think of now – I’m sure once I post this other things will come, but oh well.