KB’s Blogs
Kellene Bishop is passionate about providing expert emergency preparedness information and is the mind behind the Preparedness Pro blog. In addition, she also writes for several other blogs:
- Women of Caliber addresses firearms and physical self defense primarily for women and Second Amendment issues.
- LDS Freedom is created for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on issues regarding the U.S. Constitution that through such education we may “be united in upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States.” (David O. McKay)
- Kellene Bishop addresses the U.S. Constitution, public policies and politics worldwide
- Freedom Intelligence is your online news source for in-depth undiluted truth regarding the state of our nation.
Please subscribe to Kellene’s blogs and come back often!
Thanks for the kind comment on my blog. I’ve enjoyed reading your blog. You’ve got some great information out there!
I wanted to commend you on a top-notch blog and content with Preparedness Pro. I enjoy it immensely and hope you’ll keep up with the good work.
I’ve added it to my favorites on my blogroll on gypsycompass.com
Best wishes!
Bret
Kellene, I recently started reading Preparedness Pro, mostly, from your site. Sadly, I am still in the thinking/planning stage of organizing and filling my cupboard. I saw the Food Challenge yesterday. The “Double Dog Dare” was a nice touch. I decided to give it a go and spoke to my family to inlist all the help that I can get. This will be a good test for us, since I have not bought anything in quantity beyond my normal stocks.
The biggest challenge will be things that I might normally have more on hand but didn’t, like fruit and milk. These would be the hard things to get in an outage anyway, so it is an appropriate exercise.
By the end of two weeks I will have identified things that we don’t need to keep in the cupboard and made a good list of things that I will buy to fill those shelves more effectively.
We will see how the kids (2, 4, and
fair when our single gallon of milk is gone. I might normally have three or four gallons of milk in the frige and find myself on day 2 with only one. Of course it would expire before the two weeks was up anyway.
I would not have expected to be so excited about finding three shelf stable milk boxes left over from school lunches. We are likely to be using the small supply of canned, dry and soy milk in the cupboard sooner than later to get us by, but everyone is on board. It should be fun.
Search did not bring up anything on storing nuts and seeds. I did see not to buy seeds in cans, which I already did, but now I need to know if I can open them and they will still be good. They were canned in April of 09, so not too long ago. Are they still alive at this point?
What about nuts, they go rancid if you don’t freeze them.
Can you freeze seeds or does that “kill” them too?
What kind of shelf life do they have? Can you store them in buckets without the mylar bags and dump them in other buckets to aerate them?
Thanks,
Lillian
Several years ago, I attended a series of workshops given by Suzanne Ashworth, author of ‘Seed to Seed”. She is considered a foremost authority in seed collecting preserving and so on. She has some really great ideas in her book. p. 29, 2002 edition…”Seeds of all species can be stored for many years with almost no loss of germination and only minimal loss of vigor, when dried to about 8% seed moisture, sealed into an airtight container and frozen.” To me it seems to be common sense that if the seeds were of greater moisture content they would be destroyed. I checked with Geneva Experimental Station of Cornell UNiversity and (at least) the horiculurist i spoke with agreed with her analysis.
I use mesh screened homemade boxes over my 4 squares to keep my heirloom lines pure (and introduce insects as needed or do the pollinating myself. I learned most of this from Dr. Ashworth…she is a genius in this.
I am really happy with my seeds stored this way. I just got the best arugula from seeds in a freezer since 1961.
We grow all of our own produce year round now. I wish I could send you all some pictures of our set up. It works so well and we put so little money into it.
We are trying to get some time so BYU TV can come and shoot this for Living Essentials so everyone can see it.
It is so cool to make up decorative 12 inch cubes we put on grow racks in the winter, in cold frames, under unheated greenhouses, or attached back into square foot gardens.
This way I use the same soil base year round with no interuption. Mel Barth. SFG, being so so smart made this possible by reintroducing an age old way to garden with a twist.
I really like being able to grab a cube of lettuce mixes and put it in the center of my dining room table, so everyone can cut fresh what they want for a meal. We just keep rotating in our ready to eat produce.
Also we can take these to curbside for others to cut fresh salads. I leave handouts for everyone so they can do this for themselves. These also make the nicest gifts to get others started. As you can tell, I am so in love with my gardens. I do some aeroponic gardening in the middle of the winter, but mostly it is all straight from the soil.
I visited Eliot Coleman’s farm in Maine and also bought all of his books. He teaches year round gardening with no extra heat needed. I have learned so much from him and his wife over the years. He has a movable green house now, but it is pricey. So we built our own using discarded tires..
So this helps us to grow citrus trees, figs, and some other tropical sorts in the zone 5 areas. I am lucky to be so close to Cornell UNiveristy where I can pick the brains of so many experts and do not consider myself expert. I only know we sure do enjoy a huge amount of constant fresh produce….can’t remember when I last shopped for this in a store???
Ok, now I’m starting to get worried. You have a great site, kind of like lets see, Women of Caliber. If you want to exchange links please let me know i would be glad to.It must be in the air in Utah, or maybe its the water, could you send me some? Thanks, Bernie………………SBL
Thanks for your comments on my blog. It is good to know there are people who read it once in a while. I actually do read Cassandra Barney’s blog regularly. I guess I just thought it was okay for her to have a combined blog since she is an established artist. But, I guess it can be okay for me too. By the way, I think we could survive 2 weeks in summer with the garden for fresh tomatoes etc. but it would still be really hard not to have what we want.
I enjoyed your blog. I really believe we need to love to live… and prepare just in case. As a woman I like to blog, comment politically, prep AND keep a beautiful home… We need more women preppers to speak out… there is more than just guns and being negative!
Ran across your website … some good stuff!!! Question regardng Faraday cages. I have a portable home generator on a 2-wheel rubber tire cart. I've built a plywood enclosure (2'x3'x4') to keep dust off when in the garage (it sits on a concrete floor), and protect it from rain when in use outside. What's the best way to convert or retrofit that to also serve as a Faraday cage??? … aluminum, brass, or copper mesh attached to the outside of the plywood box, extending down to the ground and with a ground wire to water pipe or separate ground rod? Any suggestions will be GREATLY appreciated.
Copper mesh is my preferred method. Then use a separate ground rod.
Our family has just found out that two of our Grandchildren, one 4 and one 10, have Celiac. My daughter, their mother, was trying so digentely trying to get her food storage up to snuff and now is thrown into a tail spin because she doesn’t know what to store for these two let alone what to fix for them to eat on a day to day basis. Yes, I know, once she gets their daily food needs figured out then she’ll know what to store. So many things have barley, wheat and rye ingredients in them, even some lip moisturizers. UGGGG. Do you know of any blogs on this subject or where she can go to find out information? Any help will be appreciated. I have so enjoyed learning from your information and am in the process of waxing cheese! Love the way you write and encourage us all to do better. Keep it up and thanks a ton.
Nancy, have your daughter look into quinoa, millet, and amaranth. These are good alternatives for those who suffer from Celiac disease. The wheat is still uselful to your grandaughters though when sprouted, but only if they do not have severe Celiac. (consult a physician to determine their tolerance level) Sprouting a grain converts it from a gluten to a vegetable and compounds the nutritional value by 500-600%. Also, Blue Chip foods has won an award of recognition from a national organization that helps with Celiac disease as a result of many of their products which are ideal for gluten intolerant individuals. If you are in the Utah area, you can readily find these gluten-free products in the health food section of Macey’s Grocery Store or at the Blue Chip Outlet store in Salt Lake City. (The founder of the company has some close loved ones who struggle with Celiac disease as well.)
Kellene, I love the information here and have shared it with anyone who will listen. I am preparing to do eggs but wonder does it have to be the styrofoam container or does the cardboard type work as well? Does the hard paper container absorb the mineral oil? And, do I just dip the egg in mineral oil then place point down — it is not soaking in mineral oil, correct? Do I use an Easter egg dipper for dipping in the oil? Also, I just ordered cheese wax. Can’t wait to try it.
I WAXED MY CHEESE!! Hooray for me. Now. Do I dip my eggs in mineral oil and then put them in styrofoam cartons? Can they be cold from the refrigerator? Help! I’m doing that this week.
Thanks, Bret. We intend to continue to do our very best!
Sounds like a successful start, Laura.
hmmm… Ok. Let me try to help. You SHOULD open your canned seeds periodically to air them out. I’ve successfully planted seeds this year that were from 1986. If you’re in doubt, try to use a regular emery board and file a smidgen of the seed to give it a head start when you plant them. So long as you areate them about every 8 to 12 weeks, you should be fine making due with what you’ve already invested in. If I were you, I’d make my rounds in about 3 weeks or so and start buying up the seeds that the nurseries will be selling at 70% off.
I store my nuts in sealed Mason jars. (I used the Foodsaver jar attachment to do so) They last for YEARS this way…thank goodness, cause I cringed when I had to throw them out…all that money going down the drain.
I would not freeze seeds.
S
Thanks so much for the heads up on this info! I appreciate it and think I’ll have some fun looking into it more for myself. (I LOVE this kind of fun.)