Water Storage and Food Preparation

I got some ads yesterday that are prompting me to write this post. Remember how I said I would give you some ideas on water storage and cooking? Well, at CAL Ranch there are some sales going on that might be helpful to some of you. Big blue 55 gallon water barrels are on sale for $39.99. The 6 gallon water jugs with spigot are $9.99. You can fill these, store them, and keep chlorine bleach or some other form of water purification on hand for when you need it. If you keep them inside, I would recommend keeping them close to a drain so that you can rotate your water regularly. You can also consider buying a water purifier pump. They are made for various levels of clean water, you will want to have one that can clean enough water for your family's use. You can also refill sturdy plastic bottles (like juice bottles), but make sure that they are cleaned and sanitized before you store them and add a little bleach. DON'T use milk jugs! They deteriorate faster and no matter how much you clean them you will always have a little bit of milk residue absorbed into them. Remember to check and rotate your water regularly, just like with your food.
There are also some sales at CAL Ranch on a small, one burner butane stove, a large two burner camp stove (uses propane), and a really elaborate camp range/oven. If you purchase any of these things, remember to have fuel on hand. Other ideas for cooking in emergencies include barbeque grills, fire pits, dutch ovens, apple box ovens (I'll try to find a link online for how to construct one), and reflector ovens. I think it would be fun to have a class on how to cook with some of these different types of cooking sources. What do you think? I would really LOVE some feedback on this!
By the way, the sale at CAL Ranch is good through March 8. If you see better prices or other helpful things elsewhere, let us know! Thanks!

Stuff of Interest (maybe)

I got a catalog today from Emergency Essentials. If you haven't heard of it before, it is a place that sells almost everything that you can imagine for emergency preparedness, even privies! Each month they have group specials where a certain amount of an item has to be ordered to recieve the group rate. For the month of March, the specials are: Freeze-Dried Mango Chunks, $16.00/#10 can; Carrot Dices (I'm guessing dehydrated), $7.00/ #10 can; Freeze-Dried Green Beans, $10.00/ #10 can; Large Backpack with multiple compartments $7.00. If you would like to look at these items or any others, you can go to BePrepared.com and if you are interested in purchasing a group order, turn your requests in to me via blog or email by March 20, 2010.

I'm also trying to see if I can figure out how to post additional links to preparedness websites that you can look at for ideas and information. If you see a link on the side menu, that means I've figured it out, if not, any tech support would be greatly appreciated! : )

Another thing I'm trying to figure out is how to set up a survey to get feedback from all of you about what your needs are as far as food storage and emergency preparedness. Again, if you see it, I've got, if not, I don't got it!

In the next few days, I will be posting some ideas for storing water and cooking food in various ways. Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it.

And herein I will post a disclaimer: I am by no means an emergency preparedness expert. There are a lot of things that I don't know. I am willing to share what I do know, find answers to questions that we have, and make my best attempt to help all of you reach your goals! Let me know what I can do to help and please share your knowledge and expertise with me!

Our New Blog!

This is just a test post to make sure that everyone can view the blog! This week I will be posting more information about preparedness things and working on surveys to get information from everyone! Please feel free to leave feedback and comments about what you would like to see on the blog in the future! Thanks for looking!