Be Prepared!

Is it possible to "be prepared" without hoarding?

Part of the problem is not knowing what to "be prepared" FOR.
~ Being prepared for power outages and huge blizzards would require a stocked pantry and candles and flashlights and kerosene heaters and offline resources.
~ Being prepared for a terrorist attack might require the same things, as well as heirloom seeds and ammunition, as well as oddball stuff like knowledge of medicinal herbs, and do-it-yourself equipment (tools, well-water with a handpump, wood stove, non-electric grain-grinder), and maybe even being debt-free.
~ Being prepared to flee might require some of the items/knowledge listed above, but it would also require a memory full of hymns and psalms and catechism and Bible verses.  And good hiking shoes.

Preparing a pantry full of emergency meal rations and batteries won't do any good if you're flooded out or if you're a refugee.

Old-fashioned paper maps and compasses and backpacks and and water-purifying tablets may be necessary for someone who must flee, but they won't be much use during a massive blizzard that isolates you for a couple of weeks.


Oh, I want to be a pack-rat!  I want to store things I may need someday.  I hate running to the hardware store for a 9-cent bolt.  When my jammies wear out, I want to dig a "new" pair out of the hand-me-down box and not have to shop for more.  I want my years of Backwoods Homes available to teach me how to be self-reliant.  I want scrap fabric and used buttons.  I want sleeping bags and a propane lantern.  I want iron skillets and an outdoor cooking-tripod.

A recent article, The Problem with Minimalism, makes the excellent point that people must store goods ... unless they have enough money to buy whatever needs replacing whenever they have a need.  That includes parts for car repair.  And it includes packed-lunch versus grabbing fast-food.  And it includes toys and educational supplies and old-fashioned books that your grandchildren will need long after your children have outgrown those items.

But what about balance?  There was the day when Paul had outgrown of many of his shirts, and had worn out the rest.  I knew there were shirts in his size in the basement's hand-me-down collection.  We hunted and hunted and found nothing.  We finally bought a few shirts at Goodwill.  A few months later, sorting through the massive collection of clothing, I found nineteen t-shirts and polos in his size.  NINETEEN.  But the collection was so unwieldy as to be useless when we needed to grab something.  That was when I pulled back a bit, before I hurtled from Hoarder-Cliff.

Sometimes we need a knock upside the head to remember that God will provide daily bread, and to let go of depending upon ourselves and our possessions.
And sometimes we have to have the good sense not to toss God's gifts in the trash, just because He provided them a couple of weeks (or several years) before we saw how much we'd need them.

But how to know which is which?

Canning Circus

I may never can again.

Things did not go well when I attempted to put up some incredible chili last week.   So yesterday I made chili and froze it.   The goal for today was to can either salsa or plain tomatoes.  Taking the lazy way out I decided to can the tomatoes plain.  However, it failed to be "the lazy way."

1.  Accident with the pressure canner which was supposed to be doubling as a water bath.  Boiling water.  Exploded.  On me.  (Lots of cold showers and many applications of fresh aloe mean that I ended up with only a few blistered areas.  The treatments resulted in most places settling down to bad first-degree burns.)

2.  Broken handle on the canner lid when it hit the floor.

3.  Lots of water all over the floor.  When the shower was colder than I could stand, I'd get out and would make attempts to mop up the kitchen's puddles.

4.  Then Maggie accidentally dumped the mop bucket.  All the water from the canning accident --plus the water that had been in the bucket from mopping earlier-- was back on the floor.  I'm glad I could laugh at that instead of cry.

5.  One of the canning jars broke.  The canner was full of tomatoes floating around in the canning water. 

6.  Water boiled out of the canner onto the stove, extinguishing the flame on the burner, while the natural gas kept pumping out into the kitchen.  Hooray for open windows!!!

So what all else went wrong?  I can't remember at the moment.  But this list seems mighty short compared to how the day actually went!

I now have
a) very clean kitchen counters,
b) a floor that's been mopped three times since Monday, and
c) some nice tomatoes in the freezer.

Moral of the Story #1 -- Quit canning.
Except for jelly.
Moral of the Story #2 -- When I forget this lesson, make sure I never can anything in quart-sized jars again ... unless I buy a regular water-bath canner.  Pints will be the limit for water-bathing in the pressure canner.

I'm going to have to wear real shoes to work later this week.  Flip-flops are really a lot easier on my burned foot.

Remind me again why this is supposed to be worth it?

The Pressure Canner

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I've had my fill of tomatoes.  Wow!  Even two weeks ago, I didn't suspect that it would be possible to get tired of tomatoes.  Ever.  But sadly, the tomato sandwich no longer calls to me, enticing me, whispering that I should have a second, or a third, or a fourth.


Now the work of continuing to put them up.

Earlier this week I made a huge batch of chili.  BEST chili I've made in years.  I put seven quarts into the pressure canner.  Phooey.  Every single one of them leaked.  The seal on three lids stayed, but I am suspicious of those jars anyway.  Tonight I hauled out one of the jars that didn't seal; after 90 minutes in the canner, the flavor had changed.  It's still perfectly acceptable, but it's not blow-your-socks-off yummy any more. 

When I canned the salsa, I forgot to add the lemon juice.  (These days, the low-acid tomatoes require added acid to ensure safety when water-bath canning.)  So I don't know whether to put those salsa jars in the refrigerator, or whether they will be safe enough in the basement pantry for a couple of months.

I know that it's supposed to be better to can your food than freeze it.  I know canned food is safe even when the freezer fails.  I know it's easier to heat the canned food quickly.  But if I spend hours of work canning, only to botch it up and have the taste go downhill, is it okay if I just cross my fingers and hope the freezer keeps doing its job to preserve my goodies?

Extreme Domesticity

Lora linked to an article about the younger generation discovering do-it-yourself domestic pursuits. Katie and Rachel fit in the age-range for these women who are cooking, baking bread, mending, knitting, gardening, healing with herbs, etc. But they're not blundering about, trying to figure out these domestic matters, almost as if they're spiting the feminism that was foisted upon them by my generation. Because I taught them a lot of these skills, and I sure didn't foist feminism upon them!

After reading the article, I still can't figure out if I'm avant garde or if I'm hopelessly old-fashioned. Not that it matters much, especially if those two are merging into the same thing these days.

I find it terribly amusing.

Day Lily Buds

Recently, Karin and EC and I were talking about weeds and pruning raspberries. I teased Karin that she should be eating day lily buds, seeing as how she has way more day lilies than she wants.

I realized last night: it's that time of year. The season for day lily buds is shorter than the season for strawberries or asparagus. If I want to try them, now's the time. So I nabbed about a dozen and a half off the "weeds" and fried 'em up last night. Oh.my.goodness. This is not like eating lamb's-quarter (which is okay), or eating pigweed/purslane (which is okay in small doses or when added to a salad of milder greens). Day lily buds are good. Like, good to the extent that I'm tempted to go out and snatch a lot more of the buds. But I keep telling myself that I don't want to eliminate my orange flowers altogether, no matter how yummy the buds taste.

One more batch. When Katie (who very much missed seeing day lilies last summer) is around to try them too. That's all I'm going to permit myself -- one more.

As Good as Home-Made

It used to be that food manufacturers advertised their products "as good as home-made" or "tastes as great as Mom used to make."

When I was talking with an acquaintance recently, she commented on her chicken pot pie. She doesn't cook a lot, but this is one recipe she makes that turns out fabulous. "You know what? It's as good as what you can buy at the store!" The other participants in the conversation were impressed.

So now we at home have reached the goal when we make food that tastes as good as what's mass-manufactured? Something has changed!

Washer Repair

Having lost a pair of jeans, I went exploring in the laundry room. Ah ha -- a load of laundry was sitting in the washer. Since Wednesday. Ick. So I pour in a little vinegar and put it on a second spin cycle. When I come back later, the machine is sitting there, full of water, unable to drain and spin. Oh no!

I love the internet! I found possible causes for the problem. I found a video that told me how to take the cabinet off the machine. (I've taken the washer apart before to do repairs, but as I blunder my way through it on my own, I end up taking apart a lot of things that don't need to be dismantled. I love the videos that tell you where to start and what to do next!) We discovered which part was broken. Gary duct-taped the lid switch in place so that the machine is usable if we treat it gently and use it as little as possible. I ordered the replacement parts online, and they should be here in a week.

This is a whole lot better than a $70 housecall fee and $50-100/hour for the repairman.

(Crossing fingers in hopes that we don't still need to call a professional to install the parts.)

Food Is Living

The other night we watched Food Inc. Definitely biased, but certainly no more biased than the big corporations that control so much of our food supply.

One of many thoughts in the wake of the movie:
A nice, scientific level of control is behind the government oversight of our food supply and of our butchers. Food factories must maintain a certain level of chemical cleanliness. Nutrition (removed through processing) is replaced with chemical versions of vitamins. Science says to eat more of this, less of that. We don't want food to spoil, so we do things to make lettuce shelf-stable for several weeks. We take our corn and soybeans into the laboratory and turn them into all sorts of food items. It's all very scientific.

But food is about life. Food was alive. Meat was alive, walking or swimming or flying. Milk came from a living animal, to be fed to the growing baby. Fruits and veggies came from living plants. Grains came from grasses.

Science doesn't control LIFE. Science doesn't rule life. Science doesn't make life.

Sometimes LIFE even has the audacity to do what science says ain't gonna happen. People who are supposed to die end up living. People who are supposed to live end up dying. Medicines that help some people to heal are the same medicines that harm others who have the same disease.

Food is from life, and food is for life. Food often requires sacrifice: the animal must die, or the seed must be planted into the ground to die and then bring forth new life. Additionally, food engenders fellowship, and food brings pleasure. Food is not cold, hard science. There are things about gardening, ranching, butchering, and cooking that are arts, ruled more by common sense and love and skill than they are controlled by science.

And where will we be when we've lost the common sense and the skill and have to depend only on the scientists for our food?

A Few Short Items

Do you really need to enunciate on the descant? It's high. It should be okay if you hit the note and just approximate the consonants, right? After all, the congregation is supplying the words and sufficient enunciation.

Andrew and I butchered our first animal on Wednesday. I didn't throw up. Good for me. Lesson #1 -- the knife needs to be sharp. Lesson #2 -- intestines are funny. Lesson #3 -- some lessons are learned easier from a teacher than from a book.

It's snowing on a global-warming conference. Psalm 2: God sits in His heaven and laughs.

The nice thing about having two identical DVD players is that losing the DVD remote doesn't mean you can't use the machine. You just hijack the other machine's remote. (What happens when the second remote goes missing??)

An incident with Glenda's grocery receipt makes for a funny joke for Lutherans and other liturgical types.

Graphic Content

You gotta wonder what's up with our society when a cooking show is doing a segment on barbecuing, including roasting a pig on a spit, and the show starts off with a parental advisory warning:

This program contains graphic content.


I thought Gary was joking when he told me about the warning. But he wasn't.
So, Erin, why didn't you have a warning on your Labor Day blogposts?

Canning or Freezing

So far I've canned a dozen quarts of beans. I'm wondering whether I should can more.

One of the jars in my last batch didn't seal. The kids and I ate the beans for lunch yesterday. Canned beans just are not as good as frozen. And frozen are not as good as fresh. I knew that already, but yesterday my tastebuds gave me a vivid reminder. It seems such a waste to bring in those lovely beans and not enjoy them in the fullness of their blow-ya-away deliciousness. Canning seems to overcook them and make them too mushy.

The prospect of our nation's future makes me want to can so that I will have shelf-stable food where preservation does not depend upon electricity to operate my freezer. But I'd much prefer to eat the beans that have been frozen than the beans that have been canned. So basically, I'm gambling premium taste against confidence in my access to electricity.

I hate gambling.

Is It Supposed to Take This Long?

At 4:00 I went out to pick beans. Brought 'em in. Gary and I snapped and washed. Put 'em in jars and canned 5 quarts. It took over FIVE HOURS!

Now, to be fair, while they were bubbling away in the pressure canner, I made some freezer pickles. And we watched some Big Bang Theory while working on the beans. But still -- five hours?

Am I doing something wrong? I know these are nice, organic beans. Well, almost organic. Half of them did get one sprinkle of Sevin Dust back when they were tiny plants. They will taste much better than store-bought canned beans, and probably better even than frozen beans. But that's still a long time to work for only five quarts of beans.

Or maybe this is not an inordinate amount of time, and I just don't know what to expect from gardens and canning.

Green Beans

The beans have been prolific enough that today I opened up the pressure canner I bought a month ago. Having never pressure-canned anything, I carefully read the directions and figured it out. There are now three quarts of beans cooling on the kitchen counter. And Mom, nothing in the kitchen exploded!

Dehydrating Strawberries

I don't have a dehydrator. I don't particularly want one: takes up space in the house, and it's another thing that runs on electricity. The modern stoves don't have a pilot light and can't run as low as 100-120°. So I decided to take some of the strawberries that didn't get made into jam, and try the old-fashioned way of dehydrating them.
I borrowed a screen from a window. (Paul says this set-up looks white-trashy.) If this works, we might make some frames with mesh so that I don't have to raid a window next time. I put the screen of berries (covered with a thin towel) on sawhorses on the deck -- the hottest place we have around here. Of course, the temps dropped 30° since the end of last week, and it's cloudy and occasionally drizzly. Remember those commercials about Sun-Maid raisins? Well, I need the sun to do its thing to dehydrate my berries, and it's not cooperating!

I tried putting the screen in the van -- another nice hot place. So far, they're drying up without signs of mold. But it would've worked a lot faster last week!

Holstein vs Jersey

Back when I was wishing for enough stability that I could justify a small cow shed and a family cow, I wanted a jersey. Less milk, about right for a family. Richer milk, so there'd be butter and cream. But I learned something else today that nobody ever mentioned in polite company. (Who said this blog was polite company? Nobody, right?)

Jerseys poop less.

A neighbor milks Jerseys. They've taken in some loaner Holsteins. And they say the new cows poop like crazy. They say it takes twice as long to clean the barn after milking now that they've added a few Holsteins. Another reason to keep a Jersey on my wish list.

Of course, when I asked last week at town hall about regulations regarding chickens, they told me "No livestock on less than three acres." So I guess my Jersey continues to live only in my dreams.

Successful Schools

Take a toaster. Use it to make yourself a milkshake.

What? You say it doesn't work? You say a toaster is designed to make toast? A blender is for making milkshakes? You mean to say that different tools are intended to be used to accomplish different tasks? Really?

What is a school supposed to accomplish?

Some of us think a school is supposed to teach kids to read, write, and do math. And to think! We all want kids to learn those things.

But what if a school is supposed to teach kids to be the citizens that the intellectual elite want them to be? To be dependent upon the government? To be good little consumers? To toe the intellectual line?

How do the schools get "fixed" if we can't agree on whether they're supposed to make milkshakes or toast?

Go read Jane's initial thoughts on the Gatto book she's currently reading!!!

Bathroom Vent

Breathing fiberglass dust makes me cough.

While dusting the hallway yesterday, I noticed this ugly mark on the ceiling. Gee, am I really that unobservant that I hadn't noticed that before? I thought so. I asked the kids; they didn't think they remembered that mark on the ceiling either. I made a note of it to mention to Gary when he got home. However, he was preaching on Monday night in Shorewood, so it would be a 30-hour wait until he got home to where he could do any checking or fixing for me.

So then I'm cleaning in the bathroom later. Dusting the door frame [yes, I know, this weird fit of cleaning-cleaning instead of just fudging along with a wiped sink or a mopped floor] I found a puddle. Right near the spot on the hallway ceiling. Hmmmm.

So I investigated in the attic. I discovered a new problem that I'd never heard of before. The steam being sucked out of the bathroom has been condensing in the vent-tubing as it passes through the attic on its way outside. And then it freezes. With the warmth yesterday, water was sloshing around in the vent-tubing and there were hunks of ice rattling around in there too. This is where the soppy drips had originated to mess up my hallway ceiling. Geeminy Christmas!

Okay, so I take a bucket upstairs into the attic, intending to separate the tubes where they had been spliced together, and dump the water into the bucket. Uhhhh... news-flash to Susan. Water goes DOWNHILL. So my plan worked hunky-dory for the water and ice in the half of the tube connected to the exhaust-vent in the roof. But the water and ice in the half of the tube connected to the bathroom ceiling.... ummm... it went flowing downhill and splashed through the vent-machine, all over the bathroom floor and toilet and counter and into the litter box.

And it was icky yuck nasty dirty water!

Well, good thing I hadn't gotten far in the bathroom cleaning.

After I removed the motor and the vent-fan from the bathroom ceiling, Andrew held the bucket underneath the hole and held open the flap on the tubing so that I could go upstairs and empty the rest of the water from the tubing. We ended up getting more than a gallon out of the tube.

It dried overnight. This morning I rearranged the tubes in the attic so that they no longer leave the bathroom ceiling-vent, dip down, do a 180° turn, travel relatively horizontally across the attic (with a few more mild roller-coaster ups-and-downs), and then make a 90° turn up to the exhaust spot. I cut a bunch of the tubing out, re-spliced it, and used string to hang the tube from the roof joists so that the vent-tube is much closer to being a straight shot from the bathroom vent to the exhaust-spot in the roof.

I'm a little worried about that. For one thing, some of the online advice said that having it be a straight shot leaves the possibility for condensed steam to run back toward the bathroom instead of making it all the way out of the house. Hmm. Could be. But would that be any worse than having the steam pile up and pile up in ice chunks all through the winter? The other problem is that I noticed it's colder in the bathroom now. That could be simply because somebody had opened the bathroom window earlier. But that was long enough before that it doesn't seem to be an adequate explanation for the chillier bathroom temps.

On the other hand, I took an intentionally long, hot, steamy shower after I got myself out of the fiberglassy attic. Just a scientific experiment, y'know. Not because I wanted a long, hot, steamy shower. Oh no! I kept peeking out at the mirror. It took longer to steam up than normal. When I got out of the shower, there didn't seem to be any steam swirling around in the air. Hmm. That's a good sign. So then we decided to play with matches and experiment with some nice visible air. We tested what happened to the smoke from the matches in the little bathroom where the vent was off, and what happened to the smoke near the vent in operation in the big bathroom. And you could tell that the vent was really drawing! So, I'm hoping that it's fixed. Wow. I fixed something!

(And if anybody knows that something I fixed is going to create a new problem, please let me know before I discover it the hard way.)

The Screwdriver Meets the Computer ....

So the computer-duncehead has to backup her computer, wipe her hard-drive, and re-install everything from scratch.

Hoo boy.

So yesterday I slowly and painstakingly read what was written on the screens, translated it into English from computo-jargonese, and figured out which button to push. With only two or threes pleas for help from my son-in-law, I re-installed the operating system. But I couldn't continue with Spybot, Zone Alarm, and AVG (much less anything interesting) until I could access the internet. That means I needed access to the wireless monitor in the house. That means I needed a "driver" for my computer to talk to the little box that slurps the Internet off the cables, into the house, and sends it beaming out into the airwaves of my home.

That means we had to reinstall not only the software but also the hardware. Okay, that means we need to unscrew the little doober-jobbie that hooks the antenna into the hard-wiring of the computer. Okie-dokie. Grab the screwdriver from the kitchen drawer.

But, man! We were having problems. A screen would disappear. Or the machine would say, "Okay, we're halfway through the installation. Now turn off the machine. Attach the hardware piece. Turn the machine back on. And we'll pick up the software installation where we left off." And then it wouldn't! The nerve of it!

After repeated tries, and we were finally on a roll, thinking we would make it, suddenly we plopped out of Proper Installation Mode and had the screen go belly-up on us again. And it crossed Gary's mind:

We're using a magnetized screwdriver.

We were fine as long as we turned the screws by hand. But the second we touched the screwdriver to the screw, we were messing with the magnetism in the machine, and it flipped out.

Good grief.
Everybody knows to keep magnets away from the computer.

But then there are those tricksy tools, disguising themselves as helping-hands, when they're really computer-crashers.

As much as I'd rather pay somebody to do this, we just can't afford that. So I guess I keep learning lessons about the computer these days. (Boy, I'm glad Nathan is just a phone call away!)

Too Much Law

A Wall Street Journal article by Philip Howard hits the nail on the head: America is being paralyzed by laws and the fear of being sued. I'm afraid to start a business to supplement the family income because I have no idea how I'd maneuver my way through all the legalities. Children may not run on the playground, doctors order too many tests, and a teacher cannot hug a crying child. All because we're afraid of gazillions of laws. The article is good reading, not too long, and broaches the topic of how to fix the problem, how we might be made safe from our fear of transgressing laws at every turn.



Later addition: Come to think of it, there are connections between this societal problem and the theological problem. Christians who have been set free from the law are able to serve their neighbor in freedom and do what needs to be done as their pour out their lives in love for one another. But those who are bound by the law are busy keeping an eye on themselves, for fear of a wrathful god. When the govt is crazy-in-love with laws, the citizenry is bound and cannot go about solving their own problems and creating their own prosperity.


Hat tip: Jane.

Potholder Loops

Do you have a child who cannot get enough of weaving potholders? It's expensive if you buy the good loops -- the ones that are made of wool or cotton instead of nylon, and which actually fit the loom. You can make your own loops, though, out of old cotton-knit t-shirts.

Go to bbmarie's photo tutorial to learn how to make the loops. Because I've had back luck sometimes with things disappearing off the internet, here are brief instructions summarizing the process (just in case I need to have my memory jogged if/after the slideshow disappears one day).
Cut 5.25 x 2.75" rectangles out of the fabric.
The short side should be with the grain.
Round the corners of the rectangles.
Cut a slit (like when you're done sewing a buttonhole) down the middle of the length of the rectangle (which will be across the grain), up to about 1/4" or 1/3" from the ends of the cloth.
When you pull the ends of the rectangle to loop over the loom-pegs, the cloth should roll up a bit, making something akin to the boughten loops.




I cut 52 loops from a woman's t-shirt, size small and not very long. So a t-shirt will provide fabric for 1½ or 2 potholders. One yard of new cotton-knit fabric would yield enough loops for 3½ potholders. It took me about an hour to cut up the t-shirt into loops, but I'm none too quick with crafty projects. It's nice to be able to take interesting prints on t-shirts that would've gone to Goodwill, and turn them into a prettier loop than can normally be found for potholder-weaving.

These loops seem to be significantly heavier than loops from the store. They make a very heavy potholder. To be able to fit the potholder into the space on the loom, I had to skip a few pegs. I'm also considering a try at making narrower rectangles for the loops -- less fabric to roll up and thus less thickness.