Food Storage - Setting Up and Learning

My food storage in 1999 was not on par with the preppers of YouTube fame but then, that wasn't my goal.  My goal was simply to have enough on hand to outlast our normally severe winter weather and not be stuck in a house full of kids and no supplies.  That goal has never changed but I have maneuvered through some detours along the way. 

It took awhile to convince DH to build some shelves in the basement of our 2nd farmhouse.  We had a wet basement in a 7-year-old addition built onto the century-old log farmhouse by the previous owners.  The drains had not been put in around the foundation of the house properly and the water marks were over 2' high on the basement walls and the insulation and drywall were rotted.  This addition had been built for the previous owner's son who wanted his bedroom in the basement for his teenage privacy.  He never did sleep there.

Even with the sump pump going steadily, we still had a few 'incidents' every year.  DH was afraid of losing some or all of the food but in the end, the water never rose above 3-5 ".  Also, all he could see was $ signs for both the cost of the shelves themselves and the extra food.  He finally built them and it took a while but he slowly began to see the usefulness of having them stocked.  We used new pine boards for the upright sides and melamine boards leftover from a previous project for the shelves.  The pine worked great but the melanine was not strong enough to hold much and we had to constantly put more wood underneath to hold the melanine up.  Lesson learned - no melanine again for shelves.

I kept a list of everything down there but I did that, I guess, for fun, just to see how quickly or slowly we went through things.  At this point in time in 1999 here, as there was no YouTube, etc. or anyone that I knew of who was doing this food storage thing, I was completely winging it, totally flying by the seat of my pants.  I had no idea whether or not I needed a list or would ever use one but I didn't want to get months into buying food and regret not having one.  Keeping that list was a good idea in the end as I still have it and will refer to it again in the future.

I learned that some things just don't keep that well such as pickles.  Not for us, anyway.  They were soft after only a number of months.  I learned that we don't like peas much as they would sit on the shelves for forever when the kids were allowed to choose the veggies.  I used that knowledge to determine how many pea rows to plant in subsequent gardens and how to store them after.  I froze them in little snack baggies for a nice size to add to soups, stews and casseroles instead of in a sandwhich baggie or large freezer baggie to use as an actual veggie for a meal.  We went through a lot more ketchup and maple syrup than I'd expected and therefore still make sure that we have lots of both.

More later...