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...

My Food Storage (and the Tightwad Gazette)

13 years ago after the birth of baby #6, I started storing food.  Those were the days before YouTube, universal prepping, bloggers sharing ideas, Twitter, Facebook, for the most part even the internet.  My ideas came from a wonderful teacher, author, mom, wife, newsletter producer, frugal pioneer named Amy Dacyczyn who inspired me to think long term.

 I bought my copy of her first book, The Tightwad Gazette, from a sale table in 1996 and her second book, The Tightwad Gazette #2, a short time later.  These books were printed in 1992 and 1995 respectively and are still not outdated.  I doubt they ever will be as there will always be people looking for a more frugal life.  I found her books approximately 2 months before she stopped her newsletter, unfortunately as I had been so looking forward to signing up for it so I considered myself lucky to have the books.  Now, her 3rd book, The Complete Tightwad Gazette, is calling my name!

Everyone has their own reasons for their choice of lifestyle and Amy was no different.  She and her husband wanted to have a large family and to be able to buy a special home - a pre-1900's New England house with barn attached and she didn't want to work away from the family in order to achieve this.  They became spendthrifts in order to save enough money while living on 1 income to be able to reach their dream.

 

While I was not looking for the same kind of home or the exact same dream, there was still plenty of information in Amy's books to help me.  One of her ideas was about buying items on sale in order to be able to afford extra of that item without going overboard with the spending.  Having extra parts for both indoor and outdoor equipment meant being able to walk to a neatly-organized shelf, pick up the part and fix the broken equipment - IMMEDIATELY. 

No down time and a full pantry of food meant a better life.  With 6 kids (9 and under) in an old farmhouse in an area where it snowed - a LOT - I was tired of living hand to mouth -sort of.  We always had food, especially meat.  There wasn't much choice of meat, mind you - all beef or all chicken or all pork and a few times, all lamb - but at least there were usually 2 freezers full of meat.  (The lack of variety gets really tedious after awhile, though).  I was tired of running out of other things like baby formula, diapers, condiments, canned foods such as tomatoes, beans, etc. to make dishes such as lasagna, spaghetti, shepherd's pie, chili, etc.  We usually were without hydro 4-5 times a year due to blizzards and even though we had a good generator, we couldn't get to town for days at a time.  If the snow ploughs refuse to go out, you're not going anywhere, either!

I'd visit farmer friends growing up and watch them go to the shelves in the basement to retrieve canned fruit for dessert whereas my mom always had to actually make the dessert for company - we didn't have that kind of thing 'on hand'.  I would follow them into their 'larder' or 'pantry' and even then wish that we had one.  It didn't seem practical in the city though, to store extra food as we were surrounded by grocery stores that we could walk to and, of course, dozens more that you could drive to plus our house was not that big and we had no basement.   That didn't stop me from thinking that those words - larder and pantry - were pretty cool words.  Talk about invoking pioneer images!

 www.pioneerfoodie.blogspot.com



More later...   

Our 3rd Farmhouse

 This farm needed a lot of work in every aspect - house, barn, all sheds, every field, every fence row - and none moreso than the other.  We had been told by the real estate agent that the wife had left the husband 2 years before, the implication being that the entire farm had only been neglected for those 2 years.  Later, neighbors told us that she had been gone for 5 years but the reality is that this place had been neglected ever since the husband's parents moved in - appro. 1975.

DH and 2 of our sons came up 1 week early before we moved in to take the wall down between the tiny kitchen/dining room and the main living room.  DH needed to be in the basement quite a bit as there was hydro in the wall that needed to be looked after in the basement.  When he got to the basement, he realized that he wasn't going to get anything done on that wall for a while - he couldn't get through the basement until he cleaned it up first.   There was stuff down there that had been there we figure for at least 50 years.  An old chair had rotted against the wall and piles of old lumber had to be removed, one piece at a time. 

It had been so many years since wood had been burned down there (if ever) but there was firewood in one section. The only furnace was an oil furnace that was so old, it no longer worked and had to be removed.  2 old oil tanks that had been condemned also had to removed.  There was no more room for any other furnace or wood stove so we're not sure as to why there was firewood but after all those years in the basement, that wood certainly was dry and made some great fires that first winter.  Only problem was, these pieces were huge and each one had to be brought upstairs and chopped up. 

There were live wires hanging everywhere down there (and all over the whole house) and outlets and light switches (downstairs as well as upstairs) that did not work.  We're thinking that the owner fancied himself an electrician and we're shocked (no pun intended!) that we're all still here to tell the story.  My son found 2 nails through live wires, 1 through the board and batten in the garage and the other through the upstairs bathroom where they're renovating now.  He wasn't too happy about being shocked twice and I'm wondering how many cat lives he has left!

The strangest thing that DH found down there was what he found under the stairs - old boots, shoes and gloves.  Some went way back through the years, some were fairly new.  There were a large number of recent children's shoes that must have belonged to the owner's 2 sons who were about 13 and 15.  There wasn't much to laugh about with the whole situation of supposedly respectable people leaving years and years of their junk behind but he did have to laugh when he realized that the children's shoes got smaller and smaller the further back they went.  We figure now that even the children's mother (the ex-wife) was in on it.  They must have taken each pair of shoes as the boys outgrew them, set them on the first step and kicked them backwards under the steps.  How else could so many shoes end up under there in such perfect order of growing - and in full, matching sets?  Why not give them to second-hand clothing shops?

When he started the job that first day, DH had no idea that it would take 3 days just to clean up under the stairs.  That stuff under there went on forever and reached so far back that he needed a rake to reach it all.  He brought huge garbage can after garbage can, packed to overflowing, up the stairs, time after time which I imagine is why the stuff was still down there - they didn't want to do all that work.  I can't really blame them except if they hadn't put it all down there in the first place...

DH only had 5 days to work on the house because we were moving in then.  5 days seemed like a lot of time to get a lot done.  It was a 2-hour drive each way and after they'd done that for 1 day, I told them to take the mattresses (they were going to take some furniture along anyway, might as well be mattresses), packed them food for a few days along with mousetraps and sent them on their way.  At first they thought it a dumb idea - until that first night when they realized that they could work as late as they wanted, stop to eat whenever they wanted or not at all, didn't have that long drive home at night but best of all, didn't have to get cleaned up at the end of the day because there were no women around to tell them to.  I think that they were pretty much in a man's heaven ---except for the basement.  DH was serious about getting it done because of the mouse/rat problem (we weren't sure which it was at that point) and he didn't want to give them any extra hiding places in the basement.  After everything, the basement never did get completely done because as soon as we moved in, there were, unfortunately, other pressing worries. 

He ended up using the last 2 hours of the 5th day to take down the kitchen wall then drove the 2 hours home.  We were all pretty deflated after that and we hadn't even moved in yet.  We knew that this place had problems and we were used to farms with problems as we had always bought old farms with unfixed houses but this farm got us down before we even got started.  We've been behind the 8 ball the whole 2.5 years that we've been here.  I feel like we're a flock of Chicken Littles, running all over patching this problem before it breaks completely, fixing that problem so that we can keep using it.  The next few years will prove interesting, just to see how many of our dozens of projects get done!

Chocolate Brownie Recipe

I found this Brownie recipe while looking for a cookie-in-a-jar recipe.  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Brownie-Mix-in-a-Jar-II/Detail.aspx  I've tried lots of Brownie recipes over the years but had not fallen in love with any until this one.  It's chewy and fudgy instead of like a cake and it requires only 1 bowl. 

RECIPE
Preheat oven to 350 F.  Grease and flour a 9 x 13" pan.

Mix the following ingredients in large bowl.

• 1 1/4 cups of all purpose flour                           1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt                                                            2 1/4 cups of white sugar
• 2/3 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder 
• 1/2 cup of chopped pecans, walnut, etc. (optional)

To above bowl, add 4 whole eggs and 3/4 cup of melted butter or margarine and mix.

Spread batter into prepared pan.  Batter will be thick.  Bake for 25 - 30 minutes.  I prefer to cook on the middle rack of oven, otherwise the edges are cooked too quickly.   Dry ingredients can be stored in a jar and the 'wet' ingredients added later if desired. 

I love this recipe because it tastes yummy of course but also because it only requires 1 bowl, doesn't need an electric mixer and uses normal ingredients.

        

Sad and Lonely Calves

On our second farm, we had 'field cows' (my uneducated name for them), mama cows that lived in the fields all summer and had their calves there.  In the fall, we would bring all of them into the barn for the winter.  Not a bad life...outside all summer and in the warmer barn with fresh straw all winter.  Except for one, little thing...we separated the calves from their mamas.   After all, they're not babies anymore and they get fed differently.  They're also too small to be in a pen with pushing, shoving adults more than twice their size who will actually trample them to death and not even notice.  As with all mothers, nursing must to come to an end someday!  Those poor mothers need the winter to recuperate!  (That's just my feminine take on it!)  There is, after all, another baby on the way that mama needs to get physically ready for. 

Well, calves separated from their mamas bawl and bawl and bawl and...on and on.  It's actually an awful ruckus that sounds like they're being slowly tortured (I guess they kind of are!) and murdered.  It can go on for up to 2 weeks and uneducated neighbors would likely call the animal welfare.  Thank goodness we had farmer neighbors and not city folk on acreages.  Because we did this in the fall, they were long over it before the calves were sold in the spring so the new owners did not have to put up with it. 

Which brings me to the here and now.  Yesterday we bought 8 medium-sized calves and 18 smaller ones.  A reliable buyer bought them for us and delivered them as our little horse trailer would never do the job and DH works full time and can't get to the stock yards to buy his own calves.

 This is more like the truck and trailer that we need. 

New calves unloading. 

 Ol' Blue Eyes!

Some of the calves that we bought yesterday are just fine, as were the 12 that we bought last week.  Some, however, were not weaned and it sure is noticeable which ones are which.  It may not show up at the stockyards as all the calves are upset anyway and don't mind letting anyone who's passing by know.  Our calves are usually very quiet, not even a cough or a moo.  They have everything that they need, fresh straw, water, feed and moo moo companionship. 

The noisy calves all come from the same owner, Farmer R.  DH reminded me that last year, we bought 44 calves from Farmer R. and it was the same bull.  Calves bawling for 2 weeks just because Farmer R. is too lazy to do the weaning himself.  I feel that it's pretty cruel to wean the little ones, load them onto - and unload them from - a trailer ('cuz they like that so much - NOT), put them in holding pens at the stockyards, parade them around the selling pen then off to a totally strange barn where they have to figure out the feed and water situation for themselves...all in 1 day.  The selling farmer could have helped alleviate some of the stress by doing the weaning process ahead of time and getting it out of the way.

This isn't just an emotional thing either.  Unweaned calves do not do as well because of the emotional and physical stress and lose a fair bit of weight.  Say a calf weighs 500 lbs.  The buying farmer pays for every one of those pounds then the unweaned calf loses, say, 50 lbs.  The buying farmer paid for 50 lbs. that he's no longer getting and now has to pay for feed for that calf for quite a while (starting after the calf finally calms down) to put that weight back on and then the calf will finally start to gain real weight.  (Just picking random numbers here.)

The selling farmer hurts himself in the long run as this is a business that is very much dependent upon word of mouth and your reputation as a seller is everything.  DH informed our buyer to never deal with Farmer R. again.  Famers will always return to reputable sellers and likewise avoid the disrespectful selling farmers forever.

You know it's cold in the barn when you can see his breath.

 Some of the happy campers.

A few of the lost and lonely little souls protesting.

Barn Cat Feeding Frenzy

I love how every cat in the barn comes running when they see us or hear us calling them.  The 2 cat dishes that we usually use got locked in behind the cab tractor DH parked up in the barn and there's no way to get back in there so it's the floor for the kitties' food for now.  I love the little ones looking up at the camera.  They're so cute...and helpful with catching the mice. 

Drying Pine Cones

Many years ago, my sister-in-law used mini pine cones to make the craft for her twins 6th birthday party.  Their BD is Dec. 22 so the craft was pine cones rolled in glue and glitter then tied with a string to be hung on the Christmas tree.  The glitter was rather annoying - on (in) your nose, eyelashes, clothing, etc. but it was oh so pretty and so worth it! 

 I've often wanted to do the same but didn't like the idea of paying for pine cones from a store when they're free from nature.  The only problem was, all of the trees near our 1st farmhouse were cedar, our 2nd farmhouse maple and now here, at last, there's a row of pine right behind the house.  Now I have no excuse!

I started saving the pine cones early last spring.  If I didn't, they would have been chopped up by the lawn mower.  I've saved 2 large cat food bags full and there are still lots more cones at the tops of the trees although I can't imagine how anything can still be hanging on with all of the high winds that whip across the fields almost daily, year-round.  Maybe next spring I'll make it to the bush at the back of the property to gather some extra.

I followed this 'recipe' for drying the cones on www.tipnut.com.  I had to leave the cones a lot longer than the 30 mins. recommended, usually 3-4 hours.  I'm assuming that this is because they were so wet, still completely closed up and are quite large.  This method of drying them in the oven kills all bugs, makes them open up beautifully and best of all for me, gets rid of the pine sap which can be pretty miserable to remove from your hands.  I tried to speed up the process by upping the heat to 250 degrees F (from 200 F) but found that the cones became too brittle and a little burned around the edges. 

 The before photo. 

The After photos.

I'd like to use the best-shaped ones for Christmas tree decorations and autumn ornaments.  The not-so-nice ones I'd like to use for making firestarters (wrapping wick, string, old shoelace, etc. around the dried cone then dipping into wax) and bird feeders (cover with peanut butter then roll in bird feed).  We grew millet (bird feed) 2 years ago under contract and we saved 1 large garbage can full for ourselves and still have half left that I can use with the peanut butter. 

Now, only 1000 more to go!

More Random Farm Photos

My daughter informs me that her friend wants 'farm action' photos.  Well, um...it's kind of late in the season for 'farm action'.  The crops are long gone and the fields are worked up for next spring so there's nothing going on here.  The 12 + 1 calves aren't doing anything too exciting...just eatin, chewing, pooping, making more mess in the barn...that's it.  No real action. 

So I'll just have to post more random photos even if they're boring.

DH waving hello to photographer daughter.

DH emptying round hay bales from an extra shed to move into the main barn.  

Feedin 1 hay bale to the new calves.  

Random Farm Photos

My daughter was home this weekend from university (a rare occurence) and mentioned that her roommate wanted to see some photos of the farm so these are rather random. 

These are 2 huge new doors that my son made himself.

Our very old truck and horse trailer (both need replacing) that brought home...

...these 12 brown calves 2 days ago.  The black calf on the right is older and one that we held back from the group of calves (75) that were sold about one month ago.  He, like Wilbur the pig, will grace our dinner table in about 2 months.  We'll have lots of chicken, pork and beef.

 Suppertime.  Isn't he cute?!  Speaking of cute...

these kitties are too.  These are some of the 14 (at last count) barn cats.  They do a good job of keeping the mouse/rat population down but have to watch out for skunks and racoons that would like a little kitty for supper.  They get fed cat food every day (sometimes twice), have lots of water (that doesn't freeze), a warm place to sleep and lots of feline company and they all seem to get along.  Not a bad life for a barn cat!

Wilbur, the Pig

Back in August, DH took the chickens away to be butchered and came home with...none other than Wilbur the pig. 

Wilbur giving us the evil eye.

Because DH didn't know that he was bringing home a pig that day, he was not prepared with something to bring him home in and ended up bringing him home in a large, plastic garbage can.  Wilbur was destined to die as he was the runt of the litter and I guess runts are put down.  (I didn't realize this.)  So, garbage can or not, that was his lucky day as he got a stay of execution but not for long as we fully intend to put him on our table some day!

Wilbur says hello!  This is what he looked like until yesterday.  His pig pen got cleaned out last night so he looks cleaner now (below) but actually the pen was warmer for him before.  The extra manure and straw gives him a place to burrow down under (hence the dirty nose!) which pigs love to do so we'll have to get a lot more straw in there with winter coming. 

 Shy little Wilbur needs a friend!  Maybe we can find another little runt!

Lilly the Silly Cat

I'm not sure why kitties squeeze themselves into small spaces and actually sleep there for hours at a time or how they sleep with their heads in the air but they sure are cute when they're doing it!

 This is a little bed I frugally made up for her, John Deere blanket and all.  Nothing but the best for Lilly and do you think she'd lay in it?  Of course not!  She prefers the following...

A box full of newspaper ready for the fire.

 The same box now covered with baler twine that DH brought in from the barn to be added to the fire starting supply box, complete with straw!

Asleep on DH's desk in a small basket about 5" across.  Not only do I wonder how she fits in there but how is it comfortable?!  It's wicker, after all.  (My first attempt at photo shop.)

I can promise you that no cat was injured in the taking of this photo but I know that if Lilly were a human, she would not be impressed with a photo of her licking her own nose being put online!