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Free Food: 33 Foods You Can Forage From July–September

Free Food: 33 Foods You Can Forage From July–September

The summer months are a great time to forage for nature-grown edibles. Depending on what part of the country you live in, you are bound to find a few wild foods to take back with you!

The summer months are a great time to forage for nature-grown edibles. Depending on what part of the country you live in, you are bound to find a few wild foods to take back with you!

With food prices climbing, we will all hit our breaking point and will need to consider other options than going to the grocery store and getting back to nature to forage is a great alternative. Here are 33 delicious foods you find in the wild from July to September.

In our previous article in this foraging series, we stressed that with soaring inflation and grocery store shelves emptying, foraging is a great way to enjoy specialty food items for free. It is also more sustainable!

All you need to do is spend some time out in nature. As a side note, it is important to correctly identify medicinal or edible plants that grow naturally and abundantly all around you. If you are just starting out, it is especially important to take a book with you to correctly identify nature plants and food growing in your area. As well, check this article on the absolute best way to tell if a wild plant is edible.

A quick tip: we like to do this with our kids. It’s a learning experience for them as well, and they really love each having a book and trying to cross-reference. You should also take your smartphone if you have one…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Reduce Waste: How To Make The Most Of Your Autumn Leaves

Reduce Waste: How To Make The Most Of Your Autumn Leaves

The end of the summer garden is always bittersweet for me. I miss my daily fresh cut lettuce but I also love the falling leaves and bright reds and oranges of autumn. Luckily, those fallen leaves are more than just pleasing to look at. In this helpful guide, we’ll walk you through a few easy ways to use your fallen autumn leaves as a zero waste and cheaper options around your place.

This is a great way to make use all of those gorgeous fall leaves laying around. Let's get sustainable!

The end of the summer garden is always bittersweet for me.  I miss my daily fresh cut lettuce but I also love the falling leaves and bright reds and oranges of autumn. Luckily, those fallen leaves are more than just pleasing to look at.  In this helpful guide, we’ll walk you through a few easy ways to use your fallen autumn leaves as zero waste and cheaper options around your place.

One of the best sustainable and organic ways to help prepare your garden is to add a mulch, and the beautiful fallen leaves of autumn are a great way to this.  According to Ready Nutrition, in the gardening community, leaves are huge.  When they are composted they become known as “black gold,” a nutrient-rich material that can be used in a multitude of ways in the garden.

The life cycle of a leaf begins when a tree makes its leaves in the spring. The tree concentrates all of its energy and nutrients into making the leaves because the more leaves there are, the more photosynthesis can occur.  When the leaves drop in autumn, they create a ground cover for the trees to conserve moisture.  As the leaves decompose, they provide the tree with nutrients and resupply the depleted soil with microbes…

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3 Sustainable Ways To Reduce Your Dependence on the Supply Chain

It’s no secret that the supply chain disruptions have created global impacts on us. Many of us are feeling the burn of soaring food prices and are ready to do what is necessary to continue to feed our families. It’s not about choice, it’s about survival, and now is the time to take the necessary steps to ensure you can make it when the entire food supply system crashes.

One of the easiest ways to reduce your dependence on the supply chain is to start finding ways to phase out food sourcing and make it a priority! That means you will need to be innovative and think of other ways food can be acquired than just going to the grocery store.

23 Things You Can Forage For From April to June

Create more sustainability around your life and you learn to live more simply in the process. You will realize how much you actually have and other ways of putting items to use. As well, as building a more localized food supply. You will also be reducing greenhouse gases due to the gas used to distribute fresh produce. This also boosts local economies and strengthens food security locally, which is where the focus needs to be. Quite honestly, it’s already around you – you just have to know where to find it.

  1. FORAGE: A simple way to start is to learn how to forage for edible plants. These plants live all around us, are abundant, and better yet; are free! Not only that, these edible plants can be medicinal and will have a lot of nutritional value! Here are some food freebies you can find in your own backyard.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why You Might Need To Replace Your Seeds

Why You Might Need To Replace Your Seeds

If you are not saving your own seeds from year to year, purchase good, fresh seed stock from a reputable source. You should also look for organic heirloom seeds since anything else can be hit or miss when it comes to saving your seeds from year to year.

“Seeds are the forgotten heroes of food—and of life itself” —Christopher Cook

If you are not saving your own seeds from year to year, purchase good, fresh seed stock from a reputable source. You should also look for organic heirloom seeds since anything else can be hit or miss when it comes to saving your seeds from year to year.

4 Reasons To Choose Heirloom Seeds For Your Garden

As seeds age, their germination rate naturally declines. Seeds in good condition and stored properly will last at least one year and, depending on the plant, may last two to five years. Old seeds or seeds that have been stored improperly can lose their strength and vitality quickly. This can lead to a poor germination. But even more, those that do germinate from older seeds can be more weak and feeble plants than those that come from a fresh seed stock.

Use seeds that are no older than twelve to 18 months. In other words, if we purchase a new packet of seeds this year, we will keep the unused seeds stored safely in our refrigerator until next year to use one more time. After that, we discard the seeds and order new ones. For just a few dollars, it is far better to purchase seeds that are fresh and viable for planting. Obviously, in an emergency situation when seeds are not available or stores are closed, we could try to germinate older seeds

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How You Can Prepare For the Next Global Food Crisis

How You Can Prepare For the Next Global Food Crisis

Whether we choose to look the other way or not, the planet is facing a food crisis. Even if your grocery store is fully stocked, it won’t take long for food to run out if people come from towns over because their store is out. The food crisis is looming and it is going to get worse before it gets better, so it’s best to prepare now.

Whether we choose to look the other way or not, the planet is facing a food crisis. Even if your grocery store is fully stocked, it won’t take long for food to run out if people come from towns over because their store is out. Recently, President Biden warned of food shortages due to the Russia-Ukraine war. The food crisis is looming and it is going to get worse before it gets better, so it’s best to prepare now.

If you already have a stockpile of food in a prepper’s pantry, you should go through everything and make sure you didn’t use things up or that some things aren’t close to expiring. If you are just beginning to put some food away for a rainy day, start with these 25 food staples. If they are close to expiring, use them now, and replace them.  For the rest of us, we should consider changing our shopping style when it comes to food. Gone are the days of running out to the store to splurge on a few expensive items. Prices are going up and we are staring down the barrel of what could be the worst food crisis in centuries.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How To Prepare For and Prevent Cyberattacks

How To Prepare For and Prevent Cyberattacks

The United States Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency has issued an unusual warning to businesses due to the concerns occurring from the Russia/Ukrainian conflict. “Every organization—large and small—must be prepared to respond to disruptive cyber activity,” the agency says in its warning.

The United States Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued an unusual warning to businesses. It says they should be prepared to defend against cyberattacks originating from Russia. “Every organization—large and small—must be prepared to respond to disruptive cyber activity,” the agency says in its warning.

“In the wake of continued denial of service and destructive malware attacks affecting Ukraine and other countries in the region, we are working very closely with our Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC) and international computer emergency readiness team (CERT) partners to understand and rapidly share information on these ongoing malicious cyber activities,” the CISA statement says.

This isn’t the first time our grid has been attacked and given the recent circumstances, it won’t be the last. Here is a list of the most recent cyber attacks that have occurred to date. This could leave many confused. Because how can we, as regular people, defend against a cyber attack?

According to Purple Sec, cyber-attacks are performed with malicious intent when a threat actor attempts to exploit a vulnerability or weakness in a system or individuals of an organization. These attacks threaten to steal, alter, destroy, disable or gain access to or make use of an unauthorized asset.

Cyber attacks can occur in many different ways. Cybersecurity.gov says these are the ones to be concerned about:

  • Access your personal computers, mobile phones, gaming systems, and other internet- and Bluetooth-connected devices.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How To Create A Root Cellar On Your Property

How To Create A Root Cellar On Your Property

If you have a basement or even room under your house, you can create a root cellar to store food! The trick is going to be making it work with what you have, and all of us are in different situations when it comes to our home setup.

If you have a basement or even room under your house, you can create a root cellar to store food! The trick is going to be making it work with what you have, and all of us are in different situations when it comes to our home setup.

Technically, a root cellar is any storage location that uses the natural cooling, insulating, and humidifying properties of the earth to store food. Whether you stock a root cellar with your own homegrown produce or the bounty from local farmers’ market, it’s a time-tested storage method and could come in handy if we lose power for a long period of time.

Before we had refrigeration (a refrigerator in our homes), an underground root cellar was an essential and effective way to store carrots, turnips, beets, parsnips, potatoes, onions, and other root vegetables that were grown in our gardens. Today, root cellars have made a comeback to keep food from freezing during the winter and keep food cool during the summer to prevent spoilage. A root cellar is also the perfect place to store jars of canned or pickled vegetables, canned meats, and the bulbs or rhizomes of perennial flowers as well. A secondary use for the root cellar is as a place to store wine, beer, or other homemade alcoholic beverages.  You could also store any alcohol you intend to use for bartering or first aid during a SHTF situation in your root cellar.

How To Start Your Root Cellar

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5 Ways To Keep Home Warm During Winter Weather

5 Ways To Keep Home Warm During Winter Weather

If you live in an area where temperatures dip quickly and often during the winter months, you know how hard it can be to keep your home warm; especially when the outside temperatures drop below zero!

If you live in an area where temperatures dip quickly and often during the winter months, you know how hard it can be to keep your home warm; especially when the outside temperatures drop below zero!

We actually live in an area that gets to -20 during the winter months. Luckily, we have yet to experience that this year, however, we have gotten several degrees below zero. Sometimes, your wood-burning stove and electric or propane heaters have a tough time keeping up and your bill to use those goes sky high! So here are some tips to stay warm when it gets unbearable cold.

Heavy Curtains

Heavy curtains will block a lot of the cool air and keep it from hitting you. When it gets cold, even with high-quality windows, you can feel the cold coming off the glass just walking by. Using heavy curtains helps keep this chill from taking over your whole house. Usually, this is something I would do during the night to help it feel warmer. But if you have a really cold day, keep those curtains closed until the sunlight hits the windows.

While some air particles will be able to move through the gaps in a curtain, many of them will encounter resistance – just like wind blowing against a ship’s sail. Even if the air immediately beside the window cools considerably if it doesn’t have the opportunity to mix with the warm air in the rest of the room, you won’t notice – and neither will your energy bills.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How To Pressure Can Your Garden Kale

How To Pressure Can Your Garden Kale

Every year we plant kale in both our greenhouse and our garden. We choose red Russian kale because it is cold hearty and grows fast! We eat it in a salad every night during the summer and when it starts to cool off, we save it!

Every year we plant kale in both our greenhouse and our garden. We choose red Russian kale because it is cold hearty and grows fast! We eat it in a salad every night during the summer and when it starts to cool off, we save it!

Kale is great for us because it can withstand a pretty decent frost before it starts to go limp and die off. I cut our kale on November 20 from outside and the greenhouse and it was still crisp. We don’t like food, especially nutrition-packed greens, to go to waste, so we can do everything we can. It’s surprisingly easy and really good!

Red Russian Kale – A Powerful Punch of Protein and Antioxidants

First, we can kale for two reasons, one because we love it and two because we can! But kale is great for you and if your kids grow up eating it, they won’t have an aversion to it when it’s in a salad. In fact, it’s often called a “superfood” and it’s incredibly easy to grow even in cooler climates.  A single serving (one cup) contains more than a day’s worth of vitamin A requirement, which is important for eye health and immune function. It is also full of vitamins K, C, and B6 as well as manganese, copper, calcium, and magnesium. A can of cooked kale has a mere 32 calories, 2.2g of dietary fiber, 2.3g of protein, 2.55mg of iron, and 198.90 mg of calcium.

How To Pressure Can Kale

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What To Square Away For The Upcoming Winter

What To Square Away For The Upcoming Winter

Extreme winter storms have the capacity to knock a home off the grid for a given amount of time. Have a plan for any situation, and maintain a diverse supply of survival foods so you are ready for anything this upcoming winter.

Extreme winter storms have the capacity to knock a home off the grid for a given amount of time. Have a plan for any situation, and maintain a diverse supply of survival foods so you are ready for anything this upcoming winter.

Building an emergency pantry is one of those lifelines that takes time, financial resources, and planning to make it fully functional. Ideally, you will want to store shelf-stable foods that your family normally consumes, as well as find foods that are multi-dynamic and serve many purposes.

So, what does a well-stocked food pantry look like? In a previous article on how to stock a prepper pantry, Tess Pennington wrote, “Over the years, I have made recommendations for the best types of foods to put in your pantry, how to save on emergency food stores by learning how to can and dehydrate your own food sources, as well as providing the best rules to go by when creating an emergency food pantry. Ideally, you want the food you put in those coveted pantry spots to be versatile and serve many uses. I like to start with shelf-stable basics like wheat berries, rice, an assortment of beans, dry milk powder, peanut butter, drink mixes, etc., and then add on to my pantry with home canned and dehydrated foods. This creates layers of different types of short and long-term food stores and gives me more functionality in my pantry…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

This Medical Issue Could Exponentially Increase in a SHTF Event

This Medical Issue Could Exponentially Increase in a SHTF Event

Medical emergencies are bound to be a problem if disaster strikes. In the event that doctors and other medical professionals are not readily available, we should all know what we can do to lessen the burden of injuries and/or infections sustained during a SHTF event.

Medical emergencies are bound to be a problem if disaster strikes. In the event that doctors and other medical professionals are not readily available, we should all know what we can do to lessen the burden of injuries and/or infections sustained during a SHTF event.

In an article on the most likely ways you could die in a SHTF environment, we wrote, “The die-off from a long-term disaster will not occur from hoards of zombies attacking your homestead. In reality, disaster survivors will more than likely die from four different types of conditions we take for granted today.” One of those ways is death from your sustained wounds.

“Open injuries have the potential for serious bacterial wound infections, including gas gangrene and tetanus, and these, in turn, may lead to long-term disabilities, chronic wound or bone infection, and death.  Antibiotics will be few and far between and will be more precious than gold.  Without proper medicines, antiseptics, and knowledge of proper medical procedures, many will die of bacterial infections.  Learning medical skills, gaining knowledge on natural medicines and alternative medical antiseptics (i.e., Dakin’s Solution) before a disaster occurs could help people survive wound infections. Also, ensuring the area that you treat medical emergencies is clean and as sterile as possible may also prevent bacterial infections.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Hunting Tips: The Pros and Cons Of Two Different Field Dressing Methods

Hunting Tips: The Pros and Cons Of Two Different Field Dressing Methods

As winter approaches and people desire more self-reliance, the hobby of hunting has become wildly popular. Because of that, there are two main methods of field dressing an animal, and here are the pros and cons.

As winter approaches and people desire more self-reliance, the hobby of hunting has become wildly popular. Because of that, there are two main methods of field dressing an animal, and here are the pros and cons.

First off, just to give you all an idea of how we approach hunting, I’ll give you a sort of disclaimer. I am not a hunter and I do not pretend to be. However, my husband is a very experienced hunter but he does NOT participate in trophy hunting at all. If he hunts an animal, it is used for meat. We have saved skulls and antlers ourselves, but that is not the goal when hunting for us. We use as much of the animal as we can and even save the gristly chewy hocks to make into food for our cats and dogs. I do not hunt because I do not enjoy the actual killing of the animal, however, I participate in all aspects of helping prepare it for storage.

We also teach our children where meat comes from and how we get it. We have them say “thanks” to the animal, and we thank the animal for giving its life so we can sustain ours. We thank the animal as we process it and we thank the animal at every meal…

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It’s Worse Than We Thought! How The Global Energy Crisis Will Have Long-Term Consequences

It’s Worse Than We Thought! How The Global Energy Crisis Will Have Long-Term Consequences

 

Hunting Tips: The Pros and Cons Of Two Different Field Dressing Methods

Hunting Tips: The Pros and Cons Of Two Different Field Dressing Methods

 

6 Just-Add-Water Meals That Belong In Your Prepper Pantry

6 Just-Add-Water Meals That Belong In Your Prepper Pantry

When we are faced with dramatic emergency situations, convenience can help keep us calm and eliminate some of the added stress that’s inevitable during a crisis.  That’s why convenience is one of the basic rules to creating a solid emergency food pantry.

When we are faced with dramatic emergency situations, convenience can help keep us calm and eliminate some of the added stress that’s inevitable during a crisis.  That’s why convenience is one of the basic rules to creating a solid emergency food pantry.

 Many busy moms know that boxed dinners can be a time saver when you are in a pinch. Having some pre-packaged items or just-add-water meals during emergency scenarios will help you begin acclimating yourself to cooking in a grid-down scenario as well as can help provide some comfort at the same time.  Keep in mind, however, that those pre-packaged meals are most often not as nutritious as other meals, but you will need to weigh your options in times of crisis. Sometimes, beating the stress is simply more important. Another thing to watch for is making sure you are keeping dietary restrictions in mind.  For example, if you or a member of your family have celiac disease, you would want to avoid anything not specifically labeled “gluten-free.”

But if you just want some quick “just add water meals” to store in case the grid goes down, or worse, these are all excellent options. Plus, you could easily buy these in bulk either at the grocery store or on Amazon!

  1. Hamburger helper – This can be turned into a soup, especially if you have some beef bouillon on hand! It isn’t half bad either! Just add a lot of water, and some additional beef bouillon to flavor the water, and viola! Hamburger helper soup!

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Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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