Date Day

Woodsrunner & I spent Saturday @ the gun show in Rochester. Normally he attends with his friends or in the past he has taken one of the children. This time I had a list of specific items that I wanted to buy and spending a day out of the hood sans teenagers was appealing. Yes, I know sounds like a lead up to a "you know your a red neck if " joke but when your man is a country boy sometimes all a girl from the block can do is follow. 

Interesting and extremely crowded. There was the usual gun toting ZZ Top crew along with a large percentage of Yul Gibbons grandfathers clogging the isles. But occasionally I'd see a more ethnic enthusiast and even a few fellow Puerto Ricans.

I was fascinated that grown men walked around with signs taped to their backs advertising their firearm for sale the majority being rifles. There was even a father son who looked like extras from the Shore, lugging a golf bag filled with rifles and swords to sell.
Visited with the county clerks who were taking a break from registration duties. And the Cowboy action shooters. Picked up a brochure on aftermarket laser sights. Crimson Trace rep was patronizing but the product pretty much sold itself when I could see the red dot 40 feet away without my glasses on.

I know that it seems pretty popular and to some almost mainstream now to talk about survival & medical gear but I had been meaning to do a blog post about our efforts.

In the past I've always kept a medical kit which was a re purposed plastic tool box that contained bandages, ointments, OTC meds like cough syrup and analgesics. A few months ago all that personally changed when our health insurance co-pays especially for an ER visit hit the $750 mark. That's just for walking into the ER. Having an MD touch us is a separate bill as is lab.

So I needed to step up my game as our family's medical & co financial officer.

One way is to provide more of a buffer between when an event happens such as a laceration and automatically utilizing an ER when an urgent care or even our doctor's office will do. Even though I'm a nurse, I can say that I to have to fight the urge to scoop & run to the closest emergency room at the sight of blood coming from a family member. So I'm not talking so much about preforming brain surgery as I am about stabilizing and then obtaining a less expensive medical treatment alternative.

Unless I am that good @ brain surgery and or our co-pay increases.

Survival/Medical Gear

Collapsible canteen - $6, army green, rolls up nicely. Pocket for iodine tablets & rehydration salts.

Emergency blankets - $2 each, provide warmth, shelter, prevent shock & emergency signal.

Hemostats curved - $2.50 each, like having an extra hand.

Dental picks - 4/$5, besides dental applications bullet removal. Or sliver.

Inspection Mirror - part of the 4/$5 deal, paired with temporary dental filling kit when a crown breaks

Disposable Scapel - 3/$1, industrial. Foil packs are all sealed scalpels aren't to be considered sterile.

Parachute Cord - 50' pkg./$2 each. Used to make a splint, elevate a limb or restrain.

P 38 - 2 can openers freebie by the guy who sold me the canteen because in his words "they go together".

I was really hoping to locate gamma lids but none were to be had.

Equally surprising was that only 2 out of 11 vendors I spoke with knew what a gamma lid was.

3 asked me if I was a prepper. Of those 3 one said he was because his wife was from China.

5 vendors on hearing the word gamma tryed to sell me military surplus radiation clothing none of which was complete.

1 pointed out that he had two Geiger Counters for sale unsure if they worked.

He did however hum a few bars of She's got Legs and She knows how to use them ... 

~~ pelenaka ~~
who now has the song Sharp Dressed Man stuck in her head

Clean Out The Chimney

Apparently in New Zealand the phrase," Clean out the Chimney" refers to meth. 
Here that phrase means that we clean out the pipe much more frequently then the average wood burner due to our burning of less than perfect firewood.
This will make the 3rd chimney cleaning of the Winter heating season.
Hubby refuses to talk cockney to me or wear a top hat made of black construction paper.

If the Ladies Auxiliary of the VLCA stopped in to pay a fine afternoon visit I would certainly be embarrassed by the state of my hearth. Nor would I be able to serve a decent tea. I'd be the subject of neighborhood gossip for weeks. K, not like that's sumting new.

But this is the reality of wood heat. When it's an unusually warm afternoon and all hands are on deck this is what you do before the house chills down below 50.

Stove diff needs a good buffing of stove black. A task better left for another warm afternoon.

~~ pelenaka ~~

Positive Reinforment

One method to keep me/us plugging along on my fugal lifestyle is to have frequent positive reinforcement. Sometimes it's as simple as writing on the lid of a can. Or box or bag.
This is a good method to also encourage family members to lend their hand @ pantry shopping. While my middle daughter would rather do the dishes for me so I have time to clip coupons or make a barter good, my last baby enjoys the actual shopping. It's nice to have that second person to cart watch or crawl around on the supermarket floor checking expiration dates.
Canned Tuna fish was a bonus buck buy (also on sale) @ CVS months ago.

Working on more long term food shortage goals past the normal 3 years that home canned food can be stored. In that category my main concern is meat. Hence the 38 cans of Tuna accumulated in the cellar.
Hope to catch a great deal on SPAM before my coupons expire. Who would have thought that something like canned potted meat would become soo expensive.

Woods was making me lunch, something soft that I could manage since I recently had dental surgery for the 2nd time.
I'm stalked by a dead beat Tooth Fairy.


~~ pelenaka ~~

VLCA

This is one of my all time favorite books written in by Bolton Hall.

Assisted by R.F. Powell

Superintendent of the Vacant Lot Cultivation in Philadelphia

Published by Grosset & Dunlap - New York

Copyright 1907 March

By the Macmillan Company

Chapter IV 

Vacant City Lot Cultivation

Lessons for the the intensive cultivator - of poor land.

The effect upon physical, mental, moral health - illustrated.

A farm educator - in voluntary co-operation. Appreciation by railroads.

In Europe. In school gardens. Wonderful production. Your opportunity.

In this book, necessarily, we have to take much upon the reports of others checking them only by our own judgement and experience. The following account of what has been done and is being done on plots of about a quarter acre to each family, however can be easily re-verified by anyone who will go or write to Philadelphia, or examine the New York experiment. Both show what can be done even by unskilled labor, with hardly any capital, on small plots of ground where the soil is poor, but which is well situated.

The directors say: "The Philadelphia Vacant Lot Cultivation Association was organized in 1897, when relief agencies were vainly striving to provide adequate assistance for the host of unemployed. The cultivation of vacant city lots had already been tried successfully in other cities. The first year we provided gardens, seeds, tools, and instruction only, for about 100 families on twenty-seven acres of ground. At a total cost to contributors of about $1,800, our gardeners produced $6,000, worth of crops.

"During ten years more than four thousand four hundred families have been assisted, many old people who could no longer keep up the rapid pace of our industrial life, cripples whose physical condition held them back in the race for work, persons who on account of sickness or other misfortunes have been thrown out through sharp competition in modern business, and unfortunate beings who, though clear in mind and strong in muscle, on account of business conditions, have been forced to take the ranks of the unemployed - these have all had the opportunity to enjoy all of the fruits from natures great storehouse which an application of their own labor and skill might secure them.

I would like to extend my apologies to the Dervaes Family of Pasadena, California.

In my mind I firmly believed that Vacant Lot Cultivation was interchangeable with the term urban homesteading, and the term was in use in the late 1890's.

I see now that I was wrong.

That despite a common concept of a homesteading lifestyle in a city,

your copyrighted term shares nothing of the hardships that earlier gardeners faced in both lack of hospitable climate, knowledge, appropriate tools, or ownership of ground to say nothing of the lack of basic capital. These people were cultivators of all that is revered in gardening all that is good.

In short you sir are not worthy to lick the Vacant Lot Cultivation Association's hoes. 

~~ pelenaka ~~

who walks the talk without holding paper

Romantic Pantry Shopping

If your anything like my husband Woodsrunner & I then you will think that this is a very romantic way to spend a Valentines Saturday running the streets of Rochester. K, maybe not so much romantic but enjoyable. We were sans children, had no real timetable and no one expected us at an appointed hour so we were on Hawaiian time so to speak.
Our federal tax check had come so not only did we have gas money ($3.38 per gal.) and had spending money. Did I mention that there was no teenagers in the back seat ?  

First stop was @ the Genesee Valley Regional Market out in Henrietta, New York a burb of Rochester. It's warehouses with loading docks. No frills bulk & specialty shopping at it's best. You have to know your price points if an item can be a better deal @ a retail store on sale with coupons, but we were here for items to stock our primarily scratch cooking pantry. Items that are hard to find @ Tops or Wegmans. More long term storage staples.
First store that we visited was Nibblack Foods a primarily dry goods store that stocks an unbelieveable amount of spices & extracts along with flours. The store itself is about 500 or 600 sq. ft. with shopping isles made up of heavy duty green metal shelving ten feet high. On this Saturday afternoon the store was staffed by two very helpful & knowledgeable women. We spent over an hour shopping  ... well I actually shopped, Woods stood drooling in the hot sauce section followed by canoodling with the woman who was handing out sauce samples. He's a Dutchman with a hispanic tongue.



Baking Powder Double Acting 1lbs./$3.25 - slightly cheaper than @ Aldis.

Farina 1.75 lbs./$2.50 (bought 2) - a.k.a. Cream of Wheat. Eating a small bowel reminds me of mi Abuela.

Flax Seed Meal 1 lbs./$3.50 (bought 2) besides sprinkling over hot cereal (omega 3 heart health) it is also a binding agent in my whole wheat bread recipe.

Gluten Flour Wheat Vital 1 lbs./$4.7 - helps bread rise. 

Lecithin Liquid 32 oz./$10.50 - used as a binding agent in place of a fresh egg in bread recipes, health benefits.

Orange Extract Pure 2 fl.oz. $3.25 - baking.

Powdered Buttermilk 1 lbs./$6.75- although u can always make a version of buttermilk by adding lemon juice or vinegar to milk then let stand until it curdles, I really want to be less dependent on fresh milk.

Powdered Eggs 8 oz./$4 - this is for when fresh eggs are unavailable.

Powdered Malt 1 lbs./$2.75 - this was an impulse buy simply because the label read, "helps bread rise better". Now to figure out how much to use.

Tapioca Starch - 1 lbs./$2.96 - thickening agent for pie fillings.

TVP Soy Unflavored 12 oz./$3.50 - again this was sorta an impulse buy. I have been thinking about adding this to our diet for over a year now.

Quinoa Grains 1 lbs./$4.0 - again a bit of an impulse buy in that I hadn't researched price but had decided to add this to our diet. High in protein.

Vanilla Beans Whole 2 beans/$4.75 - for homemade vanilla extract. Also plan on putting white sugar in the plastic bag that the beans were packaged in to make vanilla scented sugar.

Total $65.96

We also went across the lot to Lori's Natural Foods Center an organic grocery store. Another place on our "been meaning to visit" list. Bought 49 cents worth of organic lentils for an upcoming new recipe, a couple pounds of raw buckwheat groats for grinding (buckwheat pancakes !) & Colloidal Silver (working on alternative health care). Oh bottle of H2O my blood sugar was up extremely parched.
Total $18.22

Next we headed in to Palmer's Market, meat, poultry, & seafood. Apprently we were on a time table as the bulk food section of their biz closes @ 1600. Was hoping to score whole fat powdered milk. If it was economical enough then everyday use if not as an emergency back up when there is no fresh milk for drinking.
Bought 5 log rolls of 80% lean ground beef & 5 log rolls of pork sausage which were a buck a piece.
Haven't tried the sausage yet but the ground beef was good. Should have bought more.
Total $29.85

~~ pelenaka ~~

Stove Top Oven

One of the many ways that I had planned on increasing the return on our wood stove investment was to use a stove top oven ($30 on gift card) for baking. Easier said than done apparently. My first few attempts were on the cold side with the oven only reaching the 250 degrees when the stove was @ a full fire.
Woods, believes that the poor quality of the wood we have been burning is to blame.
Neither here nor there as I still need to bake.
And we all know that not using the free heat to bake with was driving me crazy Lucy, crazy.
Red silicone baking mats ($15) paper & butterfly clipped in place increased the oven's heat retention.
And yes it took me a good day to figure out what I could use to hold the mats in place.
Stove top oven holds one pie, one 8" cake pan, or two regular loaf pans. It also holds my cast iron muffin pan - 6 small muffins.

Blueberry pie (grew & canned the filling), took over an hour and half to bake. Not as browned on the top crust as I would have liked but the filling was bubbling out so I pulled it. Not as pretty as I would have liked. Only two hearts are perfect.

Whole house smells like pie.



Stove top oven with an added oven thermometer as the door gauge is about 100 degrees too low. I really only use inside thermometer (borrowed from ice box) when I first place a pan in. After that we gauge the baking time by the given bake time then by the scent.
Not an exact science but then wood stove cooking & baking isn't.

Practice practice practice.


~~ pelenaka ~~