Some of you may know that I am a "plan for disaster" kind of girl. I have an evacuation pack in the basement (I recently read that each member of the house should have their own, so I will be looking into that), our basement is stocked with canned food to last a few weeks in case of disaster, we have some large bottles of water stored (not enough, but we do have some). You know what I am talking about , right?
I should explain that we live in a small city in Ontario referred to as "Chemical Valley". Everybody here is recommended to be equipped for a shelter in place in case of a spill/leak/disaster - most ignore it, but I cannot. Tornadoes in the county are not unheard of. The power goes out on a regular basis in the winter. You get the idea. So I have always tried to keep things on hand in case we need to dash quickly, or in case we have to shelter in the (unfinished) basement for an extended period of time.
Where am I going with this? Although I have a good stash of food, I am nowhere near the 3 month supply that is recommended in case of a pandemic or other equally disruptive major disaster. Because I have most of the things outlined by the Canadian Red Cross, I thought I was pretty prepared, but realistically, if something is going to happen here, it is going to be BIG. So I thought I should maybe do a little more investigating. I came across this pretty comprehensive list over here and decided I need to get my butt in gear. Plus, it has been pointed out that I haven't done "Three things on Thursday" in a while, so why not combine the two.
I figure picking up 3 things a week will get me well on my way to completely setting ourselves up without causing too much strain (either time, stress, or money). So here is what I started with this week:
Water. We used 4 jugs of our water stash this summer when we rented a cottage that had no drinking water. I finally replaced them this week. We now have 6 4L jugs of water. We obviously would need more than that, but I don't like buying water in plastic jugs, especially since we have to use it and replace it every year to keep it within date. I am working on my conscience on that one.
Yeast. I hadn't thought of stocking up on yeast at all, but it was on the comprehensive list I mentioned above. It's brilliant actually, because we get get so so bored of canned food. I use enough yeast in a year to keep it rotating through anyways. I bought one spare jar for now, and I will pick up another jar some time later down the line.
Sugar. Same as the yeast. I now have one extra bag in the basement, so each time I finish the sugar in my kitchen, I will buy a new bag as usual, and then rotate out the bag from the basement. Plus, sugar would go a long long way in a disaster. you could even barter with it if you were so inclined.
Because I have most of the basics already stocked up, I will be trying to stock up on things that would make us just more comfortable in the case of a disaster. We do have children to keep in mind and little things could go a long way in helping maintain family harmony.
This week, the three things on my list are soy sauce (this will go a long way in flavouring bland foods), popcorn seeds (we eat a lot of popcorn, and it has a very long shelf life, so we can easily keep this in rotation), and honey.
What do you say - want to come along for the ride? What are you going to try to pick up this week? Do you have a suggestion for something we should all have in our "bunker"?
Interesting post.
ReplyDeleteWe have some of these things all in the same room in the basement, but I definitely don't have a "go" bag.
I don't even have a bag of cat food in the bag yet, but i plan on picking one up this week. I can't even begin to imagine what goes into a go bag for an alpaca.
DeleteI think this is great! I feel like I get overwhelmed very easily from all of this though. I want to find an exact list of what I need - of course it would be different for every family depending on where you are etc. It is something that I am definitely thinking more about though, and I'm glad that you are starting to post about it! I love to get the knowledge from others in the blogosphere, it is a definite help. I am looking forward to following along with you!
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem I had - I got too overwhelmed thinking about it as a whole, so I thought if I do it little steps at a time, then it should be more manageable. And baby steps are easy for beginners too, so maybe we can all help keep each other motivated or share helpful tips. That's my plan anyways, we will see how it works out.
ReplyDeleteMay I suggest sprouting? I made few really simple sprouters out of 2 plastic stackable cups and a lid from a jar of instant coffee. You get more than enough sprouts in one set up in 3 days to double the volume of a can of progresso soup. So with 3 you can have a batch of sprouts every day. I have made sprouts from several beans / seeds such as lentils (10 years+ old) mung beans, black eyed peas, garbanzo beans etc (I don’t like pinto beans):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.instructables.com/id/Make-This-Sprouter-It-Works-Great/?allstep
Lux
Great tip. I have been thinking about getting some more seeds for sprouting, but so far I haven't had much luck with actually getting the sprouts. It is something I have to keep practicing. Maybe I am using the wrong seeds - I have tried radish, alfalfa, and lettuce, and mung bean. Definitely something I will be working on. Thanks for sharing the link. It looks pretty straight forward. I'm going to try that.
ReplyDelete