Building Up My Supplies

In case anything ever does happen in our world, country, state, county, area........such as weather related storms or other emergencies..........everyone must be prepared and know what to do. You must not over react in any case. First of all take stock of what you have in place and what you know how to do.
Our homestead currently has in place:

1. Our own alternative energy system.
2. A hand dug well with a pitcher pump.
3. Heat and cook with wood that is on our land.
4. Grow most of own vegetables and keep expanding on that.
5. An old fashion root cellar.
6. Have horses and also have a doctor's buggy if needed.
7. I can and dehydrate a lot of food, including meat.
8. Have around 14 kerosene/lamps and know how to use and maintain them.
9. Husband can repair our vehicle or our house or just about anything.
10.I grew up in a hunting and fishing family and am a good shot and a good fisherman. I do not like to kill animals but if I HAD to it would be easier for me to hunt than to raise them.
11.I already forage for wild plants for food and medicinal use and know how to use them.
12.We have a treadle sewing machine and know how to use it.

Yet, there are many areas I feel we need to work on. Our house is in the middle of a major remodel and we do it little by little as we can. One thing I have thoughts about doing is building an underground camp in a cave not far from here, but out in the thick forest, and putting in provisions just in case. I have always stored water even though we have plenty.

Living simply has made it so that we never have outages of any kind. Our power has never gone out and neither has our water.

Stockpiling supplies and food - little by little - 20 items a month
Start an emergency fund in the savings account -$40. a month = $10. a week


What I have been doing to afford the stockpiling is to buy two each of 10 different items on my shopping list. They go into my stockpile. Many times a coupon I have will be for two items anyway. I also can milk and meat as well as vegetables and fruit. I shop for sales and use coupons but I do not use many convenience foods outside of some certain salad dressing or condiments.

I use those plastic containers with covers for storing foods as I live in a rural area and mice come in here pretty regular. Instead of getting stressed out over them, I keep almost everything covered in plastic containers (the big ones) and on the top of that I put cardboard so I won't get upset about their calling cards dropping into the container when I open it.

I also store water in plastic soda bottles though we have stopped drinking it now and don't have any new ones. I always drank Gingerale so had the green bottles which I like best. They keep longer.

I plan on buying another new pitcher pump to put away in case our present one broke.  Need to get more leathers for the pump as well, as we do replace them from time to time. Our pitcher pump is our only source of water at the moment.

I will write more on this as I do more and research more on this. Planning is good but doing is the important part. So be sure to buy something every time you shop for your stock pile of supplies! At least one item every time you walk into the store.

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole