Week 19 - The Long Haul

Again, we are working on storing grains for the long term.  So we are looking for grains that have a shelf life of 30+ years.  This shelf life is achieved both by the product itself and the packaging you use to keep out moisture, etc.  I'd continue to encourage you to read the material on providentliving.org, if you have not already.  It's good stuff.

Feel free to be using your food storage budget this week to stock up on more grain (any that fit the above criteria) or to save up for our trip the the HSC on May 22nd.

Sometimes it is nice to take each week and focus on one kind of grain.  It you like that approach, this week, let's focus on our rolled oats.  Again, this is a discussion, you may want to have with your family.  If we need to be putting away 300 lbs of grain for each adult (and some percentage of that for each child), how much of that do you want to be in oats?

From last week, I'll repeat that on Tuesday, May 22nd, I'll be leading groups over to the HSC for any of you interested in doing some of your shopping there. We'll meet in the church parking lot both at 2 p.m. and at 7 p.m. Please let me know if you are interested in coming with us, so I know who to expect. If we have a large group going, we may need to alert the HSC staff so they will have enough volunteers on hand to help us.

Have a great grain filled week!

Week 18 - The Long Haul

Hooray, I know you are all excited to be surrounded by something other than beans this week.  Last night, in CELEBRATION, I froze all the leftover ham and beans in our refrigerator and put them in the freezer.  It's a dish that both Mark and I love, that interestingly enough both our mothers used to make in a similar way with a touch of sweetness and a touch of mustard.  And Mark usually makes it with a ham bone and it is delicious.  But...he, bless his heart, tends to make it in batches that would feed not only us but all 6 kids and 17 grandkids.  Needless to say, after a few meals it is time to put it away for awhile.

And thus it is with our beans.

So this week, we move on to GRAINS!!!

If you'll go to providentliving.org, you'll see that the Church recommends 25 lbs of a combination of wheat, white rice, corn, and other grains for each adult.  That then, would be 300 lbs per adult per year.  So again, do the math for your family, making adjustments for children, and come up with your goal for long term grain storage.  Some of you are in that position, where you already have some grains, so now is a good time to do inventory and then continue the math by subtracting what you already have.

This is one of those areas where you may want to do some price shopping.  And as always, if you find good deals, please let us know.  If you choose to go out to the Home Storage Center in Round Rock, my price sheet currently says that 25 lbs of white rice is $13, 25 lbs of hard red wheat or white wheat is $11.45. 

At $5 a week for every two people in your family, continue the math to determine how many weeks it will take you to get the amount you need. 

The important thing here is to not get overwhelmed .  300 lbs per person may seem to be a lot, and in our budget, we may not get all of it stored this year.  But that's not the point.  The point is to KEEP ON, KEEPING ON.  Put what you can away when you can.

On Tuesday, May 22nd, I'll be leading groups over to the HSC for any of you interested in doing some of your shopping there.  We'll meet in the church parking lot both at 2 p.m. and at 7 p.m.  Please let me know if you are interested in coming with us, so I know who to expect.  If we have a large group going, we may need to alert the HSC staff so they will have enough volunteers on hand to help us.

Carry on, carry on, carry on (Hymnbook translation for keep on keeping on);-),
Marie

Week 17 - Beans

BEANS!

Week 14 - The Long Haul

You guessed it. BEANS, again. A few more weeks and you may be coming close to getting in your year's supply of beans. Give me a quick "Done" reply when you have, so I know when to start either giving alternatives or moving on the the next section.

Blessings,

Marie

Week 13 - The Long Haul

Let's start a chant:

MORE BEANS, MORE BEANS, MORE BEANS.

Maybe we can get arms waving in the air.

We're off to buy beans  (and sugar and other items) tomorrow at the Home Storage Center.  Anyone else want to come?

See you soon,
Marie

Week 12 - The Long Haul

This is easy:

MORE BEANS!

Week 11 - The Long Haul

Sisters,

This morning I have two words for you:

MORE BEANS!!!

(as in the kind that have a shelf live of 30+ years). 

Using the current price figures for beans out at the Home Storage Center, I am estimating that $5 will probably get us a little over 8 lbs this week. So purchase, or save to purchase. We'll keep plugging away on our bean supply.

Anyone else want to go with us out to the HSC on March 27?

Beanfully yours,

Marie

Week 10 - The Long Haul

Haloooooo, oh ye sisters of the long haul, It's time to switch gears. I know, you were about sugared out. So here we go. Shift to: BEANS! We will be working on beans for the next 8 weeks, not that we all will probably have all the beans in that we need by then, but we can always come back to it. And for point of clarification, these are not canned beans. These are your dry beans that have a shelf live of 30+ years. If you go to (and I really encourage you all to do so) the Church's website at providentliving.org, you will see that the Church recommends 5 lbs. of beans/person/month. So your first task (or tell your kid's that it is their first task) is to do the math. 5 (pounds) x (# of people in your family) x 12 (months in a year). So what did you get? That is your goal!!!! The following is optional: The next math problem is to figure out how much that is going to cost you (the average price per 25 pounds of beans out at the Home Storage Center is about $17.25), and the 3rd problem is to figure out how many weeks (at $5/week/every 2 people in the family) you are going to need to hit your goal. Of course, for those of you that have partial supplies of beans, you'll have to factor that in as well. I noticed my 3rd grade grandson is working on just these kind of 3/4 step math problems, so maybe I'll go get him to help me. If anyone needs a loaner grandson calculator, let me know - he might hire out. So this week either spend your $5/every 2 people in your family on beans or tuck away that $5 in an envelope marked "Beans" and keep it in a safe place until you are ready to buy beans. I will be going to the HSC on Tuesday March 27 to purchase some beans for Mark and me, You are invited to come along. It's always a fun trip. Just let me know who is interested and we can car pool! (We could even stop at Sonic for a treat afterwards. Maybe I'll take my grandson. He likes the mini banana splits, if they still have them.) It's "bean" real, Marie

Week 9 - The Long Haul

Morning Sisters,

I did not hear from many of you, but the ones I did hear from seemed to indicate they had either finished gathering in their 1 year supply of sugar/honey or had gathered about all they were going to gather at this time. So this will be the last week, for now at least, that we will work on sugar/honey. (If I hear that any of you still want to work on it, we will come back to it in December.) 

So, gather in that last 8+ pounds of honey or sugar this week. And next week we will move on to another item.

Have a good day, sweet sisters,

Marie

Week 8 - Long Haul

How sweet it is!

Keeping adding that sugar. How close are you to your goal? Please drop me a quick response to this email this week and let me know. Also, this Saturday I will be reserving the canner. So far only 3 of us seem to need the canner right now, so I will probably set it up to use in one of our homes on a Tuesday evening or Saturday afternoon. So in the email, also include if you want to be part of this canning party and your availibility.

So, if I were you responding to this email, it would probably look like this:

Hi Marie,

I am not going to be completing the total year's compliment of sugar this year as my storage is limited, but in a couple of weeks I will have purchased all I feel I will have room for right now, so whenever you are ready to move on to the next phase of this is good for me. I will have 50 lbs of sugar that I need to get into #10 sealed cans, so please count me in on the canning party. And I can do this either on a Tuesday night or a Saturday afternoon after 3 p.m.

Thanks,

Marie

I am looking forward to your email responses, and to the canning party (details to follow).

Sweetly yours,

Marie

Week 7 - The Long Haul

"Sweet is the Work..." I was trying to think of hymns or songs that had the words sugar, honey, or sweet in them this morning. Do any of you have any suggestions?

Well, we should be at least halfway there toward our goal of getting 100 pounds of sugar/honey per person into our long term storage. As I have not heard that anyone has made their goal (it may have been adjusted for your particular family usuage), we will continue on.

I have had one request for the canner. Anyone else? I will be looking at checking it out from the Home Storage Center later this month.

To recap, the task again for this week:

1. to either purchase at least 8.3 pounds of sugar/honey for every two people in your family

OR

to take an envelope, and put in $5 for every 2 people in your family so you can save up to buy it in greater bulk.

2. If you purchase this week, be sure to label it with the date of purchase. (Properly canned sugar and honey last for many years, but you will still want to be rotating it after you get your full amount in storage, and you will want first in/first out.) Then put the sugar in the place you have designated for your year's supply.

For those of you that would like to save up for a few weeks and then go out to the Home Storage Center in a few weeks to purchase, I would be glad to set up a time when we could go together. Just let me know if you are interested.

Sweetly,

Marie

Week 6 - The Long Haul

How sweet it is!

Once again, we continue to get that sugar and or honey into our long term storage.  I haven't heard from any of you yet, so I am making the assumption that we are all still plugging away, either by purchasing sugar/honey this week or by putting the $5 per every 2 people in your family into an envelope for when you purchase it in bulk. 

Please start letting me know now if you are going to be wanting to package your sugar in #10 cans.  The canning equipment from the home storage center is pretty popular and I will want to be securing a date for us to check out the equipment  fairly soon.  I am thinking of doing the canning on a Tuesday evening or a Saturday late afternoon at the church.  If you have a preference, also please let me know, as I need to be scheduling use of the meetinghouse fairly soon as well.

Until we meet again,
Marie

Week 5 - Long Haul

You guessed it. 

 

This week we are still working on getting the sugar/honey into our long term storage.

 

So, once again, the task is:

1. to either purchase at least 8.3 pounds of sugar/honey for every two people in your family

OR

to take an envelope, and put in $5 for every 2 people in your family so you can save up to buy it in greater bulk.

2. If you purchase this week, be sure to label it with the date of purchase. (Properly canned sugar and honey last for many years, but you will still want to be rotating it after you get your full amount in storage, and you will want first in/first out.) Then put the sugar in the place you have designated for your year's supply.

So far I have not heard from any of you that you have completed your sugar storage. Please let me know when you do. I have this scheduled for a number of weeks, but if we are all done, I'd be glad to move on sooner to other things.

Have a sweet week,

Marie

Week 3 - The Long Haul

Morning,   As I have been thinking about you guys this week, I have often been finding myself singing, "Sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening, sugar at suppertime". Wonderful old song!!! Brings back sweet memories!   Anyway, so again the task this week is:     1. to either purchase at least 8.3 pounds of sugar/honey for every two people in your family   OR   to take an envelope, and put in $5 for every 2 people in your family so you can save up to buy it in greater bulk.     2. If you purchase this week, be sure to label it with the date of purchase. (Properly canned sugar and honey last for many years, but you will still want to be rotating it after you get your full amount in storage, and you will want first in/first out.) Then put the sugar in the place you have designated for your year's supply.   Sweet storing, Marie

Week 2 - The Long Haul

Hey, hey, hey sisters,

 

So did you get your salt all salted away?

OK...so now we are going to work on sugar/honey/alternatives for actually a few weeks. The church no longer gives recommendations as to how much per person to store for a year. Sugar and honey have very long shelf lives. I have no idea as to the shelf live of stevia (we keep a certain amount of stevia in our storage because I have a son who has diabetes, and I like it in my herbal teas) and other alternatives. Having gone to a number of other websites, it looks like a common goal is 100 pounds per person per year. So that will be our goal. However, you know your families best (perhaps you are very frugal with sugar, perhaps you have a sweet tooth), so feel free to make adjustments to that.

 

We are going to spend the next 12 weeks on sugar/honey/alternatives. Right now, if you buy sugar at the Home Storage Center, it is $15 for a 25 lb sack. If you find a better deal, let us know by replying to all.

 

So the task this week is:

 

1. to either purchase at least 8.3 pounds of sugar/honey for every two people in your family

OR

to take an envelope, and put in $5 for every 2 people in your family so you can save up to buy it in greater bulk.

 

2. If you purchase this week, be sure to label it with the date of purchase. (Properly canned sugar and honey last for many years, but you will still want to be rotating it after you get your full amount in storage, and you will want first in/first out.) Then put the sugar in the place you have designated for your year's supply.

For those of you that would like to save up for a few weeks and then go out to the Home Storage Center in a few weeks to purchase, I would be glad to set up a time when we could go together. Just let me know if you are interested.

 

In six weeks I am also going to check out the canner to be able to put the sugar in #10 cans. We can do that at the church. We also will be trying to get the canner to the church for the January 21st activity, although that has not been confirmed yet. If you have canned before and want to bring some of your product to can that day, that is also a possibility. Remember you will have had to purchase your cans, lids, and oxygen absorbers before then and bring them with you to the church that day.

 

Take care...and have a "sweet" week,

Marie

Week 1 - The Long Haul

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Dear Sisters,   This week there are two tasks:   1. Get some stickers, round ( say with a 3/4 - 1 inch diameter) or rectagular (like file labels) that you can write on. We will be placing a sticker with an expiration date on each thing we add to our year long storage. Choose a color you will notice, because when you rotate it out to use, you will need to immediately repurchase it for the year storage. 2. Identify a place in your home where you will be storing your year's supply. 3. First thing to add this week: SALT. There are debates as to whether it should be iodized or plain. You are welcome to read the debates on the internet, but ultimately the choice is yours.   We will be trying to keep the budget each week at about $5 for every 2 people in your family. (For a family of 4 the budget will be $10 a week, etc.) To give you an idea of pricing, Walmart has a deal where if you buy 24 containers of salt (1 lb 10 oz per container) you get them for 89 cents a container.   So, this week, the goal is to purchase 5 containers of salt for every 2 people in your family, put a sticker on each container with the expiration date, and put it in your identified storage place.  And know, dear sisters that YE are the salt of the earth!   Happy Salt hunting.