Stocking Up, Putting Back, Prepping = Paranoia?

No, its not paranoia. Its being smart!
I have turned my extra bedroom into a food storage room. And i also have 4 freezers full of meat and different foods and even frozen foods for my animals to eat, incase times get tough.....
I use a lot coupons and its hepled sooo very much.
I started doing this because the job my husband had was always laying off ( union sheet metal journeyman), and there were some weeks were money was tight. Now i am secure that if we ever are short of money....i have PLENTY of food to last us a good while. I also have enough food to spare for my some family members that are running short on things some weeks..and i'm glad to be able to help them. Actually my mother comes "shopping" here weekly..
I remember when we had the hurricane Irene threat this year... i felt good and also safe knowing that, if need be, we could live on JUST what i had in the house for a decent amount of time.
Anyways, call me paranoid and a horder anyday, but i'll be feeding your butt come hard times...

Here, here, OP (original poster). You are a person after our own heart. To this end we purchased a food dehydrator to make jerky from the deer we have on hand. We're investigating ways to preserve food where we won't need on grid conveniences; i.e., electricity, canning supplies. We keep thinking Native Americans knew what to do and are seeking sources to learn what they knew. For instance, the dehydrator we just bought won't work if for some reason we can't get to electricity (plus we are looking to go off grid when we move to our farm soon).

As other posters have commented, folk have their heads in the sand like ostriches and sadly when it's too late, it will be too late.


eta: The only thing that concerns me is . . . when (not if), when the time comes, those who have been smart enough to look ahead to the rainy day will be sitting ducks for seedy persons that did not. And, it looks as if "they" are trying to outlaw firearms. We have them to hunt (for those same hard times).

k0xxx said:

Britesea said:

...I'm wondering if I should forget about the garden outside and set up my cellar with lights and start growing my veggies down there....

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Sometime in the last several months I read a news story of someone doing that, the only exception was that he was growing veggies in his unused attic dormer. For his efforts he was on the receiving end of a police raid. It seems that the police were using thermal imaging cameras in an effort to locate people growing pot inside their homes. With no other evidence than the heat signature of his home, he was raided, he and his family were held at gun point, and then him and his wife handcuffed for three hours as his home was ransacked (er, I mean searched). The police doing an estimated $3k of damage to his home, including knocking his front door down with the hinges ripped out. After finding nothing, he was handed a business card and told to submit a bill for the front door as the they left.

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OMG, this is terrible! I have got to share this. This is horrible

lee&lyric said:

Here, here, OP (original poster). You are a person after our own heart. To this end we purchased a food dehydrator to make jerky from the deer we have on hand. We're investigating ways to preserve food where we won't need on grid conveniences; i.e., electricity, canning supplies. We keep thinking Native Americans knew what to do and are seeking sources to learn what they knew. For instance, the dehydrator we just bought won't work if for some reason we can't get to electricity (plus we are looking to go off grid when we move to our farm soon).

As other posters have commented, folk have their heads in the sand like ostriches and sadly when it's too late, it will be too late.


eta: The only thing that concerns me is . . . when (not if), when the time comes, those who have been smart enough to look ahead to the rainy day will be sitting ducks for seedy persons that did not. And, it looks as if "they" are trying to outlaw firearms. We have them to hunt (for those same hard times).

Click to expand...

I love my dehydrator, but have been considering building a solar dehydrator in the case that we don't have electricity or if the bills start getting too high. There are a lot of plans on the net, and I believe there are some YouTube videos also, on how to build them. I'm thinking that this may be a good project for me to do this coming spring.

lee&lyric said:

k0xxx said:

Britesea said:

...I'm wondering if I should forget about the garden outside and set up my cellar with lights and start growing my veggies down there....

Click to expand...

Sometime in the last several months I read a news story of someone doing that, the only exception was that he was growing veggies in his unused attic dormer. For his efforts he was on the receiving end of a police raid. It seems that the police were using thermal imaging cameras in an effort to locate people growing pot inside their homes.... <snip>

Click to expand...

OMG, this is terrible! I have got to share this. This is horrible

Click to expand...

Here's an interesting tale of a Thermal Imaging raid from England.

Police raid garage 'cannabis factory'... only to discover it's a cosy home for guinea pigs called 'Simon' and 'Kenny'

Regarding following the native's way of doing things, when I lived on Haida Gwaii/the Queen Charlotte Islands when I was a kid, I (along with some Haida friends) took part in prepping salmon to be dried and smoked--all on the beach with beach fires.

Can't remember all the details anymore but it was such a simple process. The resulting product was a delicious dried and smoked flaky salmon that could be kept without refrigeration that my friends called "jilljee" (no idea how to spell it). I miss that stuff, it was delicious. They also did some great tasting things with dried seaweed.

moolie said:

Regarding following the native's way of doing things, when I lived on Haida Gwaii/the Queen Charlotte Islands when I was a kid, I (along with some Haida friends) took part in prepping salmon to be dried and smoked--all on the beach with beach fires.

Can't remember all the details anymore but it was such a simple process. The resulting product was a delicious dried and smoked flaky salmon that could be kept without refrigeration that my friends called "jilljee" (no idea how to spell it). I miss that stuff, it was delicious. They also did some great tasting things with dried seaweed.

Click to expand...

Perhaps I can take that phonetic spelling and look it up, figure things out. Thanks, Moolie. As soon as Lee gets in I'm sharing this thread with him. The raiding stuff is NOT the business and is disgusting.

k0xxx said:

I love my dehydrator, but have been considering building a solar dehydrator in the case that we don't have electricity or if the bills start getting too high. There are a lot of plans on the net, and I believe there are some YouTube videos also, on how to build them. I'm thinking that this may be a good project for me to do this coming spring.

Click to expand...

In keeping with our discussion here, kOxxx, get on it as soon as you can. We are. The stuff that is about to jump off here (it only takes viewing CNN for one session) makes this subject no joke. We can get on our soapbox about it, but won't for as you said, folk think you're crazy. They won't when TSHTF though.

We've been looking at the plans for various solar dehydrators also, and one thing that struck me was that a lot of these would be easy to convert into window-mounted passive solar heat as well. Two birds with one stone?

We haven't the money to stock up quickly, but I figure every bit we have squirreled away will make it easier for us. I estimate we have at least 6 month's worth now, although we are a little thin in the protein department- that being the most expensive stuff.
If people ask, I don't even go into the SHTF stuff; I just point out how prices are rising and buying stuff on sale saves us money-- if I can buy a case of butter for 2.50 a lb now, freeze it, and it lasts a year, I will have saved all the incremental increases in the interim. Most people can understand that kind of reasoning and you don't come off as a nut case.

Yeah you know the economy is a shambles when you're buying extra groceries to beat inflation because everything else is too iffy