Outdoor Survival Info

Posts Tagged ‘food’

It’s important to keep rations in your house, and it’s pretty easy to do, too. There’s a lot of talk going around about creating a bug out bag and stocking it with MREs or similar foods. I know, because I do a lot of that talking. Today, however, I want to talk about rations in your home.

It’s important to be ready to bug out and leave town in the event of some disasters, like an approaching hurricane. There are some times, however, that you may need to just stay at home. If you live in areas with heavy winters, you might get snowed in, or be without power for a while. Life can be interrupted yet still allow you to — or make you — stay at home. In these cases, you still need to eat, and your microwave might not be working. What do you do?

It’s simple. Keep food that is relatively non-perishable and can be prepared with nothing more than water, a pot, and fire (or just eaten an room temperature). In my experience, so many people store just enough food in their pantry to get through the coming week. Then they go to the store and buy some more. I suggest having some items that you just keep for months at a time, in storage, in case you need it.

In large quantities, you could keep:

• Rice
• Beans
• Bottled water
• Canned fruit
• Canned vegetables
• Canned Soups

These are all easy to prepare, and will keep you fed and healthy enough until life returns to normal.

Keep all of these in a box in your pantry or garage (sealed up somehow, so no mice or other nasties get in there). Once every few months, go buy some more, and bring your current supply in the house for eating. Rotating your rations out means you’ll always have fresh, edible food in the event that you need it. Hopefully you never will, but it’s good to be prepared.

Remember to store rations in quantities that you will need to feed your family…and then add a little bit more on top of that. Keeping rations in your home is a simple security measure you can take, similar to locking your deadbolt or keeping a firearm near your bed. You may never have the need, but if you do, you’ll be glad you prepared.

Here are two pictures of my growing tomatoes. These pictures are a few days old (maybe 4 or 5), and the tomatoes have grown a lot since then.

And here is a picture with my hand up to it so you can get some size perspective.

Those in the picture have grown so much since I snapped these photos. I’ll take more pictures once they start to turn red. I have no idea when that will be, but at the rate they are growing, it will be soon. The two plants in that planter have doubled in size since I bought them. At last count, I had six tomatoes growing. Besides that, I have many flowers getting ready to bloom.

And since the flowers are where the tomatoes are going to show up, I’m looking to have a great yield. Which is good because tomatoes are very healthy.

Not much of a gardener? Don’t worry, I’m not either. But that’s not going to stop me! I have — just this afternoon — planted two tomato plants. We love tomatoes at this house, so that’s what I planted. I just took two tomato plants that I bought from Lowes (”patio” tomatoes), and put them in a self-watering container filled with organic potting soil.

Why vegetables? The answer is simple. We need vegetables to be healthy. Even though we get key amino acids from meats, it’s entirely possible to live off of nothing but fresh veggies and water. The survival implications here should be obvious: Gardening should be a skill you have if you are at all interested in survival, homesteading, sustainable living, or anything in between.

This is not my first gardening experience. Two years ago I successfully grew some fresh herbs in my kitchen for cooking. They were great. Now I’m trying my hand at tomatoes to prepare me for having an actual garden in the earth on the land we’re going to acquire sometime this year.

I’ll post pictures of my tomato plant’s progress through life.