This has almost nothing to do with Provident Living

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Charlene

But I wanted to share with you anyway.

Yesterday I edited and saved my first video and I uploaded my first video to You Tube.

If you just knew what a total technology klutz I am, you would know that this is really a BIG deal.

Now here’s the really cool part: last night Ross and I saw not one but TWO hummingbird moths. I’ve seen two in the 16 yrs we’ve lived here. Ross has never seen one, he just had to go on my word. Last night we had hundred of moths swarming the lilac bushes and in the midst of them were two hummingbird moths. They are so fascinating. They move and behave exactly like hummingbirds, sucking up nectar from the flowers with a visibly long tongue (OK, I know the word is proboscis, but for some reason Ross found it funny every time I used that word.)

Now, I admit, the video quality is not the best. In fact, it’s kinda bad. Sorry for that. It was nighttime and the moth was moving so fast, it was hard to keep it in screen. Ross kept a flashlight shining on it while I tried to keep up with it. But I hope I captured for you the magic of seeing this unusual creature busily gathering food.

So, here’s the video (now comes another test: can I figure out how to insert a video in this post?)

(Woo hoo!  Am I turning into a technology genius or what?)

Also last night, about an hour before sunset, Ross and I saw a blue jay fly between a tree in the back and our woods. I hope that means he has found a good place for a home and there will be more of them next year. Such a brilliant blue, it was like having a little jewel living in our trees.

I guess there really is a connection here to Provident Living: Last night, watching these creatures, I was made aware again of the diverse abundance of God’s goodness. This last week we have been reveling in the aromas of crab apple blooms and lilacs. It wasn’t just for us alone, but hundreds of moths and birds as well.  All of it made for our enjoyment and betterment. I’m glad I could capture a bit of it and share with my friends.

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May Goal #2: Store Water

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Charlene

It’s important to have potable water as part of your emergency preparedness plan. You need at least 1 gallon drinking water per person per day plus another 5 gallon water per person per day for sanitation. Your goal should be to have a 2-week supply of water.

Not every plastic container is good for storing water. If you use a plastic container, you want one that is food-grade plastic, otherwise you get all sorts of nasty chemicals leaching into your water. Milk jugs may be food grade, but will deteriorate over time. There are several ways to have potable water: fill containers with tap water that you add bleach to, store bottled water or you can have water filters.

Bottled water is the most expensive way to store water. And the plastic containers degrade over time. However, if you and your family regularly drink bottled water, this may be a good way to store it, if you rotate it regularly.

There are lots of water storage containers. Choose one that fits your budget and space limitations. We have most of our water stored in 5 gallon buckets, available from Cass Creamery for 50￠ per bucket. When storing water in containers, be sure to add water purifier or bleach. (Eight drops of bleach to one gallone of water or one teaspoon in a five gallon container.) When you go to drink the stored water, you can minimize the stale taste by pouring the water back and forth between two pitchers or buckets to aerate or incorporate oxygen back into the water.

Water for sanitation is a little easier to store, because you can store it in non-food grade plastic containers. Her’s an idea from a friend: Every time you use up a jug of liquid laundry soap, fill the empty jug with water to be used for sanitation. Be sure to mark the jug as non-potable water.

Water filters are another good way to ensure that you always have potable water. I could spend a whole newsletter just talking about all the different water filtration systems: reverse osmosis, charcoal, gravity feed, micro-filters, etc. Here are the questions to keep in mind when choosing a water filter:

How much water do I expect to filter? Most filters have a limited life, usually based on gallons filtered.

How often or for how long do I expect to filter water? Some filters degrade over time, even if the are unused. If you plan to use the filter only in an emergency, you will not want a filter that degrades with age.

Do I want water on demand? Some systems will filter water in minutes, others take much longer.

What will I be filtering? If you are only concerned about sediment, you will not need a very fine filter, but a lot of sediment may clog filters up quickly. Bacteria is smaller and you need a very fine filter for those bacteria. But the very small bacteria (like crypto-sporidium)  are also not very common, so is this something you want to prepare for? Or you might be more concerned about chemical contaminants and so you will want to look at filters that eliminate chemical contaminants.

Here are some links to help you:
Reviews on home filtration systems
A review of many kinds of water filters
Tips and how-to for water storage
This site sells several different kind of storage containers and filters. Click the “Water” tab at the top.
Detailed plans for a storage rack
In this video, one man demonstrates how he made a water storage rack for $60
Here are some water storage tanks that have a small footprint
Berkey Filters are considered one of the best gravity-feed filters
This is the cheapest water filter system you can buy. It requires two 5-gal buckets and a few hardware items. It is used for safe drinking water in undeveloped countries.
I have two (printable) articles on water storage in the Provident Home Companion Library.

 

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May Goal #1: Plant a Garden by Month’s End

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Charlene

PART TWO: WHY YOU SHOULD PLANT A GARDEN

Improve your family’s health. One of the most important things you and your family can do to stay healthy is to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Homegrown vegetables have more flavor and vitamin content. One study found that preschool children who were almost always served homegrown produce were more than twice as likely to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day―and to like them more―than kids who rarely or never ate homegrown produce.

Save money on groceries. Your grocery bill will shrink when you eat fresh produce from your backyard. A packet of seeds can cost less than a dollar, and if you buy heirloom, non-hybrid species, you can save the seeds from the best producers, dry them, and use them next year. If you learn to dry, can, or otherwise preserve your summer or fall harvest, you’ll be able to feed yourself even when the growing season is over.

Reduce your environmental impact. Backyard gardening helps the planet in many ways. If you grow your food organically, without pesticides and herbicides, you’ll spare the earth the burden of unnecessary air and water pollution, for example. You’ll also reduce the use of fossil fuels and the resulting pollution that comes from the transport of fresh produce from all over the world (in planes and refrigerated trucks) to your supermarket.

Get outdoor exercise. Planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting add purposeful physical activity to your day. Gardening is also a way to relax, de-stress, center your mind, and get fresh air and sunshine.

Enjoy better-tasting food. Fresh is always best! How long has the food on your supermarket shelf been there? How long did it travel from the farm to your table? Comparing the flavor of a homegrown tomato with the taste of a store-bought one is like comparing apples to wallpaper paste. If it tastes better, you’ll be more likely to eat the healthy, fresh produce that you know your body needs.


Build a sense of pride. Watching a seed blossom under your care to become food on your and your family’s plates is gratifying. Growing your own food is one of the most
purposeful and important things a human can do―it’s work that directly helps you thrive, nourish your family, and maintain your health.

Stop worrying about food safety. Growing your own means you don’t have to worry about contamination that may occur at the farm, manufacturing plant, or transportation process. So when the whole world is avoiding tomatoes, for example, you don’t have to go without―you can trust that your food is safe and healthy to eat.

There are more good reasons to garden, but isn’t this enough to get you started?

Adapted from Spark People

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May Goal #1: Plant a Garden by Month’s End

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Charlene

PART ONE: DO YOU KNOW YOUR ZONE?

Believe it or not, it’s time to plant your garden. Normally I would never suggest you plant
a thing before the end of May, but this year is going to be the exception. The average last frost date is May 12th. Looking at the 10 day forecast overnight temperatures are predicted to stay well about 40º for the foreseeable future. So, I can’t believe I’m saying this before May 30th–but it’s probably safe to plant your garden now.

When planning (and planting) your garden, there are two important numbers you need to know:  your average first and last frost date and the USDA Zone that you live in.

First and last frost dates tell you how long your average growing season is. In Cass County those dates are May 12th and October 2nd. The October date is for hard or killing frosts (28º or colder.) The average first 32º day is September 26th. So that gives you an average of 120-140 days of growing. You’ll need to know that when deciding what kind of plants to grow. Vegetables that take more than 110 days to mature will probably not give you much return. You can help them out by starting seeds indoors and getting them off to an earlier start, but the most reliable way to ensure good crops is to choose varieties that ripen in 110 days or less.

The USDA Hardiness Zone is something else to consider when planning your garden. Hardiness Zones are defined by the average annual minimum temperature. You can extend the growing season beyond the first frost date by protecting plants, but you can’t protect perennial plants from freezes that freeze the ground for three feet below. You need to choose perennials that can survive the cold winters of our area.  Most of our area is Zone 3 or 4.  Sometimes plants for Zone 5 will survive in Zone 4 if you plant them in a sheltered area and mulch them heavily in the winter to protect them.  But don’t set your heart on those plants because one unusually harsh winter with extreme temperatures will kill them. 

This is why it’s good to shop local nurseries instead of the garden centers in big box stores. Most of the employees working in these big box store garden centers don’t have a clue about what grows well in our area. They often carry perennials that will not do well in our soil or climate.  They sell what’s popular, not necessarily what’s suitable for our climate. When you patronize locally owned nurseries you get people who are knowledgeable about what grows well in our area and can help you choose the best plants.

My two favorite nurseries in this area are:
Runion’s Nursery located near Sabin, MN, about 8 miles out of Moorhead.
Bergeson’s Nursery is near Fertile, MN. It’s a bit of a trip but we love going and we make a day of it. Lots of beautiful, well-cared for, plants, most of them grown locally. We’ve actually had them tell us to NOT buy a tree that we had our hearts set on because they said it wouldn’t grow well in the Red River Valley soil.

Both of these are multi-generational family-owned and run nurseries. When you visit, you’ll see that the plant quality is far superior to that of the big box stores and the service is wonderful.

Baker Nursery is locally owned in Fargo. Most of their plants come from the big mega-nursery sources down south. But their employees are better informed than average and the quality is still much better than that of the big box stores. And they have better gardening supplies–especially organic fertilizers and soil additives. They are the only local source that I’ve found for vermiculite, a staple in my seed-starting soil mix.

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How much land does it take to be self-sufficient?

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Charlene

That depends on how self-sufficient you want to be. Here is an interesting graphic taken from One Block Off the Grid, a website devoted to living off the [electrical] grid. Living in the Midwest, I would recommend wind power over solar, but that’s not doable for everyone. What’s most interesting (to me at least) in this graphic is the land needed to provide all the food your family needs, broken down by fruits and veggies, wheat, meat, dairy and eggs. You probably don’t necessarily want to produce ALL your fruits and veggies. It’s even less likely that you want to produce all your meat, eggs or dairy. But for those who have a little more independent, back-to-basics, off-the-grid streak in them, this chart provides some interesting information.

About 25 years ago, or so (longer than I care to admit) I read a couple excellent books on homesteading or self-reliance on 1/4- or 1-acre lots. I was fascinated and Ross and I dreamed of the day we would do that. Well, reality is not so pretty as our dreams–although we are still working on them.

But those books are out of print. At least I have been unable to find them. But a few months ago I did buy this book:

(which I think I mentioned in a previous post.) I found this book to be very helpful, especially for the beginner. Most of what he recommends are things I’m already doing (and some of it I’ve written about here at PHC.) So I’m ready for new information and I’ve found these that I think would also fit the bill:

When I get these books, I’ll be sure to review them and tell you what’s good (or bad) about them.

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Local CSA’s

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Charlene

If you can’t plant a garden, or even if you can but want more vegetables than you can grow in your own little plot, you might want to sign up with a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA.) CSAs have has become a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer.

Here’s how it usually works: Sometime in the spring, you buy a “share” of the farmer’s harvest. You won’t know exactly how much that will be–much of it depends on if rain and warm weather yield a good harvest. But there is usually a minimum–say 20 lbs of food per week–that will be delivered each week to a central drop-off point. You will be getting tasty, freshly picked produce, usually organically grown.

CSAs benefit both the farmer and the consumer (you.) Farmers market their food early in the year (pre-selling their “shares”), before their long days in the field begin, so they are assured a steady income and they get to know the people who eat the food they grow, forming a cooperative relationship with their customers.

You benefit because you get the freshest produce,  with maximum flavor and nutrition. It’s a food adventure–you get new vegetables–probably some you’ve never tried before and get to try new ways of cooking them. Children typically will eat more vegetables that come from “their” farm, even veggies they’ve never been known to eat. And you develop a supportive relationship with the farmer who grows their food and and are an active participant in the process that weaves agriculture, local economy and stewardship for our environment into a healthy whole.

For my ND/MN readers, you may want to try Bluebird Gardens. Here’s what my friend Sue (who got shares from them last year) says about this CSA:

It has been a fabulous resource for food storage. Last year we went out to the farm in Fergus Falls (an hour away) and harvested 10 gallons of green beans, 120 ear of corn, 10 gallons of cukes, 20 gallons of tomatoes, dozens of squash, five gallons of broccoli, melons, 100 pounds of potatoes and more.  That was all EXTRA!  [In addition to the weekly shares.] We did not pay any more money for the produce we picked ourselves.  Their pumpkin patches are massive!  It is very family orientated.

There. What more could you want? Supporting a family-run business, getting good food, grown organically and sustainably, good prices and a bountiful harvest. If you don’t live near Bluebird Gardens, I encourage you to find a CSA near you and join. You’ll be glad you did.

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Another Freebie

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Charlene

 

This one just in time for the gardening season-Grow Your Own Vegetables Book This is an ebook. If you don’t have a pad or reader, I just found out you can download a free reader for your computer or phone from Amazon. (Don’t look at my son rolling his eyes because his mom is so behind the times. I’m catching up–you should be impressed!)

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April Goal #2: Learn a New Skill

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Charlene

We’re now in the in-between time: It’s still about another month or more before we can put our gardens in; prices on commodities are rising, so this really isn’t a good time to stock up on food; and the only canning you might be able to do right now is sauerkraut (but only if you bought cabbage during the St. Patrick’s Day sales. You did, didn’t you?)

That makes April the perfect time to learn a new skill. There are lot of important skills that lead to self-reliance. Think of the things that you currently pay someone else to do and see if you can’t do it yourself for less. Or take training that will help improve your earning potential.

Job Skills: Learn computer skills–spreadsheets, wordprocessing, desktop printing. Take advanced or adult learning classes.

Home and auto: Learn basic repairs/maintenance, oil changes, window and screen replacement, etc. You might start with a book like Home Maintenance for Dummies. I really like Storey’s Basic Country Skills. It covers a lot of skills for the homesteader or back-to-basics type self-reliance. Storey’s also has 170+ small booklets each covering just one topic that cost about $4 each. So you can pick the topic you want to learn about and it won’t cost you much to read up on it.

 

Food preparation: baking bread, making and using sourdough, making and using yogurt, sprouting, using dry beans. The PHC library has instructions for making yogurt  and the Recipe File has recipes for using dry beans.

Home arts: knitting, crocheting—start with something simple like making a wash cloth, hot pad or winter scarf. The internet has lots of instructional video to learn to knit or crochet as well as free patterns for beginner’s projects. Once you’ve tried a few easy projects and mastered the basics, you’ll have fun taking on all sort of new projects.

Sewing—start with a simple apron or re-usable grocery bags. Here is a site with more than 50 free apron patterns.

My favorite pattern for making grocery bags and totes is McCall’s 6320. (The backpack in this pattern envelope is also pretty cool, but a bit more complicated to construct.) I first made these about 23-24 years ago (so yes, it’s a vintage pattern, but still easy to find on the Internet.) and they always get lots of comments. They are big and sturdy enough to hold the equivalent of four or five plastic grocery bags.  The PHC Library also has a three-part article on how to sew economically.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

What else? What skills have you learned? Or would you like to learn? Share your experience with self-reliant skills–both your successes and your challenges.

P.S. Help PHC stay online and up-t0-date. Purchase any product from Amazon after clicking one of the Amazon banners while visiting PHC–either the ones in my posts or the one on the sidebar. It doesn’t cost you anything at all and I get a bonus that helps me pay for the expenses of this website.

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April Goal #1: Start, Add to or Rotate Your 72-hr Kit

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Charlene

With the change of seasons, April is a good time to look at  your 72-hr kit. But do you really need a 72-hour kit? There is some debate on how useful or needful a 72-hour kit really is. So ask yourself:

Do you live in an area that has disasters that would require you to leave home for a day or more with little or no notice? This would include fire, earthquakes, floods and train spills. Several years ago there was an ammonia spill in Minot, ND and people were forced to evacuate in the middle of the night. If you live within 5 miles of a railroad track a toxic spill is a possibility you should prepare for.

The point is, not everyone will find a 72-hour kit is needed. But there are other types of disasters that you may want to prepare kits for.

Car Kit: If you travel a lot, you may want a car kit. This is something that will tide you over if you are not able to make it home (a blizzard, chemical spill or other disaster that closes roads or limits access to your home.) It should include a change of clothes, food and water for 2-3 days, first aid kit, money and a blanket. This handy little multi-tool is the size of a credit card and costs less than $2. There are other credit card-sized tools, ranging from $15-30, depending on features.

Tornado Recovery Kit: You won’t necessarily leave home in the wake of a tornado, but may find yourself without a home if a tornado strikes. You may want to prepare by having a tornado recovery kit somewhere nearby. You will want copies of important papers—deeds, insurance, bank information, school or health records, family photos, address book, a picture inventory of all important household belongings, etc. All of these can be stored on a CD or flash drive. The flash drive can be kept on a key chain. You will also want a Valve wrench (quick link below) to quickly turn off gas and water going into your home as well as ready cash. Tornado preparations should also include a plan for where family members can meet if separated, a central phone number everyone will call to check in and a card for each family member with emergency contact information and money.

Winter Kit: Being unprepared during the winter can be deadly. Your winter kit should include a small shovel, kitty litter for traction, jumper cables, a blanket, hand and feet warmers, food and water for 2-3 days. You should never travel without adequately warm clothing: hat, gloves, boots and snow suit. You may be going from heated garage to heated car, but you will not survive long if you get stuck or find yourself stranded. You don’t have to wear warm winter clothing every time you leave the house, but you should have them packed in a suitcase that you always have in the trunk of the car.

Need more ideas for your emergency kits? Try these links:
How to create a kit for any emergency
More ideas on creating an emergency kit
Make a kit that fits into an Altoids tin This is a true “survivalist” kit, but I like it because it illustrates how can put a lot into a little space. It’s the perfect thing to have in your desk at work, in the kids’ backpacks or in the glove compartment.
Kit ingredients from Dollar Tree Type “travel” in the search bar and get 100′s of travel-size items perfect for emergency kits
More ingredients for emergency kits

P.S. You can help Provident Home Companion stay online and up-t0-date. Purchase any product from Amazon after clicking one of the Amazon banners–either the ones in my posts or the one on the sidebar–while visiting PHC. It doesn’t cost you anything at all and I get a bonus that helps me pay for the expenses of this website.

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Just in Time for Easter

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Charlene

Here’s a fun project to do with your children this
Easter: dye your eggs using natural
ingredients for dyes. The colors are softer and more unpredictable than commercial dyes, which makes this more of an art (or science?) project. You will use ingredients you probably already have sitting on your shelves (or in your refrigerator), so it’ll save you money. And there is real appeal to not having chemical dyes leaching into your eggs.

There are several articles online that tell you how to dye eggs using natural ingredients. I’ve had varied success with the different dying ingredients—sometimes the color just doesn’t want to “take.” I just read one article that suggested boiling the uncooked egg in the dye instead of just dipping it in. Aha! I hadn’t thought of that. That did make the outcome a little different. But with one exception (which I’ll get to in a minute), I found that I preferred dipping the eggs—it was easier and the end product was at least equal, sometime better, than going the boiled route.

I’ve included a list of natural dyes in the PHC Recipe File. I’ve included dye recommendations from several articles as well as my own experience. But don’t limit yourself to this list. Use your imagination, not just for dying combinations, but for special effects. For example, if you rub a part of your egg (already dyed a background color or left white) with oil, the dye won’t stick to the oiled part, giving you a marbled or blended color effect. Or you can wrap your egg with rubber bands to create a “tie-dyed” effect. Or you can draw simple designs on your egg with a crayon. The dye will not color the portions that have crayon wax. You can later wipe off any crayon residue after rinsing the egg with warm water.

Here are some things that will make your colors more intense: Make the dye more concentrated by boiling longer or adding more of the dyeing ingredient. Add a mordant, which is just a Latin word meaning “bite”–it makes the color sharper or more permanent. The most common mordant is vinegar. Or you can try Cream of Tartar. Using hot (or boiling) dye may also increase the intensity of the color. Lastly, letting the egg soak longer in the dye. A 30 second dip in the dye will produce a faint color, where a 20 min or even 3 hr soak will give a more intense color.

Now here’s the one exception to dipping cooked eggs into dyes: To get a “marbleized” effect, wrap eggs with onion skins. Normally you will boil onion skins for 10-15 minutes to produce a dye that will color your eggs something in the yellow spectrum: light yellow, to orange to a golden brown—depending on how long you leave the egg in the dye. But if you want a pretty marbelized egg, you wrap an uncooked egg in onion skins and secure the skins to the egg with string or rubber bands. Then put the wrapped egg into water, boil for 7-9 minutes. When eggs are cool enough to handle, unwrap them to see what you’ve produced. That’s half the fun, because you never know exactly what kind of pattern you’ll get. Sometime the pattern of the string that secures the onion skins will come through in the marbleizing pattern. Sometimes putting 2-3 layers of skins will give a more varied pattern. But even then, it’s sometimes hit or miss.

And that brings me to my final pointer: this can be a good learning experience for kids to learn the scientific process. Make a hypothesis—what color will this produce? How will the color change if I leave it in the dye longer? What will happen if I dip a yellow egg into blue dye? And then find ways to prove the hypothesis. And every good scientist will keep a records. So take pictures or write down what produced your best and prettiest so you can improve upon them each Easter.

Here are three sites that give instructions on dying using natural ingredients you probably already have at home:

One
Two
Three

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