The side effects of buying a home.

These are the actual containers of peach jam, and pickles. I couldn't find the cable to link my camera to my laptop the other day.

We bought this house without me ever seeing the inside. I saw the front as we stopped and stared at it for a moment.

When we moved in it was November and I didnt get to see the yard untill spring time. I am not a green thumb but still love certain plants. I was excited when I found that I had purple Hibiscus and coral white and lilac roses in my front yard, and that I had Peonys, Shasta daisys and Lillys in my side yard along with a golden delicious apple tree and a peach tree. We spent time this spring and summer taking good care of the trees and said plants and were rewarded with a peach tree that is bursting with peaches, and a tree full of apples too.

So as the peaches are begining to drop off the tree I have sent my kids out to gather them up. (They love picking them off the ground.) We have begun to preserve them. So far we have 14 jars of peach jam, and 11 jars of homemade pickles. I was surprised it isnt as hard as i thought and doesnt take as long either. but boy is my kitchen floor STICKY after we are done with the peaches. Next job bottling peaches and making apple sauce.

Preparedess Principles By Barbara Salsbury

Okay the geek part of me is coming out of the closet.
I am a food storage nut. I have, from day one of my marriage, worried about, studied, and purchased food storage. When we lived in Logan we had an all day power outage and we were able to dig a pit in our backyard and cook with a Dutch oven and feed us and our neighbors. I also stocked up on food storage every chance I got when we lived there. Every one of my friends over a month’s time said that their leaders had spoken about food storage. I took it to heart and purchased more than I normally would of flour and rice and other things.
When we moved and took all of it with us I was a little confused. I had suspected a disaster because of the feelings I had. It turned out that two years later my DH who had just graduated from BYU this time was laid off and spent 6 weeks looking for a new job. We lived off of that food for those 6 weeks except for perishables. Now with the sell of our old house I have managed to almost finish our food storage for a family of eight.

Do you know how many 45 roll boxes of toilet paper you need for a year for eight people?
21!!!! Where do you put them all? Don’t know, still trying to find out.

If you have EVER wanted a comprehensive book about food storage and emergency preparedness this is it.

Preparedness Principles by Barbara Salsbury.

I was excited to read this book, it is truly a find. There is so much information she has prepared and presented in this one book. Its 356 pages are chock full of information on emergency’s, food storage, water storage and purification, gardening, making storage in the home and 72 hour kits. It has recipes in it to use with your storage, even how to make a simple cottage cheese out of powdered milk.

This book is a well written, easy to read reference. It has a bare bones chart for basic food storage that I have used myself for figuring out how much I need to buy. There are diagrams on how to store your food in a small space. (Think of the movie, The RM, the bed out of boxes and mylar packages. ) How to build shelves on the inside of closet doors. Indoor and container gardens. And lots of other information. The book is also peppered with quotes from people from all over. They are very thought provoking.

In all, it was a pleasure to read. And I will be recommending it to my family and friends. It would be a good Christmas present for those you care about.

You can buy the book by using the link in my side bar.