Click on the button to the right and enter the giveaway from Preparedness Pantry. Stocking up on things now is a wise decision. We never know until after it happens when we might need to be a bit self sufficient. Buying ahead not only helps out when you might have an emergency in your area, but also makes sure you won't pay higher prices for an item in the future. The price of groceries and every thing else for that matter just keeps going up and up. If you buy larger quantities of things when they are on sale you will save yourself a lot of money. Plus you have peace of mind that you have a well stocked pantry that you can feed yourself and your family from for a long period of time.
Those of you who read my blog know that this is just a way of life for my family. We try to grow and raise as much of our own food as possible. We like knowing where our food comes from and how it was grown. We know that our animals we raise for meat are treated very well and always butchered in a humane way. Our vegetables and fruits are grown without chemicals and pesticides. We rotate our crops each year so we don't deplete the soil of one particular nutrient. We also add compost and natural fertilizers to the ground each year. The better you take care of God's creation, the better your food is.
We grow enough food to last until the next harvest season. Some years we have an abundance of one vegetable or fruit over the others, but it usually is enough to keep us through. One year we had a bumper crop of green beans, some years it is tomatoes, or beets. Lord willing we get a good variety of veggies. Some years we don't get many plums or cherries, but we always have apples and wild blackberries. You just have to adapt to what is available and eat what is in season and preserve by one method or another your harvest so you can be sustained until the next harvest period.
We have chickens and ducks, both of which lay plenty of eggs for us. We use as many as we like and sell enough to pay for the feed we buy for them. They are also good at keeping the bug population in control and also the weed seeds. We recently bought some of that orange plastic fencing and have fenced off the main garden. We let the chickens and ducks and the sheep and goat in there to clean up. They eat bugs hiding and they eat a lot of the weeds and weed seeds that have grown there over the summer. They also add fertilizer to the ground to be tilled in later on. : )
We have been praying for the Lord to provide us with a milk cow. We are believing for a wonderful cow that will be just right for our family. Then we will have plenty of fresh milk, butter, cream. Cheese making will become another weekly chore. There is a lot of whey that is left over from making cheese. We might just raise another pig or two and use that whey to mix with grain for raising them on. Of course selling any extra milk is an option too. That is just another step closer in providing our own food.
Dad raises rabbits for meat. We also butcher chicken and ducks and raise pigs once in awhile. When we have our milk cow we might even raise our own beef with her offspring. That all depends on how much hay we can buy.
My parents and us live together here on our 2 bountiful acres. We work together to provide for ourselves and to put up as much food as we can. We know that we are also preparing ahead for others who haven't been preparing for difficult times. Every since Ed and I have been together we have had the same vision and actually enjoy doing all the things we do. Yes, it is hard work and we do get tired and weary at times, but when we think of not doing it, we just can't see living any other way.
One answered prayerswe have been blessed with recently is a wood stove! Thank God for the blessing and provision of that. Now we are relieved that we won't be without heat during a power outage. We have also been blessed with several places to get free firewood. We plan on making family outings of it. Hard work and being outside in the sunshine enjoying God's creation is a wonderful way to spend time together as a family. I will post some pictures of our wood cutting outings this summer.
Give some thought about how well your family would fare if you couldn't get to the grocery store for a couple of weeks. Do you have enough food and paper goods to last that long? It hurts nothing to add some extra food and supplies to your pantry, but it could hurt if you don't. Make sure you have water too. Guidelines say you need a gallon of water per person/pet per day.
