Tag Archive: preparedness


Just another day?

Filed under: Financial, TEOTWAWKI — Leave a comment
July 11, 2011

Just another day today. Get up, get kids out the door or settled down, me out to work, get mail done, edit websites and spend time doing what needs doing around the house…but today something really got my attention while on the way to the babysitters house. There was a man, on a bike, on the side of the road with a broom stick fishing rod. (Don’t really know why, it just did). Neat in appearance, very unassuming with a bed roll on sitting next to his bike. Now, for some, seeing someone like this could be ‘normal’, maybe in an older urban area where homelessness in good times is still around, but out here where I live, this is unusual, and it is especially unusual ON MY ROAD out in the middle of nowhere. Where did this guy come from? I have seen him on several different occassions and honestly, thought nothing about him, just a guy riding his bike with a homemade fishing pole…hmm, maybe homeless, maybe not…I would look right at him and he would look away, but today, as I drove by him, he kinda straightened up from what he was doing and looked right back at me. Almost daring me to stop and say something. I kept on going. But this got me really thinking, its not the norm to see the homeless out in the country, out in the open, especially in a small town setting. (And I would consider anyone with a bed roll next to a bike homeless, why else would they have it?) The cops don’t dig it and people around here are bit suspicious of anyone they don’t know, still friendly, but wary if you catch my drift.  And come to think of it, I have seen, a few times, people walking up the sides of the road with children in tow behind them and no broken down car behind them. Not real often, but just enough for me to remember it.

I don’t know why I am even bothering to write about this, but something is very unsettling about where my brain is taking me with these seemingly unrelated and uneventful occurances. I used to live in a city where I saw things like this or similar to them all the time. It was what it was you know? What you expected to see in the city. But to see it out here leaves me with a feeling that I can’t quite explain except that it is unsettling and it makes me wonder how bad it is in the city closest to me. There are no real jobs out where I live, they are in the city and suburbs of the city…so why am I seeing this out here now? In some ways it confirms what I already know, that its coming…’it’ being a further decline in our country and economy (remember my SHTF senario of a slow roiling boil?) and it makes me very much aware that I need to be paying more attention to my surroundings when out and about, even on my property…’the stranger’ is coming to a place near me sooner rather than later. This isn’t paranoid thinking, this is the pattern of behavior in countries where the economy is shot to hell in a hand basket…they leave the city because the myth is that things are better ‘out in the country side’…Thinking about this today has shifted something within my mind and is nibbling away at my feelings of security (one reason why I moved out where I am, to get further away from what could get ugly). There have been a few other things that have happened in my small town over the past month or so that compound this ‘feeling’ I have that its getting worse and its probably much worse than I am aware of if the movement is beginning to start from the cities out into the countryside both in terms of the homeless and in terms of crime…this is just sitting there in front of my face today, in my awareness now, on a day that just started off as just another day.

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The Basics on Water

Filed under: Alternative Medicine, Food Storage — 3 Comments

Water is essential to human life…heck, all ‘life’. It is needed for even the most mundane things that we do in life..cooking, cleaning, brush our teeth, flushing the toliet. We use water all the time and it is extremely important to have on hand for emergency or SHTF use…Where I live in the woods of Virginia it seems like everytime a storm comes through the power goes out…no joke…no power, no water (I have a well and electric pump and haven’t gotten around to solving this situation since its expensive to do so)…and this means no bathing, no drinking, no flushing of toliets…not to mention no coffee in the morning, but that’s for another time, either way its not fun and this happens even with no emergency. But it has brought to my attention just how much my family depends upon water and how much we use it…

While I know there is a ton of information out there on water and how much to store it is so important that I feel it necessary to repeat it here for your ready pleasure or perhaps, this ‘getting ready’ for what ever may come is all new to you, either way…it bears repeating:

A normally active person needs to drink at least two quarts of water each day. Hot environments can double that amount. Children, nursing mothers and ill people will need even more. You will also need water for food preparation and hygiene. Store a total of at least one gallon per person, per day. You should store at least a one month supply of water for each member of your family.

If supplies run low, never ration drinking water. Drink the amount you need today, and try to find more for tomorrow. You can minimize the amount of water your body needs by reducing activity and staying cool. However, do reduce the using of water for other things in order to conserve.

Amount of Emergency Water to Store

Whereas a quart of water or other fluid daily will sustain life, according to the Department of Defense and the Office of Civil Defense, it is recommended that a gallon of water per day per person be stored for food preparation and drinking. A gallon provides added comfort and accommodates increased fluid needs at higher altitudes or warm climates. An additional one-half to 1 gallon per day is recommended for bathing and hygiene, and to wash dishes.

So this brings us to almost 2 gallons of water per day per person in order to be ‘comfortable’. Bathing is ‘wash pan’ bathing, not a shower or bath.

How much water should I store?

 The rule of thumb is to store at least one gallon per person per day for at least 3 days (for earthquake preparedness). That’s 2 quarts for drinking and 2 quarts for food preparation and sanitation. A family of four should store a minimum of 12 gallons of water.

Personally, I recommend at least a 30 day supply to fit all of your needs…drinking, cooking, cleaning, hygienic purposes. So, that is about 60 gallons per person to get you to 30 days.

Use the following guidelines when storing water:

1. Store drinking water in carefully cleaned, non-corrosive, tightly covered containers.

2. Store containers in a cool dark place. DO NOT store in direct sunlight. Polyethylene plastics (prepackaged milk and water bottles) are somewhat permeable to hydrocarbon vapors. Keep away from stored gasoline, kerosene, pesticides, or similar substances.

3. Stored tap water should be rotated every 6 months. Prepackaged bottled water should be rotated once a year. Check the pull date on the container. Be sure it didn’t sit on the store’s shelf for a year before you purchased it. Self Serve Bottled Water should be rotated once a year, as long as the water treatment process includes ozonation.

4. Rotate your stored water with the water you use on a regular basis. This practice helps insure you don’t have water stored longer than one year.

Containers That Can be Used for Water Storage

Food-grade plastic or glass containers are suitable for storing water. One-, three- and five-gallon water containers can be purchased from most outdoor or hardware stores. Any plastic or glass container that previously held food or beverages such as 2-liter soda bottles or water, juice, punch or milk jugs, also may be used. Stainless steel can be used to store water which has not been or will not be treated with chlorine; chlorine is corrosive to most metals.

55 gal drums, designed specifically for water storage can be difficult to transport, if the need arises, but are of a tremendous value in an emergency .When looking for additional food grade containers, the bottom will be stamped with HDPE (High Density PolyEthylene) and coded with the recycle symbol and a “2″ inside. HDPE containers are FDA-approved for food. Containers without these designations aren’t OK because of possible chemical interactions between the water and the plastic.

Clean used containers and lids with hot soapy water. Once the containers have been thoroughly cleaned, rinse them with water and sanitize the containers and lids by rinsing them with a solution of 1 tablespoon chlorine bleach per gallon of water. Leave the containers wet for two minutes, then rinse them again with water. Remember to remove the paper or plastic lid liners before washing the lids. It is very difficult to effectively remove all residue from many containers, so carefully clean hard-to-reach places like the handles of milk jugs. To sanitize stainless steel containers, place the container in boiling water for 10 minutes. Never use containers that previously held chemicals.

Do I Need to Treat Water?

Once you properly clean containers, fill them with potable, or safe, drinking water. All public water supplies are already treated and should be free of harmful bacteria. However, as an additional precaution, it is recommended that you add 5-7 drops, about 1/8 teaspoon, of chlorine bleach per gallon of water stored. This precaution protects you against any lingering organisms in storage containers that may have been inadvertently missed during the cleaning process. For a quart of water use only 2 drops.

 NOTE: Bleach has an expiration DATE! Be sure to rotate it OR keep pool shock on hand for disinfecting your water.

Where to Store Water

Clearly label all water containers “drinking water” with the current date. Store the water in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight and heat sources. Do not store it near gasoline, kerosene, pesticides or similar substances.

When potable water is properly stored, it should have an indefinite shelf life; however, it’s a good idea to use and replace the stored water every 6 – 12 months. Rotating water this way provides you with an opportunity to experiment and check the amount of stored water against what you require. It also serves as an additional precaution against bacteria or viruses growing in containers which may not have been thoroughly or properly cleaned and sanitized.

If you have freezer space, storing some water in the freezer is a good idea. If you lose electricity, the frozen water will help keep foods in your freezer frozen until the power is restored. Make sure you leave 2 to 3 inches of space in containers because water expands as it freezes.

Emergency Sources of Water

In an emergency, if you have not previously stored water and commercial or public sources of water are not available, drain water from your plumbing system. Unless you are advised that the public water supply has been contaminated and is not safe, open the drain valve at the bottom of the water heater and salvage the water stored in the heater. A typical water heater holds 30-60 gallons of water. Discard the first few gallons if they contain rust or sediment. Let the water heater cool before draining it from the heater so it does not scald you. Turn off the electricity or gas to the water heater to prevent the heater from operating without water. Once water has been drained into clean, sanitized containers, add 5-7 drops of chlorine bleach* per gallon of water, and stir or shake the solution to mix it. Let it set 30 minutes before use.

Emergency Outdoor Water Sources

If you need to find water outside your home, you can use these sources. Be sure to treat the water first. Additional sources include:

Rainwater Streams, rivers and other moving bodies of water Ponds and lakes Natural springs Avoid water with floating material, an odor or dark color. Use saltwater only if you distill it first. You should not drink flood water.

Hidden Water Sources in Your Home

If a disaster catches you without a stored supply of clean water, you can use the water in your hot-water tank, pipes and ice cubes. As a last resort, you can use water in the reservoir tank of your toilet (not the bowl).

Do you know the location of your incoming water valve? You’ll need to shut it off to stop contaminated water from entering your home if you hear reports of broken water or sewage lines.

To use the water in your pipes, let air into the plumbing by turning on the faucet in your house at the highest level. A small amount of water will trickle out. Then obtain water from the lowest faucet in the house.

To use the water in your hot-water tank, be sure the electricity or gas is off, and open the drain at the bottom of the tank. Start the water flowing by turning off the water intake valve and turning on a hot-water faucet. Do not turn on the gas or electricity when the tank is empty.

Using Swimming Pool Water

You should always view your pool as “backup” water; keep the water treated; you never know when it will be needed! The maintenance of the free chlorine residual will prevent establishment of any microorganisms. The maintenance level should be kept about 3-5ppm free chlorine. If other stored water stocks are not available, remove the necessary pool water and boil it or just treat with chlorine to the normal 5ppm. It is best to err on the side of caution.

Covering the pool at all times when not in use is a very good idea. Try to keep the cover clean and wash the area you put it on when removing it from the pool.

I personally do have a pool but don’t count it in my ‘drinkable’ water, category, but do include in my water storage program simply because it can be used for other things such as washing clothes, flushing toilets (septic only), and other uses of water that don’t involve consuming it after cleaning it (but for flushing who cares what is in it!)

If you MUST use pool water for drinking then purify it first, which may mean filtering, boiling and then adding a disinfectant depending on the condition of the pool water.

When and How to Treat Water for Storage

In an emergency, if you do not have water that you know is safe, it’s possible to purify water for drinking. Start with the cleanest water you can find and treat with one of the following methods:

Boiling and chlorinating: Water can be purified by boiling. Boiling times may vary from state to state, depending on altitude. InColorado, the water is safe to use once after it has been boiled for three to five minutes and has cooled. If you plan to store boiled water, pour it into clean, sanitized containers and let it cool to room temperature. Then add 5-7 drops, or 1/8 teaspoon, of chlorine bleach* per gallon of water (1/2 teaspoon per 5 gallons). Stir or shake the solution to mix it. Cap the containers and store them in a cool, dry place.

Filtering and chlorinating: You can filter water if you have a commercial or backpack filter that filters to 1 micron. These are available in sporting good stores and are recommended for use when back-packing. They are not recommended to clean large volumes of water. Filtering eliminates parasites such as giardia and cryptosporidium, but it may not eliminate all bacteria and viruses. Therefore, it’s recommended that 5-7 drops (1/8 teaspoon) of chlorine bleach* be added per gallon of filtered water (1/2 teaspoon for 5 gallons). Stir or shake the solution to mix it. Wait 30 minutes before using the water, or cap the containers and store them in a cool, dry place.

How to Disinfect Water Using Calcium Hypochlorite (or pool shock)

Using granular calcium hypochlorite to disinfect water is a two step process.

To make a stock of chlorine solution (do not drink this!) dissolve 1 heaping teaspoon (about one-quarter of an ounce) of high-test (78%) granular calcium hypochlorite for each two gallons (eight liters) of water.

To disinfect water add one part of the chlorine solution to 100 parts water to be treated.

Let the mixture sit for at least one-half hour before drinking.

Be sure to obtain the dry granular calcium hypochlorite since once it is made into a liquid solution it will begin to degrade and eventually become useless as a disinfecting agent. This also means you should make your treated drinking water in small batches, for example enough for a few weeks at a time at most.

Calcium hypochlorite will store for a long period of time and remain effective as a chemical drinking water treatment.

*Use liquid household bleach that contains 5.25 percent hypochlorite. Do not use bleaches with fresheners or scents as they may not be safe to consume. The above treatment methods use a two-step approach so less bleach is needed, yet giardia and cryptosporidium are destroyed through boiling or eliminated by filtering. Chlorine may not be effective against these parasites. Since adding too much chlorine to water can be harmful, it’s important to be as accurate as possible when measuring.

Distillation Distillation involves boiling water and then collecting the vapor that condenses back to water. The condensed vapor will not include salt and other impurities. To distill, fill a pot halfway with water. Tie a cup to the handle on the pot’s lid so that the cup will hang right-side-up when the lid is upside-down (make sure the cup is not dangling into the water) and boil the water for 20 minutes. The water that drips from the lid into the cup is distilled.

Most water filtration devices are designed for use on microbiologically safe water. Don’t assume they are safe to use on contaminated water. Check with the manufacturer to be sure. If you are truly concerned about the ability to have safe water for extended periods of time be sure to get a water purifier and filtration system that will treat for microbes and other undesirable items.

Water is important!! and while it may seem ‘bulky’ to store, especially for a month per person, you can find inventative ways to do so…under the beds, in closets, garages, etc. I am lucky in that I have a pool to draw upon if things get really bad and we are looking at a long-term grid down situation so that I don’t have to store a lot of potable drinking water, but for those of you who don’t have this luxury, start storing it. Start small and managable, say enough water per person for 3 days, and then go to 7 days and keep going from there, you can do it and you will sleep better at night, I promise!

For more information on Water Storage and Purification visit:

http://www.captaindaves.com/guide/water.htm#Purification

The above was taken in whole or partially from http://www.nationalterroralert.com/safewater/

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Just What is SHTF and this TEOTWAWKI?

Filed under: TEOTWAWKI — Leave a comment
July 9, 2011

I am almost 40 years old…a mother to 5 children and 4 Pitbulls…a small business owner (2 of them) so I work for myself from home…a prepper and very much a survivalist as I have survived some pretty ugly, life threatening and definately life changing situations in my life. I am very aware of just how quickly things can change in a heartbeat, either through my own decisions and choices (or lack there of) or by someone close to me or through the actions and decisions by others who are virtual strangers to me. So the question is what exactly is SHTF and TEOTWAWKI?

To start with, SHTF is $hit hitting the fan…or all hell breaking loose or really bad things happening that spiral out of control and where it stops nobody knows. It can be a matter of large or small, but in generally accepted terms and circumstances it means really, really bad things are happening that you are unable to control or stop. On a more personal level it could mean an ugly divorce, the loss of a job or unemployment benefits or even the car breaking down…A SHTF senario can happen on a world or country level, such as we saw when the banks almost collapsed across the global a few years ago, or the collapse of Argentina’s economy and Greece’s pending implosion or the world trade center terrorist attacks or the housing bubble and subsequent bank meltdowns for which they then asked for a handout. These are the root CAUSE of SHTF, but it’s the aftermath of the cause of the crap hitting the fan that concerns most. Many times the situation of the crap hitting the fan starts at the top until it reaches the individual where it is transmuted into higher gas prices, job losses, family members going off to fight a war, food prices going up and up and well, any number of things.  For many it can be a series of events beyond their control that turns their life into a living nightmare of nothing but problems with little, few or no good solutions that can leave one feeling helpless, confused and scared to death.

It is my personal belief that SHTF is happening right now and we are just beginning to smell it and just beginning to see it. SHTF changes lives and the way we do business and how we live…it is happening right now and it is snowballing into a TEOTWAWKI…(the end of the world as we know it which is the very bad end to SHTF).

Most of the media and others would have you believe that SHTF is some cataclysmic occurance and that TEOTWAWKI is something that will happen quickly. But that isn’t necessarily true…stop and think about it for a minute…for many of us, things are just harder and changing how we live though we grew up knowing mostly nothing but good times (but I remember the gas lines of the 70’s and listening to my parent lament about rising food prices at the same time). Growth into the McMansion era, good jobs and salaries were for the most part easy to come by, credit was easy to get for many things and in many ways. Food and gas prices until the recent past were stable and fairly reasonable for the basics. Home prices kept going up along with the stock market and investments…things were great in general, even after 9/11, though it came to our collective consciousness at that point that there were other in the world that hated us because we were Americans. I believe that that single occurance, 9/11 ushered in the first wafts of SHTF on a massive scale and that 9/11 was definately a TEOTWAWKI event that morphed our world into the current wave of SHTF that we are now experiencing because the policies that implimented in the 9/11 aftermath are primarily responsible for the state of the union and world that we now face head on with no escape and no good answers. (But not completely responsible, just the catalyst).

With record unemployment, (and the numbers the media uses ‘adjusted’ so that the truth is obscured), expodentially rising costs of fuel and food and housing, banks going under in record numbers, other countries going under even with ‘loans’, the weather events of the past few years, medical help becoming further and further out of reach as we need help and environmental concerns rising, can you honestly deny that we are in a SHTF senario that is TEOTWAWKI? This is what I am trying to survive through so that I may come out on the otherside alive with my family and friends alive too. I see the signs and you can too if you care to look…while it’s certainly possible that a comet may hit us, or some 2012 movie scene may happen or a dirty bomb will explode, I am not betting my last dollar on that nor do I worry overly much about things like that either. In the real world its the day to day grind and small things that add up to TEOTWAWKI on slow boil. Most certainly along the way big bad things will happen like Katrina (and if you didn’t get THAT message loud and clear that you are on your own please do so now) or the quake in Japan that caused several meltdowns to happen at one time, but again, I emphasize that SHTF, in reality, in the moment, is the series of small things beyond our control that in the end cost us big and make us change our life and lifestyle. We are in the midst of SHTF and witnessing TEOWAWKI. And I am sure, that coming up in the future that there will BIG sprays from the fan and leaps and bounds on the front of TEOWAWKI.

Do I sound like a doomie or someone who is paranoid? I don’t think so, I have just lived through my own personal versions of SHTF and TEOTWAWKI more times than I care to admit and I am a good student of history and human behavior…I am feeling a haunting deja vu but on a much bigger scale than in my own life. I see that we are all so very connected and that what happens ‘over there’ has a direct impact ‘over here’. I know for a fact that those who feel they are loosing power tend to exert it even more and do their darnest to take away freedoms in the name of ‘safety’ (this smacks of domestic violence). I know for a fact that when gangs of people feel free enough to walk into a store and take what they want and leave that something is very wrong. I know for a fact that when someone is half-beaten to death over an ipod on the open street that something is very wrong. And I know something is definately wrong when our Constitutional and Civil rights are thrown by the wayside in the name of making things better and safer.

Its really not that hard to miss or understand what SHTF is or that the result is TEOTWAWKI when you see it this way. Are you prepared and ready to survive? I am working on it, how about you? I am hedging against TEOWAWKI by gathering food, water and other essential items I and my family will need until the crap stops flowing. All you can do in a SHTF situation and in this very moment is to hold on for the ride and do your best to be prepared for what may come during and after the worst of the SHTF. And when you get to the otherside of TEOWAWKI and are in the reality of the flip side, I hope and pray that you got yourself ready as much as you could because I really want to see you there, whole and healthy. SHTF happens and TEOWAWKI happens, but that doesn’t have to mean you can’t survive it.

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Preparedness and Parenthood

Filed under: children — Leave a comment

I get strange looks sometimes when I buy big bags of rice, or 4 packages of diapers or 6 12 packs of toliet paper (all at one time), and sometimes those looks aren’t from strangers. The poor UPS guy who delivers in my rural town (who must think I am sort of crazy survivalist) has delivered, this past week alone, a 50 lb bag of organic hard white wheat and boxes from Auguson Farms and 50 lbs of DE (amongst other things like a huge box of diapers, but that was Fed Ex and that guy knows for sure I am crazy). But its all good. I am just doing my duty as a good parent to ensure that my children are and will be taken care of no matter what. I am making sure that they will have what they need just in case something happens to my income or one of us gets hurt and can’t work or something happens that disrupts supplies (think storms, floods, pestilance of the crops, heck even the banks collapsing). Down where I live, when hurricane Isabel came through, they had no power for 10 days…there were reports of people stealing chickens and killing goats after 3 days…yep and that was just a little bitty hurricane. No power, no grocery store. And those great big trees across the road? well, that would kinda keep you at home wouldn’t they? and the county surely has bigger problem than my road, so no deliveries or movement for several days…but I digress…

When you are pregnant with your child you plan. You start thinking of all the things you will need for the precious child that you will be having soon in your life and next thing you know…you are getting PREPARED! You buy the crib, the car seat, clothing, diapers and any number of a million and one zillion things. You are getting ready for a life altering event…the end of the world as you know it right now…the birth of your child. You pick the hospital, your doctor, make arrangements ‘just in case’ this or that happens, you get your family involved (or not). You start making plans for what you will and won’t do after your baby is born, breast feeding or bottle feeding? Stay home or go back to work or even work from home? Daycare? All these decisions are called making plans which is part of you getting prepared for the arrival of your little one. Preparedness can be so much work! But you know these things that you are prepping for make a good parent…planning, preparing, getting things… being ready for him or her when they arrive and your world changes. Next, after the arrival of your new baby you realize just how much you don’t know about this thing called ‘being a good parent’ so you start asking question and doing more preparing for when they begin to sit up, eat solid foods, crawl, walk, talk. You have to get your house ready after all don’t you? Not to mention get all the information you can lay your hands on so that you can make informed and sound decisions about how you want to raise your child…this is all part of being a good parent. It just goes on and on this getting prepared for your child and it changes, evolves overtime to fit, upon demand, the circumstances and stages that you see coming down the road for your family as your baby grows and circumstances change. A good parent has…foresight, knowledge, leadership skills and techniques, tactics and supplies on hand for whatever may come at any given moment and sometimes, in a strange or odd moment…wisdom from past mistakes…Sometimes things just take you by surprise…can you say forgetting the diaper bag anyone? (this why you put a couple of diapers under the drivers seat)…or a fall or accident (speed dial and first aid kit) or someone notices that you are busy paying attention to something else and sticks the half chewed dog biscuit in the dvd player, managing to close it too…(say bad language and a screw driver when you find it later that night) but that is okay, you have thought things out enough to feel confident that when it happens you handle it with grace and ease (or freak out first, quickly regaining a shred of self-control). But my whole point is this…you planned and prepared yourself into being a good parent!

So, I, ever wanting to be a good parent have just taken things a bit further…preparedness is being a good parent. Being ready for when the crap hits the fan, in whatever form it may come to your door step, (think going into labor!) is being a good parent.   Having things on hand ‘just in case’ or for an emergency, is being a good parent (extra this or that, tools) and most certainly having a means to protect your family is being a good parent. It might seem a little strange at first, this new aspect of being a good parent, simply because you haven’t do so before. But that’s okay, you’ll get over it. You will gain a new sense of pride and confidence (hmm sounds just like what you feel as you get the grove of being a good parent!) as time goes by. You will find that you are less anxious and worried about the future. You will find that this new aspect of being a good parent will actually help you become a better parent as you gain skills in being self-reliant that will be passed onto your child…indeed, preparedness and parenting go hand in hand…and it is all part of the job.

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Dehydrating Chicken Adventure

Filed under: Food Storage — 5 Comments
July 8, 2011

Feeling chatty today 🙂 been thinking about food storage alot lately, most especially after my latest trip to the grocery store. Found chicken breast on sale for half-price for the holiday weekend earlier this week so I bought every bit I could with the money I could spend. This was a good thing, but I wound up with over 20 pounds of the stuff and with no more room in either freezer but I had a brilliant idea (yeah, you know the kind, the kind that gets you in so deep that you can only go forward). Dehydrate it! Now, mind you, the dehydrator I have isn’t a fancy one (no temperature control or timer) and I haven’t used it in years…let alone ever used it to dehydrate chicken, but what the heck, I have been reading all over the place about dehydrating meat (and doing it myself is surely cheaper than buying it canned or freeze dried!) and thought perhaps I could do it myself..oh boy…dehydrating 20 lbs of chicken turned into a 4 day odessey of cooking, pressing, cooling, chopping and then watching the bits and pieces of chicken shrink up into tiny pieces over the course of a few hours. My family was looking at me like I was growing heads or had spots all over my face asking such questions like: What are you doing with all that chicken? (I could just hear the groans inside their heads as they saw visions of eatting chicken for the rest of their life) What’s in the pot? Um mom, why are you pressing that chicken in between towels? Then the final questions: are you done yet? what are you going to do with THAT? (referring  to the shriveled up, corn kernal looking things that now sit in 3 quart sized mason jars). Anyway, I digress from my purpose of telling you about dehydrating chicken…it actually turned out to be super easy to do (next on my list is eggs, maybe this weekend, after doing strawberries).

I first embolden myself and reaquainted myself with the process of dehydrating by dehydrating quite a bit of zucchini that my next door neighbor gave me and then tried rehydrating a few pieces just see that it would do so (never mind theory okay? I have to sometimes see it to believe it, just me). And first thing is this…I noticed this SMELL coming from the dehydrator…you know, that smell you smell when you turn on the hair dryer or space heater that you haven’t used in a LONG LONG TIME? yeah, that smell…and then I realized that I would have to play switch the trays around to keep it all drying at about the same rate, and then noticed that the food was sticking to the tray, and I forgot to make sure I had clean mason jars before it got done…you get the idea…but it worked out…growing pains I suppose you could say…next, I did some research trying to find WRITTEN instructions on how to dehydrate chicken online to no avail…sigh…YouTube had some videos on it, but they were long and boring…just TELL ME and let me get on with it okay? but I hung in there, thinking that maybe, just maybe there was some sort of ‘secret’ to dehydrating chicken that I just needed to know…nope…just the basics…keep it clean, cook it well, dry it well and then store it well…and try not to eat it at the sametime you are working with it (have to test the product don’t you?).

Below are the written steps to dehydrating chicken breasts that I was searching for (and if my internet search querry is correct…so are a million others)…I use chicken breasts, not bone-in chicken and that is what the directions are for…I suppose you could use bone-in chicken if you feel like taking the meat off the bones after cooking, but I haven’t done it that way myself…adapt if you must.

and one note: if you don’t want to get sick make sure you wash your hands well everytime before and after handling the chicken…don’t handle the chicken and then touch a spoon or pot or jar or anything like that…safe food handling practices are a must!

You will need:

Chicken, pot, water, seasoning, mason jar(s), oxygen absorbers, dehydrator, knife, towels, baggie, refrigerator.

1. Remove all the fat (if there is any) and skin from the chicken. Fats do not dehydrate nor store long-term very well.

2.Cook your chicken and cook it well…your choice on how you do this, but the idea is that you cook it well until its DONE…err on the side of caution and over cook it if you must. Personally I prefer to just boil it, that way I can add seasoning of my choice while its cooking and it gets in there really well…bonus to this way of cooking it is that you get a really nice broth that can be frozen for future use as a soup base or for replacing water in a receipe if you want more flavor.

3. Let the chicken and broth cool off completely.

4. Get towels (I use bath towels that have been re-purposed for kitchen use) and lay them out on the counter or table top double thickness at least.

5. Put the cooked chicken on the towels. Place another towel over the chicken and then press the HECK out of the chicken. Object being when doing this is to get excess juice out. Shorter drying time.

6. Personally I prefer at this point to stick the chicken into a zip lock baggie and refrigerate over night…makes it easier to cut it up into small pieces…warm chicken is hard to cut up easily.

7. The following day get your dehydrator out. Now, first time I dehydrated I didn’t have the mesh screens to go over the tray. Second time around I did. It will work either way, it is just a bit messier if you don’t have the screens for the trays. Make sure the dehydrator is clean and ready to use.

8. Cut the chicken up into small pieces. I tried a bit of experimenting at this point with different trays, big pieces, small pieces, tiny pieces…the tiny pieces got so small they fell through the cracks, small pieces and big pieces did okay, but use your judgement as to how big of pieces you chop it up into. This will depend upon your drier size since the racks (at least on mine) sit one on top of the other I found the best size for me were pieces about 1 inch long or so no thicker than 1/4 inch. Just chop it!

9. Spread the chopped up chicken around the tray evenly in one layer. Do this for each rack. I found I was able to get about 9 pounds or so onto 5 trays (that is my drier, its one of those round ones with plastic trays that stack up). But I had extra chicken that I just put back into the refrigerator to do later on.

10) Stack it up and turn it on! Now, with my dehydrator I have no temperture control so for me its just turning it on and watching it. If you have a dehydrator with temp control, it is my understanding that you want the temp set at at least 120 degrees for meat, but somehow I don’t think mine got that hot.

11) Walk away and let it go. For me, I had to switch trays around (bottom tray going to the top) every couple of hours to keep things dehydrating somewhat evenly. It took about 10 hours to completely dehydrate the chicken. You want it CRUNCHY and ‘brown’ looking with no softness to it whatsoever. That is moisture and that is NOT good when storing long-term.

*At this point, make sure you have your mason jar (or another glass jar) clean and ready. Also, make sure you have one 200-300 cc oxygen absorber ready for when you need it.*

13) When it is ‘done’ turn off the dehydrator and let the chicken cool off again. Heat will cause condensation which you don’t want in the jar.

14) Once completely cool, you can now fill up the mason jar…fill the jar until you have about 1 inch from the top. Now place one 200-300 cc O2 absorber on top and tightly screw the lid/top on.  Set the jar aside and check to make sure that it has made a seal about an hour later…you check this by pushing on the top…as long as it doesn’t move you are good to go, if it does move, your O2 absorber was probably bad and you need a new one. Repeat.

All done! Now you have your dehydrated chicken that will store for several years and can be used in soups, stir frys and such.

Wasn’t that simple?

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Down to Business

Filed under: Food Storage, Lists of Lists, TEOTWAWKI — Leave a comment
July 7, 2011

With life (at least to me) feeling like quicksand at the moment where anything can happen (think Murphy’s Law) at any given moment I have to come to believe that there are indeed a few things that I can do to prepare against shtf and having it on me. And trust me, like you, I FEEL it everyday. Just going to the grocery store or filling up the gas tank keeps me aware that the SHTF is coming on now, it just hasn’t snowballed to critical yet (thank goodness!) at least for me.

I don’t believe that it can be posted enough that being prepared for whatever may come is best practice so here is my own short list in order of importance of getting down to business to being prepared:

1) Store Food- yes, this is at the top of my list, everyday I do something to either get prepared to store food, actually store food or something dealing with storing food (gardening, containers, dehydrating, purchasing, planning) now, the ‘feds’ used to say enough for 3 days for each person in the family. They have recently revised this up to 7 days, but recently, the head of NASA told his people to be ready to take care of themselves for at least 3 months…hmmm…think I will continue to work on at least 1 year. And don’t forget Fiddo and Kitty. Under this also falls water.

2) Work at Increasing my Earning Capacity- now, I realize that some of you won’t be so fortunate as to be able to do this with grace and ease. Since I work for myself and work from home (which by the way is the BEST way to prepare for after SHFT funding of your home and family) I control what I do and when I do it. For me, increasing my earning capacity means giving great customer service (within boundaries) and consistantly adding new things to inventory, reworking what I do and how I do it (increase efficiency) and working on new ideas for my own businesses. For those of you who are tied to a paycheck, increasing your earning capacity can be done in many different ways, just be careful in doing so if it also means increasing your level of debt. Flexibilty and not having all your financial eggs in one basket is key…

3) Gather Essential Items – well, a ton of information has been written about this and covers such things as tolietries, items of interest and need (think anything and everything that you use even occassionally). For me sometimes, it’s a daily adventure in just recognizing what it is that I use daily…like those white scrubby things that take the place of cleaners that have a million and one uses for cleaning around the house. Put that on my list of ‘need’ to get.  Sometimes gathering essential items doesn’t just mean buying something that day, but as I said above, just figuring out what I use and would need to survive if it hits.

4) Learn Something New Everyday- each day I spend anywhere from 10mins to going down the proverbial rabbit hole in learning something new. It is a commitment I made (made much easier to the internet thank you!) to myself…knowledge is power people and practical knowledge is even better.

5) Pay Off Debt- oh yes, that dreaded D-word, I am not, as most people aren’t, immune to debt…I have a small amount of credit card debt (2 almost paid off and as soon as they are they will be cancelled), student loans (again, a fairly small amount), one car payment and my mortgage. Some days working towards paying off debt is simply not wasting food, other days its paying more than the minimum due…but I am conscious everyday what I owe to creditors and work each day to getting rid of it somehow.

6) Help Others- now, this may seem strange to be put on the list of getting ready for worst case SHTF, but for me, its important…it keeps me grateful for what I have (or don’t have), keeps me grounded in reality and most days allows me to feel good about life in general. Nothing like knowing that you helped someone (even its opening and holding the door or just listening) have a better day themselves to give your own life a better glow to it. When we help others we are helping ourselves, getting outside of our head space (which can be a scary place) and into the world. An attitude of gratitude, sharing and caring can be developed which is paramount in surviving whatever may come…the lone wolf dies by himself. And you know, it just feels good to help out when and where you can. Let it begin at home folks and then take it out to the world.

So, that is my “Down to Business” List for everyday living. It helps to keep me focused and not living in fear (which is paralyzing btw). It gives me structure and guidelines (which is comforting when it gets crazy in my home) and keeps me action oriented. For you, the ‘list’ might be a bit different or the details different, but maybe my list will give you something to think about and get you going on your way to being prepared.

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