One group of stores that are often overlooked are the “Dollar Stores”. I love going to different ones and pick up 1st Aid supplies, Laundry Detergents, cleaning supplies and little gifts and decorations. The products run from “works great” to “I’m glad I only wasted a dollar on it”. I use put the products I don’t really care for in a “Barter Box”.
These will be items I use for trading.

Elle, I need to email you about the meat. I can foresee a time when there will be hordes without their…hordes…nothing to give, all primed to “take” and I can too easily imagine a time when a person almost has to bring ALL livestock into the house as you do your Dear Goat Girls. With 150 head of meat sheep….get a tad bit crowded. Factor in turkeys, peacocks, chicken, geese, guinneas…I all too well remember the weird stuff in the 1970s when cattlemen went to herds and found them butchered and the hindquarters/good steaks gone, the rest covered with green-flies. And those even stranger cases where the genitalia was surgically removed – and the whole bovine gone-to-waste. IMO that could happen again. I think of that – and how my gutsy mama used to tell young brides re. spousal abuse (when there wasn’t a name for it), “The bigger they come – the harder they fall.” And also, “He’s gotta sleep SOMEtime” heh, heh, heh. Well we basically DO have to sleep sometime and it’s during those hours we are most at risk. We’re actually ON the same page, dear Linda.

And is a RibEye Steak with Baked potato and tossed salad ever gonna taste GOOD tonight!!! I’m about wore to a nubbin. Lynne mentioned solar ovens. I have in my mind an oven I want my son to weld together for Ma for Mother’s Day, a medium sized iron barrel, on legs, with a trapdoor in it, spacers for rusters (I never throw a good rustern away!) and to have that for outdoor baking and controlling the heat by having coals underneath the barrel on legs, tight enough to heat but not get smokey bread, and to DO six of eight at a time, and “control” the temp by raking coals away from under the barrel, or raking them back under. In my mind, it’ll work. He was a Machinest in the Navy and I’m sure he can improve on my idea – and probably make one for himself!

Today I “took the plunge” – literally – a toilet plunger! And I did up some laundry I’ll no longer “kill” my new Maytag with as I did the one that recently expired after probably millions of spins in the cycle. I used to take household rugs to the car wash, clip them up on the wall and as they’d hang there I’d spray heck out of them with hot soapy carwash spray, then rinse, go like a whirling dervish to toss the drippy ones in a tub, hang up some new ones – wash/rinse/repeat – literally. I raced around like an idiot aware of the timer clicking off quarters. Then I rolled up big rugs and upended them in plastic high wastebaskets to drip and dry enroute home where I dealt with them. It was expensive, and tiring, and I realized their HAD to be a better way. I did it today. A big and hefty tub, five gallon buckets of hot, hot water, a glop of Spic ‘N Span, some dry colorfast bleach powder AND a glug of regular liquid bleach – not enough to damage color – just to eat way at stains. I put rugs in that, used the toilet plunger, then folded them to drip a bit, but them into a rinse water tub, and then hung them over this/that/the other thing if too heavy to go on the clothesline.

Hubs looked at me ‘aghast’ and said, “NOW you’re doing laundry outside?” I said, “Only rugs.” And pointed out I was saving a major reserve of quarters fed to the car wash machine. Not surprisingly, he was okay with that, LOL.

The last ones I did (laid them across the big octagonal wooden picnic table were the large 4 x 8 or whatever size those heavy area rugs are.

I have a big and huge fluffy queen size comforter – white – and I’m gonna find a tub to go in the bathtub shower, put it in to soak in my brew, and then ladle out water and rinse – rinse -rinse. My adoring Rottie and Great Schnauzer are such dear girls and rub along the bed at night to get close to me so the dust ruffle area gets awful and the commercial and expensive machines don’t do squat. I figure I’ve seen enough old movies (with Charlton Heston, LOL) so I can get in a tub of hot water barefoot and pretend I’m stomping grapes and making vino while cleaning a bedquilt. Fortunately no one would DARE “lash me” to encourage me to continue on, heh, heh.

Girls – this is fun! Maybe this can be our “thread” to share some of this stuff and if people discover it – more power to them. We ALL have a lot to offer. The Linda, Lynne and Essie “Gig” and the more the merrier.

Uh…as long as they keep civil tongues in their mouths…AND “Shame on you!” claptrap remarks to themselves if you’re on the same page as to what I’m referring….

Remove the white gloves to backhand people like that. Flesh against flesh stings harder. And a doubled up fist…complete with high-tone hardware – metals and rocks – can rock ‘em back on their heels. Da…stupid HEELS…!

A few items to add:
1.I have several friends that swear by “Solar Ovens” for baking and slo-cooking stuff. Saves your energy bill. I haven’t tried it yet as a good solar oven can be over $200.00. My big purchase this year is a canner. Last year it was a propane oven/stove combo.
2. Diatomaceous Earth (Food Grade) Kills bugs in stored foods, plus a great multi-tasker, Pet-safe flea and insect control as well as a pet wormer. Also good for an outhouse to keep down smells.
3. Ethnic stores Hispanic, Great place for Spices and Masa. Rice and Beans.
4. I know it’s not recommended to reuse the lids but I have several friends that do. If they don’t seal just refrigerate and use first.
5. Coffee if you drink it, the only place in the US it grows is Hawaii. Get lots, I have about 9 months worth and I am waiting for another sale to get me to up to a year. I’m still shopping around to find a good price on green beans, they store better.
I have learned so much this last year. From Protein % in different wheat types to commodities and Government policy. I had only a layman’s understanding of markets and how they affected me. I only knew enough to be dangerous. Now I know enough to know I don’t know enough. But, I have always loved learning, so I’m taking online courses.
I’ve learned from Kellene at http://www.preparednesspro.com/blog
You could call her my prepping mentor. I just tweak stuff to make it work for me.

And yes, salt is a definite must-have. Like matches, one can probably not have too much. It is especially worthwhile to brine meat for a cure if one has to butcher and it’s not cool. I have learned that adding a dash of vinegar to the curing brine helps, too, as the acidic aspects help discourage bacteria. Smoking fish can transform so that a variety of fish that wouldn’t taste so wonderful fried is actually good when seasoned and smoked. My hope is that we meat-and-taters types can continue to eat protein with abandon, but reality dictates that I can see a time when it’ll be in one-dishes (hearty stew types) rather than chowing down on a delectible porterhouse all by oneself, LOL.

Just THINK what it would be like if we all lived in the same township and could get together to aid and abet. Wow!!!

I’m an old hand at catsup, Italian Spaghetti, pizza sauce, etc. in fact, I was doing it before Mrs. Wage’s preparations were available, having turned my hand at it for over 30 years, including making pint jars of tomato soup to use just like the store bought stuff. Now they sell Mrs. W stuff in such teeny-tiny packets that it actually doesn’t afford savings by the time one springs for the high ticket preparations in itty-bitty envelopes….sigh….