We can do all the prepping we want, but even the best of the best with the biggest pocketbooks and stockpiles of foods will eventually run out unless there's an additional source of foods coming in. Gardening is a great way to make your food storage stretch, but knowing what edibles are growing in the wild around you is another important food source. I've gathered a few links to sites that will help you identify things you can find in your back yard, along a roadside, or in the wild. Please take a minute to look through them. Some of these links will have the same plants on them from the other links, but if you go through them all you'll be able to pluck the info for each individual one out and print the picture to put in your prepper notebook for future reference.
Wild Food Guide: How To Identify The Best Wild Edible Foods (by Outdoor Life Survival)
Surviving In The Wild: 19 Common Edible Plants (by The Art Of Manliness)
Foraging: 52 Wild Plants You Can Eat (by RealFarmacy)
Identifying Wild Mushrooms (by Jeannine Tidwell, on the Twin Eagles Wilderness School Site)
- This link shows 4 distinctive mushrooms, known as the Foolproof Four, that are edible. Some edible mushrooms have poisonous lookalikes, but these 4 are pretty self set in their appearance.
Discover Wild Edible Plants (Again by Jeannine Tidwell, on the Twin Eagles Wilderness School Site)
- This link has a good list of edibles, you may want to look further into pictures for each one.
15 Edible Plants To Forage In Your Own Back Yard (by And Here We Are)
When SHTF, Know What Plants You Can Eat...and Shouldn't (by RECOIL)
(Please note that I do not take any responsibility for harm, incidents, or accidents that are caused from eating any plants or mushrooms in the wild. Make sure you are absolutely positive that you have correctly identified these plants/mushrooms before eating them, and make sure you have prepared them correctly. I also suggest taking a course on edible that can be found in the wild. This will give you a hands on experience which will leave less or no room for mistakes.)
Friday, September 12, 2014
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Milk Without A Cow After SHTF?
My youngest woke me up the night before last (he's 3) because he wanted a drink, he hasn't woke up at night in a long time. I got up and got him a water bottle, only to have him start crying because he wanted a drink of milk. After I got his drink of milk, waited for him to finish it, and got him settled back in bed, my mind started worrying a bit... it wasn't a bit, it was more like a lot. I started thinking more about how he really only likes to drink white milk. I'm not sure if this was bothering me so much because I was exhausted from having been sick the past few days, or if it was just a motherly love thing and I was worrying about honestly being able to provide everything for my children when it came down to it, or if it was a mix of both. It was probably a mix of both. Either way, I couldn't go back to sleep thinking about what I was going to do for milk if we don't have such easy access to a store like we do now. I turned to a group of women that I chat with on Facebook to see what suggestions any of them may have, and then decided to go and see what kind of answers I could find to this problem on my own. Before I go into the solution I found, let me explain this in better detail. I have a hard time getting my son to drink anything else, he just seems to like milk. Plain white milk. He couldn't care less if it's whole milk, 2%, skim milk, or anything like that, as long as it's plain white milk. Do any of you have a child like this?
After all the foods, waters, juices, and drink boxes and mixes I store back for the future 'just in case,' I really didn't know what to do about regular white milk. I've bought the dehydrated milk, made some up and gave it to him to see if he'd drink it before and he definitely doesn't like it. I keep it in stock for cooking with, but as far as him drinking it goes, it's a no go. As soon as it even touched his lips the first time I tried to give him some, he dropped the cup and gave me a look of panic like I was trying to poison him. I've bought the little boxes of milk that can be stored on the shelf, the other kids like them, and he'll drink those if they're cold, but if they aren't cold he won't even put the straw in. Occasionally he'll somewhat drink a juice box, but only if he sees all the other kids drinking one, and even then he just takes a sip or 2 from it and lets the rest just sit on the table until someone picks it up. If I'm drinking a bottled water or a glass of sweet tea, he sometimes wants a drink out of it, but never wants his own and he never drinks more than a sip or 2 of mine. He doesn't like Kool-Aid, and he doesn't like pop. He won't drink chocolate milk out of a cup or little drink box, and will even cry if I hand it to him by mistake. My youngest daughter always drinks it and I sometimes get their cups mixed up if I'm in the middle of doing something else. I've seen my son go from a happy kid to one that is crying like his whole world has came crashing down over an accidental switch up of white and chocolate milk. I used to laugh about having the only kid in the world that won't drink junk, but now I think some sort of fear has set in.
He's not just a spoiled kid either, overall my kids are fairly well disciplined. They don't have a lot of luxury things that most other kids have, and they do chores and everything on a regular basis, even this little 3 year old helps do stuff. He isn't picky at all as far as eating goes, he'll even eat some plain pinto beans with no salt (I throw mini-meals like that on my children sometimes to see how they'll act since you never know how bad things may get one day)... it's just this milk issue. My original plan has always been to go with stocking up those little milk boxes, but I know if we lose power for a length of time in the future, there's not really a way to get them very cold except in one of those zeer pots that I mentioned in a past post. Even then though, how would I come across more milk boxes once they run out or just expire if things haven't straightened back out? A milk cow or goat may be a good idea, but I know fresh milk has a different texture than gallons of milk and I'm pretty sure that goat milk tastes different than cow milk. I have no experience with these animals either, nor do I really have the land to put one on. The other thing is, if things came down to having to be on the move, if we had a cow or goat, I sure wouldn't want to try to lug it around with us if we were on foot. Nor would I want to have to share any water source we found with an animal that would clearly need more than we would.
I went to the store yesterday morning to pick up a few things and to look around to see what kind of milk alternatives I could find. I don't want to take milk from my son right now while he can still drink it as often as he wants to, but I knew that if I didn't get something figured out now, we would have a real problem if things get bad before he (hopefully someday) grows out of this only drinking white milk stage. I passed through the Hispanic aisle and seen a fairly decent sized yellow can of this powdered whole milk that's made by Nestle. It's called NIDO. I read the can over and decided to go ahead and pick one up. I wasn't so sure that he'd want to drink any of it, nor would he like it if I could get him to try it, but I figured it was worth a shot. After I was home and put my groceries away, I decided to mix some up in a pitcher to see how he'd do if I gave him some to drink. I was going to be sneaky about it, but he stood right there watching me the whole time. When he seen me opening the can he stared for a second and asked me what it was. I tried to play it cool and just told him it was milk. He was definitely watching me like a hawk as I mixed it with some bottled water, and then he asked me again what it was, sounding a little confused (poor kid), and I told him again it was milk.
I didn't offer him any after it was mixed. I was sure that if it wasn't cold he wouldn't like it and that would throw away any chance of him ever trying it again in the future. When I went to put it in the fridge he wanted to drink some he said. I told him it wasn't cold yet and did he want to wait until it was cold, but he insisted that he wanted a drink of it. So I put some in the cup and just hoped for the best. He just took the cup, looked inside it, like he was trying to find something, and then took a little drink. He looked at me for a second, repeated back to me that it wasn't cold yet, stared at me for a couple seconds, and then just walked away with the cup in his hand. I watched him as he went around the corner and walked into the living room, thinking that he was going to just set it down somewhere. I watched him hold that little cup for a minute and look inside it a few times, and then he just took another drink. After the first couple drinks he took I noticed he looked inside it, but he ended up drinking it all.
I guess he either likes it, or it's something tolerable enough for his little taste buds. He ended up drinking more of it later, without doing the cup inspection between each sip like he did with the first cup. I guess I'll stock up on that stuff. I tasted it and it didn't seem too bad, it looks thicker than that regular boxed milk I was buying too. It has a 2 year expiration date on it, and each can makes about 53 servings. I guess that's the way I'm going to go, if I can get him into drinking water or something else too, then one can should last him about a month or so and at around $15 a can I don't think that's a bad price. I'll still buy him regular milk and stuff as long as it's available, but at least if worst comes to worst he will drink this NIDO even if it isn't cold. It can be mixed in small one cup portions too, so I don't have to worry about mixing up a whole pitcher just for it to go bad without refrigeration. I'm not sure if any of you are having, or have had, this same 'white milk only kid' experience, but if so I suggest trying this NIDO. I think it's a good alternative and it's whole milk that's fortified with vitamins A, C, and D, and has added calcium, iron, and zinc.
(This post is written on my own opinion, Nestle didn't contact me to write about one of their products for advertisement or anything, so please don't contact me asking for coupons, discounts, or ideas on how to make a profit for writing about a certain product for a company. I just wanted to let readers know before they waste their time asking.)
After all the foods, waters, juices, and drink boxes and mixes I store back for the future 'just in case,' I really didn't know what to do about regular white milk. I've bought the dehydrated milk, made some up and gave it to him to see if he'd drink it before and he definitely doesn't like it. I keep it in stock for cooking with, but as far as him drinking it goes, it's a no go. As soon as it even touched his lips the first time I tried to give him some, he dropped the cup and gave me a look of panic like I was trying to poison him. I've bought the little boxes of milk that can be stored on the shelf, the other kids like them, and he'll drink those if they're cold, but if they aren't cold he won't even put the straw in. Occasionally he'll somewhat drink a juice box, but only if he sees all the other kids drinking one, and even then he just takes a sip or 2 from it and lets the rest just sit on the table until someone picks it up. If I'm drinking a bottled water or a glass of sweet tea, he sometimes wants a drink out of it, but never wants his own and he never drinks more than a sip or 2 of mine. He doesn't like Kool-Aid, and he doesn't like pop. He won't drink chocolate milk out of a cup or little drink box, and will even cry if I hand it to him by mistake. My youngest daughter always drinks it and I sometimes get their cups mixed up if I'm in the middle of doing something else. I've seen my son go from a happy kid to one that is crying like his whole world has came crashing down over an accidental switch up of white and chocolate milk. I used to laugh about having the only kid in the world that won't drink junk, but now I think some sort of fear has set in.
He's not just a spoiled kid either, overall my kids are fairly well disciplined. They don't have a lot of luxury things that most other kids have, and they do chores and everything on a regular basis, even this little 3 year old helps do stuff. He isn't picky at all as far as eating goes, he'll even eat some plain pinto beans with no salt (I throw mini-meals like that on my children sometimes to see how they'll act since you never know how bad things may get one day)... it's just this milk issue. My original plan has always been to go with stocking up those little milk boxes, but I know if we lose power for a length of time in the future, there's not really a way to get them very cold except in one of those zeer pots that I mentioned in a past post. Even then though, how would I come across more milk boxes once they run out or just expire if things haven't straightened back out? A milk cow or goat may be a good idea, but I know fresh milk has a different texture than gallons of milk and I'm pretty sure that goat milk tastes different than cow milk. I have no experience with these animals either, nor do I really have the land to put one on. The other thing is, if things came down to having to be on the move, if we had a cow or goat, I sure wouldn't want to try to lug it around with us if we were on foot. Nor would I want to have to share any water source we found with an animal that would clearly need more than we would.
I went to the store yesterday morning to pick up a few things and to look around to see what kind of milk alternatives I could find. I don't want to take milk from my son right now while he can still drink it as often as he wants to, but I knew that if I didn't get something figured out now, we would have a real problem if things get bad before he (hopefully someday) grows out of this only drinking white milk stage. I passed through the Hispanic aisle and seen a fairly decent sized yellow can of this powdered whole milk that's made by Nestle. It's called NIDO. I read the can over and decided to go ahead and pick one up. I wasn't so sure that he'd want to drink any of it, nor would he like it if I could get him to try it, but I figured it was worth a shot. After I was home and put my groceries away, I decided to mix some up in a pitcher to see how he'd do if I gave him some to drink. I was going to be sneaky about it, but he stood right there watching me the whole time. When he seen me opening the can he stared for a second and asked me what it was. I tried to play it cool and just told him it was milk. He was definitely watching me like a hawk as I mixed it with some bottled water, and then he asked me again what it was, sounding a little confused (poor kid), and I told him again it was milk.
I didn't offer him any after it was mixed. I was sure that if it wasn't cold he wouldn't like it and that would throw away any chance of him ever trying it again in the future. When I went to put it in the fridge he wanted to drink some he said. I told him it wasn't cold yet and did he want to wait until it was cold, but he insisted that he wanted a drink of it. So I put some in the cup and just hoped for the best. He just took the cup, looked inside it, like he was trying to find something, and then took a little drink. He looked at me for a second, repeated back to me that it wasn't cold yet, stared at me for a couple seconds, and then just walked away with the cup in his hand. I watched him as he went around the corner and walked into the living room, thinking that he was going to just set it down somewhere. I watched him hold that little cup for a minute and look inside it a few times, and then he just took another drink. After the first couple drinks he took I noticed he looked inside it, but he ended up drinking it all.
I guess he either likes it, or it's something tolerable enough for his little taste buds. He ended up drinking more of it later, without doing the cup inspection between each sip like he did with the first cup. I guess I'll stock up on that stuff. I tasted it and it didn't seem too bad, it looks thicker than that regular boxed milk I was buying too. It has a 2 year expiration date on it, and each can makes about 53 servings. I guess that's the way I'm going to go, if I can get him into drinking water or something else too, then one can should last him about a month or so and at around $15 a can I don't think that's a bad price. I'll still buy him regular milk and stuff as long as it's available, but at least if worst comes to worst he will drink this NIDO even if it isn't cold. It can be mixed in small one cup portions too, so I don't have to worry about mixing up a whole pitcher just for it to go bad without refrigeration. I'm not sure if any of you are having, or have had, this same 'white milk only kid' experience, but if so I suggest trying this NIDO. I think it's a good alternative and it's whole milk that's fortified with vitamins A, C, and D, and has added calcium, iron, and zinc.
(This post is written on my own opinion, Nestle didn't contact me to write about one of their products for advertisement or anything, so please don't contact me asking for coupons, discounts, or ideas on how to make a profit for writing about a certain product for a company. I just wanted to let readers know before they waste their time asking.)
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