Today is the last day of the Food Storage challenge, and while we survived, it was good to see how much since my stroke we have been relying on the things in our pantry that are convenience foods instead of making things. While we homeschool, it is still a blessing to have many meals made up ahead of times and ready to grab from pantry, or freezer to make up a meal quickly.
A couple of things this challenge brought us to are pretty important for me to share.
Life changes, and is a constantly shifting thing when it comes to priorities and demands that we can meet. With my illness many of the things that once were simply to do have become difficult. One of the challenges that I will be facing head on is learning how to make everything still work while being limited in my ability and strength. My family has been amazing through all of this, and the skills that each, even my little ones, have picked up, are good things. Since I am. however, one of those people who are far more comfortable to lead through example, it has been a challenge learning what is important to do and what is not. We have not really had the rabbitry going this breeding season due to my illness, and my oldest daughter has been caring for them. Now that we are coming into the colder months, I am realizing our shelves of meat are seriously depleted and I need to get rocking on that challenge. It was good for our family to do this challenge, as now we see the need, and with meat prices in stores rising like crazy, raising your meat at home has become a good part of functioning well living the way we live.
Second, I am finding that water in a crisis might be an issue, and we will have to see how to resolve that one for our family. While there is a large lake nearby, hauling water for the family might be a challenge, and so it is now on our list to come up with an alternative to keeping water on hand. This might be challenging since our water table for good water is very deep. I will get back with you on how we worked around this issue.
Third, I am finding canning items is certainly becoming more of a planned work than it was before my stroke. I can not lift the canner as I used to, and so have found myself not canning nearly as much until the last couple weeks. We can work around that by purchasing food on sale, but it also introduces more processed foods back into our diet that we have worked hard to get away from. As I said before, challenges are simply things to work around, not allow to stop you.
What did you find were your largest challenges in this food pantry challenge? What stopped you, or concerned you as you walked through it? What would you change, or how would you add to your storage in ways you have not before?
Our final dinner tonight is going to be one of our favorites, Cheesy Chicken Rice Bake. We will be using one of our last jars of canned chicken in it, with more chicken coming this weekend on the budget for canning. We tend to eat more simply during the summer, but our nights and days have been much much cooler than usual, and so having a comfort food casserole from the crockpot seems fitting to celebrate the end of our time of budgeting and stretching things.
I have a wonderful blog post coming up tomorrow about a simple dress pattern I have been making my girls, and the adorable result. Beginning easy, and fun to make, and I can not wait to share it with you! Fabulously Frugal Friday will be back in force starting tomorrow!!! See you then!
Blessings to you and yours,
~Heather <3
Well I can see that water is a real problem for us as well ,but otherwise milk was a little problem my husband really did not like the powdered milk , so I saw Nido at the store and am checking Sam’s and Costo to see if one is less expensive than the other and will try some of it to see if he might like it better. I would still like to know how you can cheese,is there a post somewhere archived that I could read ?
We had tuna salad sandwiches tonight with the last of the lettuce, have planted more and will do another little bit in a couple of weeks , living in Texas I can probably plant lettuce every two weeks practically year round at least if I do it in pots I can bring it in the house just have to provide a warm enough or cool enough environment and enough light I have a lamp that is supposed to be like true sun light I bet that will work for the light. Anyway will be checking this out and will let you know how it goes.
Pat, yes I linked Katzcradul from YouTube on how she cans cheese for those of you that were interested. However, you can just bop over there and put that into the search area on Youtube and pull her up. TONS of great information that she shares with so many people, and I like that she plays it safe compared to many others.
I am thinking about planting lettuce under my grow lights during the winter, along with some of my herbs. We have a couple rooms with great sunlight during the winter months, so that will be a new experiment to share.
I also will only use the NIDO as the taste and quality is superior in my mind to all the other dry milks I have tried. Let me know what your husband thinks.
Blessings
~Heather
We survived. I too found that if we were ever without running water, we would be in trouble. We rely on city water for our house but my MIL has a well. My husband gets 2 gallons from her each week for us to drink. We have a lake/pond of our own but it is used by our cows (they would share if it came down to it – lol) as their drinking water. We learned that meat every night is not a must and that it’s okay to eat boiled eggs and ham together :-). Also, I can take the milk out of the freezer now and use it. So I’m a little ahead for next week.
Thank you for the challenge – I will be following you on what you figure out about water storage. I always enjoy your blog and am praying for you that you get back to full strength soon.
Hugs, Cindy
awesome Cindy. I like hearing how others had challenges and how they figured out how to overcome them.
Blessings,
~Heather