Simple Recipes Using Food Storage

Book Review: Simple Recipes Using Food Storage
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Simple Recipes Using Food Storage gives you a doable plan to help you prepare.  For many of us, storing the food is much simpler than finding recipes that use them.

My family uses the LDS principles of bulk food storage, and if you don’t use them on a regular basis it can be hard to make meals from wheat berries and powdered milk.

Whether emergency strikes, your family falls on lean times, or you just need to rotate your food storage, you can use these recipes to make everything from breads and desserts to smoothies and soups.

Having recipes that are easy and taste good – while using your food storage goes a long way to helping you use what you store.  This alone makes the book Simple Recipes Using Food Storage a worthwhile purchase.

If you store food, you should get some cookbooks so you can follow the wisdom of eating what you store, and storing what you eat.

This small cookbook is a good start on that wisdom.  I know that in my home, we are very busy during the week (who isn’t) and having simple recipes makes the difference between cooking and eating out.

Camping: Hula Hoop Camping Shower

Camping: Hula Hoop Camping Shower
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Being out on the land camping while I clear the land has its benefits.  I can save travel time and I get to see my land at all times of the day.  However it also has a drawback.  Namely working hard and being outdoors makes showers a luxury.  I am NOT used to having a shower being a luxury.

I do have neighbors so I need a shower stall.  After long thought I came up with a hula hoop camping shower stall.

All I did was buy a hula hoop and a cheap shower curtain and rings.

By putting the rings around the hula hoop I could mount it with some 550 cord and have an outdoor shower stall.

Add a pallet so you don’t stand in mud and a solar shower like the one pictured and you can be in business.

Review on Independence Days

Independence Days

Book Review: Independence Days
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Hard times aren’t just coming, they are here already. The recent economic collapse has seen millions of North Americans move from the middle class to being poor, and from poor to hungry.

At the same time, the idea of eating locally is shifting from being a fringe activity for those who can afford it to an essential element of getting by.

But aside from the locavores and slow foodies, who really knows how to eat outside of the supermarket and out of season? And who knows how to eat a diet based on easily stored and home preserved foods?

Independence Days tackles both the nuts and bolts of food preservation, as well as the host of broader issues tied to the creation of local diets.

It includes:

  • How to buy in bulk and store food on the cheap
  • Techniques, from canning to dehydrating
  • Tools—what you need and what you don’t

In addition, it focuses on how to live on a pantry diet year-round, how to preserve food on a community scale, and how to reduce reliance on industrial agriculture by creating vibrant local economies.

Better food, plentiful food, at a lower cost and with less energy expended: Independence Days is for all who want to build a sustainable food system and keep eating—even in hard times.

Sharon Astyk is a former academic who farms in upstate New York with her family. She is the author of Depletion and Abundance, the co-author of A Nation of Farmers, She also is a writer for Resilience.

The Amazing History of Early Weapons

Book Review: The Amazing History of Early Weapons
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The Amazing History of Early Weapons is 120 pages of illustrated articles reprinted from American Machinist Magazine, 1918. 1. Cannon making in past centuries. 2. Musket manufacture in past centuries. 3. Early attempts at submarine building. 4. Some types of modern (1918) hand grenades. 5. Early history of the marine torpedo. 6. Ancient helmet making. 7. The development of gun manufacture. 8. The forerunner of the tank. 9. Fighting with fire in ancient times. 10. Early attempts at rapid-firing guns. 11. Making boring bars for big guns. 12. Intrenchments and the wire barrier.

This book is reprint from an old magazine, it gives good information, but it is not a step by step assembly guide.  I have used this book to build things, but you have to be able to extrapolate from what they are saying.

This book came from the now defunct Lindsey books, which was a priceless tool for preppers, DIYers, and the self reliant.  I was very sad when Lindsey decided that the world was now overrun with the stupid and he didn’t want to deal with the public anymore.

I can’t say that the History of Early Weapons is the best of his books, but I did find it pretty interesting as well as a book full of ideas.  I believe that the handy and smart modern man, with desire and the willingness to work hard can replicate any of the technology of the 1800’s and earlier.

This means that if you want it, and are willing to do the work any of the subjects in this book can be replicated.

Which is why, if you dig down to the root, is the reason I took up metal casting.  One day I hope to build my own cannon.

Ammo Up Review

 

Ammo Up
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I got the chance to review the new Ammo Up machine, and since I hate picking up brass I jumped on the chance.

This device is similar in desired use as the brass wizard I have had for years, but the operation is completely different.

In this machine, you simply press the ammo-up over the spent ammunition casing, lodging it in the plastic bristles and then pick the case up.

What sets this machine apart is how much easier it is to release the brass than it is with the brass wizard.  The ammo up has a pull lever that drops the spent casings out.  I love that.

I find that like brass wizard this thing works well, but how well depends on the type of terrain the rounds fall in.

This worked best on the cement slab of a covered range, and worst in the gravel.

To me the ammo up worked better than the brass wizard on grass, but others have said the opposite.

Nether device works well on gravel.

What works best for me is having students police up the brass at the range, but when I am shooting solo I find that I like this device infinately more than bending down to pick up my own spent shell casings.