Pamela's Place - Storm continued and survival skills

Pamela's Place

Sep. 15, 2008

Storm continued and survival skills

The children had most of the day off today as I cleaned up the brush out in the yard. They were a big help for the most part. They also collected a lot of black walnuts that fell into our yard from the neighbors tree. The children soon started opening them and well they now have black hands. It's education in it's rawest form. The juice would be great for staining or shall I say dying fabrics and staining furniture that much is certain. www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Plants.Folder/BlackWalnut.html

Poor little Maija got sick this morning when I stepped outside with her. It was almost immediate when I took her out. It was the only time she did it. I thought that maybe all of the dust or some sort of strange atmospheric change might have caused her to have that sort of reaction? She had no fever and seemed fine after that.

Most of our neighbors are without electricity. It's very strange that we have it. Our neighbor directly above us (they're on a hill) who have 4 children have no electricity. I told them to please let me know if they needed anything. They can't even take a shower or heat up food. I took them over some dinner tonight. I had a rice dish so it's much easier to stretch. I cooked 1# ground beef, added taco seasonings, 2 onions, 1/2 bag of zucchini and yellow squash added 1/2 c of water and sprinkled it with Parmesan cheese, baked it for 30 min served with rice. It was surprisingly good. I like making up new recipes especially when they end up tasting good. Okay it's probably not new it's probably some common Mexican or Cajun dish but hey, it's new to me.

I've been told by some friends that it is common to have your electricity go out over in India. They're much more prepared for it. Our neighbors who are without electricity told me that it happened a lot when they were stationed in Guam...they would even have a typhoon kitchen. Oh the horror of thinking about not being able to feed my family. Thank you Lord for your provisions! I think we are likely very spoiled and have no idea what it is like to be prepared for an emergency.

I've been reading a book about survival skills that my mom had. I seen it on her coffee table when I went to visit once. I was fascinated by the book. It's called, "The New Passport To Survival, 12 Steps to Self-Sufficient Living" By Rita Bingham. It's written by an LDS (Mormon) as they believe in storing up food for the last days. While I'm not Mormon I do like some of the suggestions in the book. I've been eyeing up a used copy online that way I get the benefits of the book and don't have to pay full price or support a ministry that I don't agree with. Too bad I can't do that for places like Walmart. Back to the book. The author is very good at explaining the "why's" behind her suggestions, which one might think to skip otherwise.

When you look at a basic need like water you consider storing water for emergencies after the emergency is over, then it becomes very real and the book comes back out. I am not saying that we should be paranoid but there is nothing wrong with being prepared for a natural disaster or a man made one.

One suggestion in the book is to plant Heirloom seeds. She states that often seeds are from hybrids therefore you cannot plant seeds from the plants the following year. That really ISN'T practical is it if you have to keep a crop going?! She then goes to list some resources for Heritage Seeds:

www.heirloomseeds.com
www.verrillfarm.com/saveseed.html

God bless!