Deep South Homestead
Deep South Homestead community with Danny and Wanda.
Community Leaders:
- Organized by
-
-
Long term food storage..
-
Long term food storage..
-
52 Replies
-
great article!
-
I’ve had pinto beans go bad after 5 or 6 years of storage. Myalr bags with O2 absorbers all inside a 5 gallon bucket.
-
I am using vacuum sealing to store my beans seems to be working well. I lost oats left in 5 gal bucket after 8 months no oxygen storage, but the vacuum seal all fresh after that time, but I have high humidity here in Florida. Vacuum sealing in jars, and plastic bags works great for me
-
I have been wanting to try vacuum sealing. Maybe I’ll get the machine and bags. South Texas here. Almost as humid.
-
I’ve been vacuum sealing most all dry goods (especially beans, rice, oats, etc.), with excellent results over the mylar bags & O2 absorbers! I vacuum seal cake mixes, Instant Potatoes (you just add water to), Knorr Side Dishes, Potatoe Gnocchi, & the list goes on & on. Stays fresh much longer than shelf storage in original packaging. I do use the orginal pkg when sealing, just poke a hole in the bag to draw out all air.
I also vacuum seal most all my dehydrated fruits/veggies. I’ve never had any problems with them losing taste or taking in moisture. I also have the two jar lid attachments (reg & wide mouth) to seal some things in canning jars like dehydrated potatoes & sweet potatoes, tomato powder, garlic, onions, etc., as they have sharp edges that tend to puncture the plastic vacuum seal bags. If you can find the Food Saver Storage Containers, I think they come in 3 sizes, you can use those to seal ANY GLASS JAR. Lot’s of YouTubes on that process. Your grocery store glass jars condiments, jams, jellies, pickles, and pasta sauce, etc., come in are FREE once you use what is in them compared to using canning jars that have gone up in price & usually hard to find nowadays!
I have a FoodSaver with the built in rolled make-your-own bag holder & cutter (to make your own bags), auto bag sensor to start sealing once bag is detected in the sealer slot & other great features. I’ve had this vacuum sealer almost 13 years and it is still going strong! Never had ANY ISSUES with it and I’ve vacuum sealed 1,000’s of bags of food, literally. I assume it was made TOO WELL as they no longer carry the model I have.
I was lucky last summer and found one EXACTLY LIKE MINE on FB Marketplace for $25 (CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!!!) The lady was going to start buying in bulk to save money. She found it to be too much trouble and took too much time so she only did a few bags to freeze. She was cleaning out her cupboards and ran across it and decided to sell it to get it out of her way. MY LUCKY DAY as I now have two, one for the kitchen and one for my processing station in my walk-in pantry. I converted my seldom used dining room into a HUGE walk-in pantry…best move I ever made!You will get hooked on how easy it is to vacuum seal over using the mylar bag technique. They even have ready made bags in ALL SIZES that are not made by FoodSaver for about half the cost and work just as well. I’ve had to try several brands to find the best sealing ones and buy them in bulk of 400 bags. Yes, I’m still buying from Amazon for convenience since I live in such a remote rural location.
I, too, live in a very hot, humid zone in coastal AL-zone 8b and have NO PROBLEMS with humidity affecting my sealed goods.
-
-
Did they go bad due to bugs/weevils or for some other reason? When I store in mylar bags, O2 absorbers in 5 gallon buckets I ALWAYS freeze them 1st. This will kill any bugs or larvae that are always in grains/beans. I usually freeze 2-3 days (sometimes longer if I have a lot going on) then sit them out and let them acclimate to room temp. If you put in mylar bags right after taking from freezer, there will be moisture build up from temp changes going from freezer to normal temps & will mold/rot. I’ve never had any issues with beans/grains (bulk purchases especially) if I freeze 1st, let them acclimate to room temp then put in mylar bags with O2 absorbers. (I use a straight iron I bought from a Thrift Store for $1 to seal my mylar bags. It works FANTASTIC and makes a great seal)
I’ve gone to mostly vacuum sealing as it also takes out all the oxygen that the bugs/larvae need to survive. Then store in 5 gallon buckets. I have been getting my buckets and lids from Home Depot. I get 10 unbranded/labeled white buckets with handles for $34.29. You can get regular lids in a 10 pack for $13.68. They also have ones with a gamma seal. I was extremely surprised that they were very thick, heavy plastic & food grade! Read the SPECIFICATIONS listed below the listing for all the particulars on these buckets. The lids are also very thick heavy plastic and very easy to put on & open but have a tight seal. I haven’t had any problems with stacking these (heavier ones on bottom) and the lids not eventually collapsing or breaking.
Here is a link to the ones I buy. I just placed another order for 40 more of each. They go out of stock quick either at your local store or at their warehouse. I waited two days for them to be in stock again to order more. Can’t beat that price at $3.43 per bucket & $1.37 per lid (more for the gamma seal lids)https://www.homedepot.com/p/5-gal-White-Pail-10-Pack-RG5700-10/204082827
-
They were stored inside our house, so stable temperatre. No bugs. They were just too dried out. They wouldn’t soften up in cooking. Even with baking soda added.
I think my best solution is to grow them. I need to figure out what beans/peas grow best here. Thanks, D
-
If they were old beans, there isn’t much of anything you can do to soften them except pressure cooking them. That is the problem buying from grocery stores. You have no idea how long the beans sat in a warehouse before making it to the grocery nor how long they sat on the shelf there. They do dry out when old and the 3 areas that absorb liquid to soften them also close off so no matter how long they are cooked, you’ll either get tough, chewy beans or hard beans. Cooking in an Instapot or pressure cooking them would solve that problem…for future reference when we are eating our stored wares! LOL!
-
I did notice the last time I bought a bag of beans in a store that the bag does have a Best Buy date on them.
-
How about canning them?
-
Yes, I do have a lot canned & ready to eat BUT I do not have the jars nor the space to can all I have in long-term storage. I am whittling down the amount of dry beans I have in mylar bags with O2 absorbers (stored in 5-gallon buckets). I’m vacuum-sealing them and putting them back in the mylar bags, resealing those & putting back in the buckets. Extra work but I am in hopes that by vacuum sealing them they won’t dry out as bad. Won’t know until I rotate my buckets later down the road. If they do still dry out I will just have to pressure cook them to eat, no big deal for me.
I have a small cabin and I have long since run out of room to store any more pressure canned goods. I even converted my dining room into a big walk-in pantry and had to resort to stacking cases of canned goods in closets, my den, and have walkways to get around those. I really need a big temperature-controlled storage shed with lots of shelving in order to clear the cabin so I can move around and have more space. I went on a MEAT canning frenzy this year by cleaning out 3 chest freezers of meats. I fear the power grid going down and could not possibly can all that meat before it ruined if that were to happen. I live in coastal AL where we don’t have real cold winters but have super hot & humid summers. I have also bought meat when it would be on sale or even some clearance/reduced meats.
I have to do the best I can with the amount of space I have available, otherwise I would be canning everything I could get my hands on. Jars had been a problem to find here, too, but I’ve noticed Walmart has been having some lately and I’ve been buying what my budget would allow.
Thanks for the suggestion, tho. And those beans you canned sure look delicious! Good job! -
😂😂😂. The description of your home is as if you are describing ours to a “T”, right down to the dining room, closest and family room! But in our case it is also basement! I hear you and understand the dilemma.i haven’t got all my beans canned yet either! I thought I would get the non-garden surplus canned this winter but I can’t keep up!
Carry on! We do the best we can!
-
😉 Whew, glad to see that I’m not alone with all that I’m doing. I waste NOTHING. This past summer we had a massive heat wave & drought so my garden literally fried, except what was in partial shade. I didn’t have as much to process as normal. That freed up a lot of my time to pressure can. A grocery store in my little town went out of business the end of May 2022 & I lucked up and got frozen turkeys for .59cents lb. I bought every single one they had. They were not out in plain view but were in the frozen meat section in those huge freezers with glass doors. I got 11 of them & put in the freezers to can “when I had extra time”…which is a rarity for me. When the garden failed, for the most part, I started canning those turkeys. I have a huge double roaster that would hold 2-20 lb turkeys at a time. I roasted them with onions, celery and extra water to make more broth. I could put the roaster on warm while I deboned the turkeys. Then would fill pints & quarts with turkey meat, filled with the already seasoned broth & pressure canned. Left over broth went in ziplock baggie & all bones, skin & giblets would go in ziplock bags in the freezer. When I had enough to boil to make soup stock, I would take my 22 qt stock pot and boil everything, especially the carcasses to remove all meat from the bones. Then remove the bones from the stock & they went on cookie sheets, in the oven to roast to crush for BONE MEAL for the garden. Then would add frozen veggies I had in the freezers to the stock to make turkey veggie soup. I did save some turkey to add to the turkey soup. While I was making the turkey veggie soup I had 2 more turkeys thawing. While canning the soup I was roasting the next round of turkeys. Repeat process over & over til I had canned turkey in broth with onions/celery to add to stuffing to make a turkey & stuffing casserole but also had turkey soup in single/family servings and bone meal for the garden. Then early fall I found a sale on frozen turkeys at another grocery for .79cents lb. I had heard turkeys were going to be sky high for the holidays (bird flu scare) so my preps for that month were 10 more turkeys. Process was repeated again. Granted I got cat naps while doing the turkey processing marathon and would take a day of rest when my body said ENOUGH! I did buy an extra turkey I kept for Thanksgiving JUST IN CASE they were crazy expensive. A month ago I was visiting my sister (out of town) and a Winn Dixie in her city had turkeys for 99cent lb. Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment and got 4 more. I love turkey meat and so does my little Yorkie. I even convinced my sister, that isn’t into prepping, to buy 2 turkeys to roast for her 5 little fur babies. She cooks their meals as I do for my lil Yorkie. She thought I was crazy to talk her into buying 2 whole turkeys to cook for her babies. Well, after I canned up her turkey meat for her and she had READY TO EAT TURKEY in her pantry for herself AND her fur babies she thinks I’m pretty smart now. She can just get a jar out of the pantry and heat up or add to her fur babies meal. I do save all giblets from chickens, turkey or when I harvest my chickens/rabbits, too, and can those up for my Yorkie to have SOMETHING to eat or if times get REALLY bad and I’m out of everything I’ve canned, I COULD eat the giblets with gravy over rice or something. to keep from starving.
I do the same process when I cook a ham (recently found those on sale for .99cents lb for shank hams) and got 4, Canned the baked ham with some of the ham juice & water. I even chop up the fat and fatty bits of ham and can that for HAM SEASONING. All pints have sealed. Use that to season greens, beans, etc. So far, I’ve used it and not gotten sick, all remain sealed & have not turned rancid. I then make a ham broth/stock with the bones to can dry beans and with two others I made a veggie soup (using more veggies from freezer), roasted those bones, crushed & added to my bone meal for the garden. I could go on & on with what I do to maximize every single use so nothing goes to waste.
Being from the deep south where GUMBO, jambalaya, red beans & rice is a fav meal, I have sliced and canned our local link sausage. I raw pack this to can and it is actually delicious, all sealed, not any have turned rancid. I’ve even canned shrimp & different fish for the seafood gumbo we all love to eat here. I’ve canned bacon layered with parchment paper, and even tried canning bologna & chopped hot dogs. I’m sure some folks would think that was totally INSANE. I like fried bologna either as a side with my eggs for breakfast or to make a sandwich. Well, it WORKS, even with canned bologna! I love homemade beanie weenies so I added chopped hot dogs to some dry beans and other seasonings, onions/bell peppers and bingo, ready to heat & eat beanie weenies. I also canned whole hot dogs as well as chopped up. People always say to store WHAT YOU EAT so regardless of what people may think of bologna or hot dogs being bottom-of-the-barrel food, it is what I eat, sometimes, and enjoy. I love chicken and/or beef fajitas. I canned julienne sliced raw chicken or beef along with bell pepper & onions & seasoning ALL together in one-pint jars and voila’, heat & eat fajitas, just got to have flour tortillas or I will make my own if need be or make a thin fry bread. As long as we have grocery stores, the extras like the tortillas, sour cream & guacamole can be bought, when not available, MAYBE my avocado trees will be producing by then and I can at least have guac and I make my own salsa. Would just miss the sour cream since I don’t have goats or cows for making that. I do have SOME cheeses I’ve canned but I’m waiting to can anymore til May, that will be one yr since I melted & canned some (and also cream cheese) to see if it is shelf stable enough to can up anymore. I do have tons of cheese in my freezer as I LOVE cheese but didn’t want to can it all til I could see what it does. I may have to resort to waxing it.
Anyway, so you see, It is a never-ending way of life for me to can, dehydrate, and vacuum seal and I’m doing one or the other every single day after my chores are done, dehydrators are going almost 24/7 regardless of what else I have going on. No rest for the weary, but I GITTER DONE and actually enjoy it. Keeps me busy and keeps my mind off other things going on in this ole world that I have no control over.
We got this and we will keep on, keeping on! Blessings to you & yours. Apologies for the “book” which I’m notorious for when replying. LOL!! 🙄 -
I grind bone meal for the garden also 👍
-
Bonemeal is a source of Phosphorus and traces of micronutrients but the natural sources of Phosphorus are only readily available to plants in soils that are below ph7.0 If it’s higher towards alkaline side it’s essentially locked up.
-
Wow, you really do burn the candle at both ends! I can’t do that anymore. I will be 74 in 3 months and have A-fib and other health problems that leave me tired a lot. I just came off two days of feeling well and getting some stuff done. Today I am making bone broth and will be canning it. I started canning when I was 21, we had bought 8 acres and raised hay, a few meat animals and lot of chickens and rabbits, as well as had a couple of horses and dairy goats. We now live on just a 3/4 acre lot in the city limits of a small town, and not even allowed a couple of chickens. I quit canning about 8 years ago, but then found out about digital canners last year and decided to start canning again with the smaller batch digitals. It’s just hubby and I and a small dog now.
I used to feed my previous dogs a raw diet, bones and all. With other dogs I used to cook, I pressure cooked chickens for 2 hours and the bones were mush and could be smashed between your fingers, they got that in their diet as a source of calcium. I never thought to put my chicken stock bones in the garden! Although that would likely draw vermin and predators, we are in heavy coyote territory and we had trouble with skins and coons last summer from bird seed that fell on the ground!
I can meats, have done bacon in the past and sausages. Now I mainly do chicken, beef, pork, and turkey, as well as our garden produce. Our garden did excellent last summer and we were giving away so many zucchini and cucumbers away! Our neighbors are thrilled to get it. I dehydrated a lot of zucchini and made plenty of pickles. I write on my meat jars whether or not I added any salt or seasoning because I figure I have some w/o that stuff for the dog. Have a ton of rice and black-eyed peas set aside for the dog also.
Here are pics of our Poodles that are no longer with us. The silver girl was almost 16 and died of a tumor in her heart. The black boy died at age four of a rare blood disorder in dogs.
-
I’m 66 yrs old and I can really tell I’m slowing down these last couple of years. I can’t do near what I used to do but I am afraid if I totally stop, that may be the end of my dreams.
I also used to feed my lil Yorkie raw. He will be 14 in April. He got very sick from being over vaxxed and had a very serious reaction to a flea/tick/heartworm preventative. He almost died. His old “traditional” Vet changed it without telling me (since they started taking our babies to the “BACK” for exams). By the time I got home with him he was semi-convulsing and was scratching himself literally RAW and I mean NON-STOP pawing at himself all over his body. I called the Vet and was told to wait til morning & if he was no better to bring him back in & they would see him. NO SLEEP that night as Baylee was scratching non-stop. I gave him a bath with some goat milk soap I had gotten from a friend that made this especially for our fur babies. It “may” have eased his misery somewhat but by now he was almost a bloody mess in places. I was sitting at the Vet’s office when they opened. They took him to the back & examined him and gave him a 6 month antibiotic shot called Convenia. 6 months worth of antibiotics in one shot that was WAY too much for his little body at one time. Bet most folks don’t know that they give the little fur babies the same amount/dose of meds that they give a 150 lb. dog. There was no reversing this shot if he had a bad reaction. It wears off over time. Well, with that much antibiotics, he developed a whole body YEAST infection, in his eyes, ears, mouth…all over his body ON TOP of the mess from the scratching himself raw….ANOTHER trip to the vet and they gave him something else, can’t remember now as that was almost 10 yrs ago. I looked up all these meds & that danged Flea/Tick/Heartworm preventative and I almost fainted at the bad side affects THEY ALL had on our pets. Some had lifelong neurological problems, some had huge open sores that wouldn’t heal and some didn’t make it. That is when I found out, too that all flea/tick/heartworm meds were PESTICIDES. That is why they never got any more fleas/ticks/heartworms. The flea/tick would bite them and get poisoned & die. What the heck?? PESTICIDES…that they are giving our babies. The one she had switched him to had already been pulled from the market TWICE because of many pets getting very sick & dying. They had to reformulate it two different times before it could be put back on the market PLUS the pets owner HAD to be given a CONSENT form to sign and the Vet was to have discussed all the potential side affects with me…which DID NOT HAPPEN! Long story short, I searched high & low for a natural med Vet or a Holistic Vet. I did find one in a major city here in my state 4 hour drive, ONE WAY but I had to go to see if she could save him. VERY VERY EXPENSIVE to see a Holistic Vet but she did get Baylee on the road to getting better but the damage had already been done. After much testing, it was found his liver, kidneys, spleen & lymph system were no longer removing all the toxins from his body. What didn’t get removed would come out thru his skin so he was diagnosed with an Autoimmune Disease with Chronic Skin disease. It would never be cured but could be treated. He also has collapsing trachea and is in the final stages of this. Any anxiety, stress will cause him to struggle to breathe, he loses his breath & the only way I can get him back breathing is to hold him and talk softly to him to calm him down. Excessive heat/humidity causes him breathing problems so in our heat/humidity, I have to keep it COLD year around in the house. With his liver not working properly this causes him to be extremely hot, burning up from the inside out. He is one sick little boy ALL DUE to uncaring Vets taking kickbacks from Big Pharma. Yes, they are in on our pets healthcare, too. The only reason I know all of this is the Holistic Vet was once a regular traditional Vet. She cares for animals and their well being and felt something was not right with what they were taught in Vet school, all the meds the drug reps were pushing them to use, etc., so she talked with some Naturopathic Friends of hers and decided to go BACK to school to learn Holistic & Natural Healing. This Vet is a miracle worker and has even cured some dogs of cancer, healed lame dogs and they are now walking again, her healing practices are well known. She has been shut down several times by the powers that be. Another long story. It got to where I couldn’t afford to keep making that long 8 hr round trip drive every 4-6 weeks plus the cost of the visit $350-$500 a pop. Baylee was getting better so I decided to stop all unnecessary meds & started treating him as best I KNEW & COULD with natural remedies.
Before he got sick, I had started him on the raw feed diet. He did really well on it. You know it is a lot of work to do this diet. Well after all his problems from almost dying, the over vaxxing, Flea/Tick/Heartworm damage to his system, feeding raw kept him with colitis AND anal gland problems. Even with bones in his diet, he still couldn’t produce stools hard enough to express the anal glands and they kept getting impacted & ALMOST had to have surgery to fix. His Holistic vet recommended I stop the raw diet (and YES, she is ALL FOR raw feeding) and go to a balanced cooked meal. Usually some sort of protein, organ meat (usually chicken liver), a little steamed rice, potatoes or sweet potato, veggies like green peas, carrots (I like using dehydrated kale that I crunch up into an almost powder), I add some scrambled eggs and when that all cools, I will add either a few pieces of sauerkraut, a small piece of raw garlic that I smash & wait 10 min before feeding him to release all the medicinal properties. I might add a little plain yogurt for his gut health (same with the garlic & sauerkraut. Any fermented veggie helps their gut health. I cook his meals every other day. He gets breakfast & supper and a homemade jerky (chicken/deer/rabbit, turkey, etc.) that I make for him for a treat. I also bake sweet potatoes, mash them and roll into little sticks and roll in crushed flax seed, oregano or some other seeds/herbs. I add that to the jerky I make, too.
I also give him a small piece of crushed honey infused garlic when I take mine every morning. He REALLY loves that. He has a certificate of exemption from ALL vax’s., even rabies. Our state recognizes those certificates EXCEPT for groomers/boarders. I don’t ever board him but it was heck finding a groomer for him since I can’t do that anymore. I guess my arthritis in my hands made for a very long time to groom him and he got frustrated, anxious so I had to stop. I was lucky and found a local lady about 10 min from me that does grooming in a building at her house. She does not require any vax certificates as she is anti-vax so I was saved there. He now has to be kept cut short due to his skin condition & the longer hair making him too hot all the time. I will attach a before pic of him (before he got sick) and one of my fav pic’s of him plus what he looks like now. I had to get used to the short hair but for his health & safety, I do what is best for him.
One more thing, I have two of the NESCO digital canners, too. I still use the stove top pressure canners when I have a lot to can and even sometimes have both the digitals & the stove top going at the same time. I LOVE the convenience of the digital canner, especially when canning leftovers or small batches of meats, soups, etc. Mine will hold 6 pints or 4 quarts. I will have both going sometimes rather than drag out the stove top canner. It was getting hard for me to handle the weight of the stove top. I also like the convenience of getting it thru the 1st 15-20 min to shut off the exhaust then I can go about my business and not have to baby sit it & it turn off when it is done. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have near the meat, soups, etc., canned that I have now if I had to do it all with the stove top. I think they are perfect for 1-2 person households with small batches to can. LOVE MINE! I’ve had the CAREY which is now NESCO but I used it so much when I 1st got it that I burned up the control panel. Guess those weren’t made to use continuously like I was doing. It had a warranty so it was replaced with the NESCO and I loved it so much I bought a 2nd one. That was when they were just $129. I think now, IF YOU CAN FIND ONE, they were running over $300!!
I am in major coyote country as well as many other predators like bobcats, foxes, raccoons & opossums.
You don’t put the “BONES” in the garden. You roast them in the oven til they are almost a powder. Well, some will just turn to powder when you mash them between your fingers. The larger bones I smash with a hammer or small sledge hammer into a BONE MEAL POWDER. You spread that in the soil of your garden. It is just like buying store bought Bone Meal, no different, other than you are making it yourself. It has never drawn any predators to my knowledge. I also make my own Blood Meal when I dispatch chickens, rabbits and when I get to whitetail deer hunt. I bleed them out in a bucket then pour the blood in some old cookie sheets I don’t use for my own cooking anymore. You let it dry out to sheets of dried blood & crush it up or grind it in a food processor/blender. Didn’t do any of that this year.
-
Your dog definitely had a bad reaction. When the dog i had got his first vaccinations they called it a cocktail alot of shots at once he almost died. His head swelled up like a basketball and i had to rush him to an emergency vet about 45 miles away. I was so mad at the vet. They didn’t charge me for the next few visits. I told him i didn’t want anymore vax for him. So the only one i got him to take for the next 11 years was the rabies one because it was state law. He was always slow and sluggish after rabies vax. We had pets growing up that never had any vax and they were just fine. We fed table scraps too and they were happy just to be with us. I think they are just pushing big pharma greed for profit.
-
Yes, he definitely had a major reaction. The ONLY vax’s they need are the 1st shots and they don’t need those until they are 12+ weeks old. They have NATURAL immunity from their mothers milk til then. All the rest are just like it is now for kids here in the US. A big money making industry. I don’t remember getting but 5-6 jabs MAX as a kid but a child from birth to 18 has 48 or more????
Same goes for our pets. I’m like you, when we had dogs as I was growing up there were no vax’s required. They ate scraps from the table and whatever else they could find, dead or alive, or from the neigbors.
Big Pharma is all about evil & greed & the LOVE OF MONEY-THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!
Such a sad state of affairs this country has allowed to evolve…and looking more grim every day that passes!
Rabies is required in my state (AL) but they do recognize the Certificate of Exemption. My lil Yorkie would not make it if he were to have to have vax’s now. His immune system is destroyed. He had his blood “titered” (checked for all vaxxes immunity) and he was still immune & hasn’t had any vax’s since March 2017. He will be 14 in April, he never goes outside (he is pee pad trained) and is restricted to just the porch/deck area where he does like to “sun bathe”. Too many predators in the deep backwoods here that would take him for an appetizer in a heartbeat, especially those huge hawks we have here. -
We had 4 dogs all got the lunes shot years ago. They all got lymes. After that they all needed antibiotics. The next year they tried to get me to do it again. I said no . I got a lot of attitude for a few years. Last I heard they stopped giving it . I’m not sure if it was just that office. I also had 16 year old Eskie that got foot cancer. They wanted me to amputate her leg. I couldn’t do it !
-
💕I had a silkie. Beautiful.
Looks like there No slowing you down 👍
-
Love Yorkies! Silkies are gorgeous!! Don’t see many for sale in my area. My sister has a Parti Yorkie (the white & black ones). When the day comes that my Baylee crosses the Rainbow Bridge, not sure if I will be able to get another Yorkie as the prices have gone thru the roof, like everything else these days. I think standard/traditional Yorkies are running about $1200-$1500 & up. Specialty breeds, like the Parti, Chocolate, Tea Cup, etc., START at $2500 and some breeders do not give you breeding rights. I had never heard of that but they can either give you the right to breed the Yorkie you buy from them or not. If they find you have bred them, they can sue you. Crazy, eh??
-
Your little boy is adorable! I am so sorry for the terrible experiences that you and he have gone through. 😢
I started using holistic vets back in 1995 after losing my first Portuguese Water Dog, at age 8, to what was likely Addison’s disease. I titer my dogs for rabies instead of giving boosters. Thankfully my vet will still do dentals for us w/o being UTD on the shots. I never give boosters of the other shots. Puppy shots, and then one booster at age 15 months and then titers from that point on. My dogs are watched like a hawk, so I don’t much worry about exposure, especially at this point since all we have is one little one that is never out of our site because of Hawks that might think they are Superman. We also have quite the set-up for her nighttime/after dark potty times.
Sounds like you and I are two peas in a pod when it comes to our pet’s care.
-
Sounds like your doing fine!! Last year was my first year making bone meal.A friend gave me a meat grinder makes it easy. I tried housing food processor it didn’t work well for me.
-
I, too, have a meat grinder that grinds bones (got it when I was raw feeding my Yorkie). But what I do when grinding the roasted bones for bone meal is put them in some sort of plastic bag (Ziploc baggie, bread bag or double/triple some plastic grocery bags). I have a meat tenderizer (heavy duty) that I use to smash the bones (cover plastic bag with a doubled towel) and pound away. Those that don’t smash up, I will sift contents of the bag to get out what did crush, then take outside and crush bigger/harder bones (like a ham bone, leg bones, etc.) with a small sledge hammer. That usually does the job, then I will sift that and any remaining bones, I will try crushing again with the sledge. I usually try to really roast/almost burn the bones before I crush. Some of the smaller bones will crush with your fingers, larger bones don’t. I will sometimes roast those even more before trying to crush, depending on how many or how large they are (like deer leg bones, ham bones, etc.). Or I will save those bones in a baggie to re-roast when I have another batch to do.
Another thing I have done is put them in a fire outside. If I’m burning or have a campfire, etc., I will put the bones on an old cookie sheet and sit on top of the fire. This really works good because the heat is really intense & will roast the bones a lot quicker, even those big bones. But I don’t always have a fire going when I have bones to roast. Just giving you some other options.
I don’t like using my grinder to grind bones (even tho it is designed to do so) as it really dulls the blades. and can even chip them. -
Nice to have such a heavy grinder.
-
@JerseyGiantChick Yes, I love my heavy-duty grinder. It won’t grind big bones but does well with smaller ones. My grinder even has a foot control where I can be hands-free to grind meats & especially burger where you have to add fat in with the meat. I can keep the big hopper full & the grinder going without having to stop & continuously reload my hopper. PERFECT for making link sausages that takes 2 hands to twist off each link. Best investment I ever made with a meat grinder.
-
Wow must be a professional machine, big heavy one.
Does not belong here, bit did you see the rabbits?
-
Westin makes great meat grinders, they are pricey but well worth it if you have a lot of grinding to do.
Wow, this is the one I have and I have never seen it for this price before! A steal at that price. It is normal $750+
-
Great ideas for the bonemeal.
What plants do you use it for ?
Do you mix yours with egg shell,ash ?
-
Beautiful dogs! Looks like you’ve been a hard worker for many years!
-
I wish I had invested in a freeze dryer two years ago, now I fear we might be too close to a grid down situation to get much use out of it.
-
I’ve had my freeze dryer 1 yr and it is amazing how much I have been able to freeze dry. Just get started and do what you can. For the first 6 or 8 months I pretty much ran it nonstop. I put canned vegetables from the store, our fresh eggs, fruit, cooked meat, leftovers and anything I could think of. Good luck with your adventures in freeze drying!
-
I am finally going to make the move and buy a freeze dryer. I am not sure about the choices for the pump. Oil or oil free?
Thanks,
Katy
-
A friend of mine recommended us not to get the oil free. Don’t know why but we just stuck with the premium pump.
-
Haha me too. I have no place to put the foods I’m storing. I have filled half of our basement. I have some in my dining room that I am currently repackaging a couple of days a week. I also am dehydrating my own foods, canning every weekend and getting other things I think we may be needing for one reason or another. Those all have to be stored properly. We have begun transporting our foods to our weekend homestead. It is a 3 hour drive so it’s a lot to get done. We will be moving there in a few years if not sooner. So I am currently stuck in two locations trying to get everything done which there is never enough time in a day to get much of it done while working full time. My poor dining room somewhat resembles a war zone. Our house was hit hard by the earthquakes and we have a lot of construction going on also. My head is spinning but I’m really trying to be up on my game by stepping it up a few notches.
-
-
my beans go bad after several years vacuum sealed into half-gallon canning jars, too. they wont absorb water anymore when cooking and are always ‘crunchy’ no matter how long you cook them. I hear if you grind them before you cook them you can make bean paste, but I just try to rotate out my jars and not loose one in the back of the cabinet. I’m not convinced most long term storage plans are actually practical unless you can put it in a freezer too. the food may still be edible, but what nutrition is left? will it taste good enough to want to eat it? whole grains get a rancid flavor after a few years too. if the seed has died and can no longer sprout, I consider it past it’s expiration date. often the chickens won’t even want to eat them.
-
You will probably be as surprised to learn soaking and cooking them with a tablespoon of baking soda for each pound of dry beans will soften old beans up as I was. Just rinse them off and replace the water before adding your flavors so as not to change the taste of what you’re making. Of course if you’re making chili or something similar that has other strong flavors rinsing isn’t really needed in my opinion.
-
-
-
-
Thank you! Wonder if she’s been invited/encouraged to join Freesteading?
-
Thank you for sharing Long Term Food Storage. The bottom of the page is LOADED with links about other food articles, even foraging weeds and their medicinal benefits. I added it to my favorite list. 👍
-
5gallons of beans ? 9days that’s a Lot of beans!!! & farts!!!!
-
I can say first hand that dehydrated fruit stored vacuumed sealed in mason jar are good past 5 yrs.
Another great thing I ran across is making mushroom powder. High on protein and super tasty in dishes.
-
I have been dehydrating bannanas….. they are sooooooo goood 😉 vacuum sealing is the way to go. I have been working on growing oyster mushrooms. I like lions main mushrooms does seem to help with my memory.
-
@Marthale7 I’ve done lots of bananas, too! Great nutritious snack! I even have BEAUTIFUL orange & grapefruit slices that look almost like the real thing once dehydrated.
I found a lions mane ‘shroom growing on one of my trees in the woods. Only found that one but I keep looking every year for more.
I have tons of Turkey Tail mushrooms that grow prolifically here since I have a lot of hardwoods in my 40 acres of woods. I air dry them once I clean them and WHEN I HAVE TIME plan to make some medicinal tinctures with them. It is a 2 step process but Turkey Tails have so many medicinal properties for so many different ailments, I don’t dare expose them to heat in the dehydrators. I have window screens I air dry them on and it doesn’t take too long for them to dry.
I have also found motherlodes of Chanterelle mushrooms here. Last fall I gathered buckets of them. We had a drought last summer & excessive heat wave. When we finally had several days of good rain, the Chanterelles started popping up EVERYWHERE. They are so tasty to cook with some butter, onions & fresh garlic. Here is a picture of ONE collander full after I cleaned/washed them. This is just one collander full of MANY I picked. I dehydrated them & vacuum sealed in half gallon canning jars with O2 & moisture absorbers. You do know that you can use a (vehicle) brake bleeder as a vacuum sealer when grid down occurs? I also bought a newer hand pump vacuum sealer. Link attached in case you’re interested in checking it out.
https://www.amazon.com/Pump-N-Seal-Package-freshness-powerful-batteries/dp/B083RH28BP/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3J09DZDUFQ3C2&keywords=hand+pump+vacuum+sealer&qid=1676471699&sprefix=hand+pump+vacuum%2Caps%2C181&sr=8-3
-
Yeah, I collect vacuum sealers from garage sales, I have 3 of them now, and RainCountry sparked me into getting the brake pump. I have it on the shelf for an emergency, but one of the older ones I have works the best for me, so I plan on wearing it out before I goto the other fall back methods.
-
I had a 2 year old POrtuguese Water Dog with mast cell cancer, a pea-sized tumor found on the left rib cage, we removed it and found another 6-months later on the right rib cage. You couldn’t see them, they were under the skin but I could feel them.
After removal of the second one (both stage 1), I put him on Coriolus Versicolor/Turkey Tail with instructions from his Chinese Medicine vet. He was on it the rest of his life, his cancer never returned, he lived to age 12. He was the longest lived puppy in his litter, all the others died young of cancer.
Interestingly he got this cancer within 9 months of getting his first rabies booster. He got staph within a week of getting the rabies booster and we battled that the rest of his life. We never gave him another rabies booster, and he carried an excellent titer till he was 7, at which point I quit tittering him.
-
-
-
Love this! Many people assume you have to have oxygen absorbers for grain. While you can, it’s not necessary. Look at how Joseph stored their grain for 7 years in the Bible! He didn’t use OA’s!
-
I am now up to 4 vacuum sealers 🙂 went to a garage sale and there on the table was a sealer, a large mouth jar sealer with cord, with some bags for $5.00 I just could not say no 🙂 do i need a 12 step program? LOL
-
You’re welcome.
Log in to reply.