[Redcap]

I saw Heidi use a piece of cloth and I recently got a dedicated coffee grinder for powdering my dehydrated goods. I used it on raw egg and then used the cloth before vacuum sealing. It doesn’t actually form a perfect seal, but it seemed to work. Very glad for all these advices. Good to know the paper towel can also work.

[Redcap]

This is an amazing share. Thank you so much!

[Redcap]

I will say I have water glassed my eggs in lime for three years and they seemed fine if not a bit runny if I didn’t use completely fresh eggs. But I do hear the mineral oil method works very well. Maybe you can do a few methods and see which one you like best. Test them out in January after they’ve been stored awhile.

[Redcap]

I would not add mineral oil to the compost. That brings up another issue I’ve been thinking about lately.

There’s a really cool scientist lady who has done YouTube food stuff for years and she explained that the bloom on eggs doesn’t cover 100% of the egg. There’s always a spot or two that is bare open pores. She was talking about preserving eggs and folks had been asked about water glassing in hydrated lime.

Her opinion was to not use the lime because some could be absorbed over the time it’s sitting in the lime water in those spots not covered by the bloom. But then she suggested using mineral oil which surprised me.

If the lime can be absorbed, then I sure wouldn’t want the petrochemicals from mineral oil in there either!

I did research the biology of egg bloom and she’s right. As the bloom is laid onto the eggs, there is frequently an area that doesn’t get entirely covered.

So now I dehydrate my eggs and I’ve also frozen some. I never had any problem with the water glassing in lime – which I did for three years, but I might not do it this year and I definitely wouldn’t coat my eggs with a petrochemical knowing it could be absorbed into the egg.

I don’t mean to put down your method. I know people do both just fine, but now that I have this new information, I just thought I’d share it and let you make your own best choice.

But no, don’t put mineral oil eggshells in your compost. Now the lime shells are fine in compost as long as your chickens aren’t going in there and eating them right away. And neither should be fed back to the chickens in any case.

[Redcap]

We have, hopefully, three chicks hatching next week. I’ve been looking up chick feed and found these things which I’ll do. First two days Magic Water (2 cloves garlic, crushed, 2 TBSP raw ACV, 1/2 c. honey per gallon of water) and the first 3-4 days a mash of hardboiled egg, finely snipped greens (spinach, nettle, etc), and breadcrumbs (I’m using a hearty whole grain bread). After that, I’ll be making a finely ground feed from a feed recipe I saw: 60% scratch grains, 20% seeds, 10% fish meal, and kelp and flax to 5%, and the rest is “ish” so dried greens will round mine out. I’ll grind it well for them.

[Redcap]

I love the Townsends. They have been a real blessing as we’ve moved to a more colonial/medieval style of living. Super simple means and foods. It’s made our lives and prepping so much easier to design.

[Redcap]

🙂

[Redcap]

I looked up freeze-dried/powdered eggs to buy but they were just too expensive. Then Heidi of Rain Country did some videos about dehydrating eggs and I was totally on board. I’m always looking for efficient ways to preserve food that also require fewer machines or ingredients. Because I’m always thinking – yeah, but what if I can’t get lime? or what if my freezer goes? We happened to get eggs over winter and I wish I’d started a lot sooner because I only did about 3 dozen over the wood stove before it got warm out. So I bought a used Nesco dehydrator and am doing some more now.

[Redcap]

I’m also autistic and I have to remember that many other people are feelings based so I try to share facts without stomping on anyone’s toes. I do believe in informed choice. As long as you have information, then I don’t care what you choose. I just like to make sure people have choices. My best friend from high school and I reconnected big time when I moved back to the area after 45 years away. She has a medical background and is very level-headed. She knew darned well the masks weren’t going to help because people used ineffective cloth or paper masks AND they did not know aseptic technique for replacing them. We both came from liberal families but are both rather conservative, certainly compared to them. (My husband and I still laugh at the lunacy of the term “mostly peaceful” regarding the Portland burning riots.) But she took the inoculation. No matter that information I shared. Luckily, we love each other very much and after talking about it, we had to just happily agree to disagree and move on. I think the more you love people and want them to be happy, the more you “love one another as I have loved you”. I am not a Christian, but Jesus was right. He never turned his back on anyone no matter what they did. He still loved them even if he didn’t agree with them. And he gave everything to help them. That’s real love.

[Redcap]

Thank you for the reality check “You’re not dumping Quaker State in your food”. LOL That’s good! Still I personally prefer to not use petrochemicals in my body if I can avoid it. Not that I’m perfect about eating “clean”. I might as well pour Quaker State in my cup for the Coca-Cola or Mountain Dew I like to have when we go out for a burger which definitely does me no good at all. 😜

[Redcap]

👍

[Redcap]

I’ve dehydrated my fresh raw eggs over the wood stove and in an electric dehydrator just fine. To rehydrate you mix 1 TBSP of the powdered egg with 1/5-2 TBSP water and whisk until smooth. Then they scramble up just fine or you can use them in French toast, to make omelets, or in baking or quiche. Any way you’d use whisked up eggs.

Most of the videos I’ve seen of people who cooked them first and then dehydrated them didn’t like the results when rehydrated. I have not tried it.

[Redcap]

That’s a good point, and I’d say yes, that community should be armed and organized. But I’m sure the point is that just having a basement filled with canned soup and gatorade or home canned jam and freezer chickens for a year and a bunch of guns – which is how some people do it and how prepares/homesteaders are often portrayed – to defend that isn’t going to cut it. And I agree. The preparation mode most often cited in 2019 was “stock your house with food and supplies and be armed”. NOW, of course, the real and effective messages of having skills and community resiliency are getting out there more. And that’s actually more dangerous to the government than a lone wolf family out in Utah or Montana armed and able to feed themselves canned food for a year. So yes, people should be armed but more importantly communities should be skilled, armed, and organized.

[Redcap]

I forgot to add that my husband bought some kind of concrete board (if that’s what it’s called) and built the pad it’s on and put some of that behind the stove against the wall also. I don’t remember what that cost. Maybe $100 or less. Our floor isn’t level so he had to build a platform and then put the board on instead of just laying it under the wood stove.

[Redcap]

I think you can get the stove from Ashland Stoves or Stoves and More or something like that. It’s from Ashland, Ohio. It’s an odd stove. Dual coal and wood with a deep bed inside. Not the usual wood stove. But it works great.