Krazy Glue for Your First Aid Supplies

I had a friend write with an idea for 72 hour kits or first aid kits. Her son fell about 9 feet out of a tree onto the cement edge of their pond and got a nasty gash by his eye and a concussion.  After getting it all cleaned up and disinfected, a neighbor who also happens to be a nurse gave them some of this to close the cut up. 

Krazy Glue?  Seriously.  If you've ever gotten this stuff on your fingers, you know how well it sticks skin together.  And the individual use tubes are perfect--you probably also know how well a big tube of Krazy Glue glues itself shut after one use.  The nurse friend told them super glue was invented for the purpose of closing skin.  Their son did have to take a trip to the doctor to get the concussion checked out, he's doing much better and the cut is reportedly healing nicely.

I know when we had our daughter fall and cut her chin, the emergency room glued it together.  They probably used one of these mini tubes of Krazy Glue and charged us a fortune for it.  Definitely would have been cheaper to do that one ourselves!  It would be worth picking a few of these up and having them handy in your first aid kits or emergency kits.

How about you?  Ever used a form of super glue to glue a wound shut?

Last Week's Preparedness Fair Update

After our little two-county preparedness fair last week, I got thinking.  There are different kinds of preparedness fairs in the world.  Some are for teaching skills, some are primarily lectures about hard times coming, some are mainly to sell stuff.  Our two county fair is lightly to get people aware of possible emergencies and what they can do about it personally and a little heavier on letting different agencies show off their trucks, equipment, facilities, etc.  Interesting.  All that aside, we did have a pretty good turnout for a little place.  Here's how it was set up.

It was held at the local High School.  Outside were a bunch of emergency vehicles, plus the local amateur radio club trailer.  They had lifeflight helicopter landing on the football field a couple of times during the four hour fair, plus outdoor demonstrations by the police dogs.

The way they get people around here to show up for a preparedness fair at all is to offer free food.  Here's the hamburger joint setting up.

They did a very good job advertising this year.  They also had signs on the auditorium letting people know what was going on when and where, so nobody had to wander around confused.

The information booth led to the stairs to get down to the auditorium floor where the "vendors" were.  Only about 4 of the vendors had anything for sale, the others were businesses like the power company, gas company, etc. letting people know how to avoid an emergency.  There were also a couple of speakers in another room that I didn't get to go listen to.  I'm sure they were fabulous.

Lots of hand outs--good thing I brought my super helper son so he could go round things up for us since I was busy at the booth the whole time.  Especially when I needed a burger. :)

Homemade Laundry Detergent Dispenser

Here's a great little gadget my mom discovered for storing and pouring her homemade laundry soap--the Coffee Mate creamer bottle.  They are pretty sturdy little bottles with a nice flip top lid and pour spout.  If you don't drink coffee, maybe you have a friend who would save a couple for you.  They fit nicely in the laundry cupboard also, better than the squatty plastic gladware bowl I was using.

And I've altered my recipe since the first post on it--here's the new one:
1 bar Fels Naptha soap shredded
1 bar Ivory shredded
2 cups washing soda
3 cups borax

That's it--almost the same as before.  I still use the generic crystal light drink mix tub to measure the amount for a load of wash--it is about 2 tablespoons.  I heap it and that's good for a load.  One batch of the above recipe lasts about a month around here.

Now off to do some more laundry. :)

Book Review: Survivalist Family by Joe Fox

Joe Fox from Viking Preparedness recently contacted me about a book he had written called Survivalist Family: Prepared Americans for a Strong America. I'm sure he's glad to see that I'm finally getting the review up.  Life has been nuts lately, but I've finished the book and have to say I really enjoyed it.

This book covers preparedness with a family in mind.  It is not doom and gloom, but does point out some very real possibilities for situations a family might need to prepare for.  Then it systematically walks you through the steps to take to get your family prepared.

Here are a few of the things I really liked about it:

I tend toward a bit of ADD, so the length of 195 pages and the fact that it wasn't written in super fine print and it included pictures were all a bonus.  But don't let the relative shortness of it fool you--there is a ton of good information in it.  In fact, it cuts through all the fluff and gets down to the nuts and bolts of getting prepared so that there's real action information all through the book.  You'll probably want to keep a pen and paper handy so you can jot down the ideas that you get while you're reading.

The tone of the book was very personable.  It was more like having a conversation with a friend than reading an instruction manual.  A conversation about getting prepared with a very knowledgeable friend.

He discusses practical ways of getting your spouse and family involved, an area often overlooked in the preparedness book genre.

He covers the basics in an organized manner, but as someone who has been prepping for a while, I didn't get bored silly reading about the basics.  I'd say this book is perfect for the serious beginner, but there is enough beyond the basics information in the book that anyone can get something out of reading it.  He covers making a plan, camping, evacuating, water, food, medicine, firearms, tools, and communications all with the family unit in mind.

He does not advocate spending tons of money on preparedness gear.  His emphasis is on doing something, and he offers some cheap alternatives to standard preparedness gear.  See why I like this book?  Totally up my alley.

Now, if you are one who will let formatting or a handful of typos deter you from gleaning valuable information from a book, you might have a hard time with this one.  I'm huge on spelling and grammar in my own work, but am willing to let it slide when I'm reading another person's work.  I really just want to know what they have to say that I can learn from and after reading Joe's book, I've already got some areas I plan to work on more with his advice in mind.

So definitely a keeper, and it's not so expensive that you can't get one for yourself and give one to a friend who is interested in preparing their family as well.

Survivalist Family: Prepared Americans for a Strong America is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  If you want a signed copy, you can get it from Joe at www.survivalistfamily.com.  Enjoy!

Comment Moderation and More Random Updating

Okay, I knew this day would come, but I was still hoping it wouldn't.  I've gotten increasing numbers of spam comments lately, mostly on older posts that I then have to go back to so I can remove the comment.  What a pain in my neck and poor use of my time!  So I've instituted comment moderation, but only on posts older than a week.  We'll see how this goes.  Sorry for the hassle.  Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with the moderating at a decent pace so you can still benefit from the comments, and with new posts not subjected to comment moderation it should still make the current topics easy to discuss.

Now for some updating.  Sweet husband has been crazy busy around here--he got the whole garden/fruit tree area plowed and tilled, then raked all the dirt clods to the low spot and planted grass around the baby fruit trees.  All in his spare time of which he has very little.  This will be much nicer than the trees and weeds combo we've had in the past.  He and the kids also got all the potatoes planted while I was gone this past week.  Yes, we're getting them in late.  We should still at least get baby potatoes out of them this year.

The kids and I will be getting the rest of the garden planted in the next couple of days.  Yes, we're late on that also.  Hoping for a late freeze this fall, but it's been so cold this spring and we've been more than the ordinary amount busy, so we plant when we can.  Hey, the pioneers planted on the 24th of July, right?

Speaking of busy, the two county Emergency Prep fair I went to the meeting for is this Friday, so I'll be there all afternoon.  It should be very good for a hickville prep fair.  4-8 pm Friday at the Spartan Center for you locals.  Free food, free stuff, some speakers (not me), and if the tables are sturdy enough I'll have the Country Living Mill up to try out.  Fun for all ages.

That is all for now, at least all my brain can remember--more great stuff another time. :)

What Makes Prepping Easier?

Just for fun, here's a few things I've found that make prepping/gardening/food preservation easier.

1. Lots of room.  Either in your yard or in your house.  For planting, building, storing.
2. Older kids.  Young ones are fun, but they'd rather play in the mud than pull weeds (okay, my older ones would too) even if that mud has your baby garden plants in it.  The older kiddos can actually be helpful.
3. Lots of time.  Tough canning everything you grow in your garden if you work a full time job or two.  Seriously.
4. Extra money.  We've made it work without much extra cash, but it sure would be easier if you have extra money to purchase the things you want or pay someone to till the garden or buy lots of peanut butter when it's on sale.
5. A cooperative spouse.  Fortunately I have this.  Some don't.
6. The right tools.  Tough to grind wheat with two rocks, although I'm sure you can if you really try.  Or can veggies without a pressure canner.  Same with building or fixing things--sometimes there is no substitute for the right tool.
7. Lots of practice.  Like anything, self reliance is learned best when you practice it often.

Don't worry if you don't have the things on the list.  Most of them I don't have either.  It just means you get to be a little more creative!  What have you found that makes it easier (or harder) to be self reliant?

Off to Girls Camp

Just thought I'd give you all the heads up here.  I'm heading out to Girls Camp today with a bunch of girls 12-18.  It is always an adventure.  We've got some really fun stuff planned and I'm excited to go even though we're "camping" at a house this year.  We've got outdoor skills to learn and we're sneaking in a couple of plays and swimming while we're there.  Hubby gets to play "mom" for a few days and I'll be back Saturday.  I do have posts scheduled, but  won't be around to read comments or anything.  Enjoy the rest of your week!

Augason Farms Dinner Pack Winner and Solar Dinner

Yes, I know this giveaway ended about forever ago, but we now officially have a winner!

Congratulations to Dixie from Ohio!  Augason Farms has your address, so it should be getting to you soon!  May you make many lovely meals with it. :)

And speaking of lovely meals, I cooked our lasagna today in the Sun Oven.  It helped keep the house cooler for sure.  I kind of slow cooked it because the oven has to be at a certain angle to fit a 9x13 pan in it, so I couldn't angle it right toward the sun, which worked okay because I wanted it for dinner and put it in about 2 in the afternoon.  So it cooked about 4 hours at 300 degrees or lower.  The top noodles dried out a little bit on the edges, so we just tore those parts off and ate the rest.  Very cool.

A Couple of New Living History Adventures for Us

For the past I don't know how many years we as a family have taken part in a mountain man rendezvous living history event every August.  I love it, the kids love it, and I even think it has grown on sweet husband a bit.  This year we had the opportunity to go to one in Idaho that my uncle helps with, but had other things going that week (this week) that couldn't be missed so couldn't get up there for it.  It turns out sweet husband also has meetings the week we usually take our trip in August that he can't miss so we won't be able to get out to that one either.  Very disappointing.  The kids were quite bummed--this is one of their favorite events of the year.

But things are not all bad on the reenacting front.  We've found a couple of other events to help out with this summer that will hopefully cure the living history itch.

First is a pageant (outdoor play) put on in our county by the LDS Church that chronicles the early settlers of the area, the Castle Valley Pageant.  We've attended this in the past, but not been able to take part because it runs the same week as our annual trip to the rendezvous.  So this year we'll be playing pioneer instead of mountain man.

Then last week we also got asked to take part in the 1776 Freedom Village in Orem for the "Milestones of Freedom" event during Provo's Freedom Festival the 2nd-5th of July.  Can I just tell you that colonial is my very favorite clothing era? 

Okay, now we got that out of the way you all know just a little bit more about me.

Both of these are public events, so I expect to see some of you at them!

Now the fun of all this is that I'll have lots of sewing projects in the next couple of months.  I don't have pioneer era clothes for me or my kids (hubby won't be able to do that one because of the meetings), and I don't have colonial clothes for my husband (he likes the 1820-30 ish era clothes better).  I'll have to see if I can get him to wear breeches . . . this should be interesting. ;)

Super Quick Garden Update

Got most of the garden planted now.  I say most, but really we have a lot more to go, I'm just hoping it won't take too long--the prep work is mostly done.  Trying out a couple of new kinds of dry beans since we had so much fun with that last year.  They're not very pretty, but are supposed to taste good, so we'll see how they turn out.  All the parts for the water system are here, but not installed yet.

I planted my tomatoes, peppers, and onions outside before leaving for our little trip over Memorial Day and put soaker hoses on the whole planted sections of the garden hooked to our garden water timer that we only use when we take vacations.  It is a lifesaver.  Crazy thing though, when I got back about half the tomatoes had their tops frozen off and four of the pepper plants had frozen.  The tomatoes are all still alive at the base (although one is looking pretty bad).  Who said it could freeze at my house over Memorial Day weekend???  Tomorrow is supposed to be around 90 degrees.  Crazy weather here.  Hopefully the freezing is done finally because my first planting of beans is up already.  Ahhhh, the joy of gardening.  You never know what's going to happen, except weeds growing are almost a certainty!

Free Plants From my Mom

No, not for you, although I'm sure she'd share with you also if you were her favorite kid like I am.  ;)  Seriously, though, getting cuttings or shoots from other people's plants is a great way to expand your garden for free.  You might have a friend or relative willing to share their extra plants with you.

We took a trip over Memorial Day weekend out to see my fantastical mom.  Had a great time visiting the family and came home with some treasures.  She had an extra chicken feeder, so we can now give back the one we've been borrowing.  And she had plants.  Lots of plants.  So I took some home.  The rhubarb, lemon balm, varigated mint, and parsley we dug out with a little chunk of dirt around the roots and put them in little pots.  Well, the rhubarb needed a little bigger pot than the others.  Then we dug out a chunk of peppermint, a chunk of spearmint and a bunch of periwinkle ground cover.  These we transported home "bare root".  We shook the dirt off the roots, wrapped the plant bunches together with wet paper towels around their roots, and put them in an empty #10 can to keep them all together.  You could use wet newspaper also--the way Gurney's ships their plants.  These plants all spread and self propagate.  They are perennials so they'll come back on their own year after year, usually thicker than before which is why mom had extra to share.  Other plants that share well are flowers that grow from bulbs like tulips, daffodils, and iris.

Good thing for the chicken feeder, because that kept all the plants upright in the trunk for the 8 hour trip home.

Now they're home I put the bare root mints in pots with dirt while we get a space prepared for them and the ground cover is in the ground around the lilac bushes getting watered.  Plants from cuttings/shoots need a lot of water and love and water to stay alive the first little while.  I got some fine lilac bushes this way--cut some shoots that were poking up around the base of a friend's lilac bushes and planted them in my yard.  They needed LOTS of water to stay alive the first year, but now (four years later) they are respectable, healthy lilac bushes. 

I put the rhubarb in a bigger pot than it traveled home in and now have a whole collection of plants waiting under the Aspen trees for their own home in the dirt.  We'll be sacrificing a chunk of the lawn around my baby herb garden to plant some more herbs and whatnot, so I want the grass killed and some dirt moved in or tilled before I start planting.  Might be a bit, but in the meantime they're all happily growing in their pots under the trees.

And yes, I know I have a giveaway that ended.  I'm on catchup duty since returning home and I'll get a winner chosen and notified as soon as I can. :)