A Fabulous Find at Restore
We’ve been paring down our possessions since before COVID-19, but that quarantine period definitely gave us time to clean out the garage, basement and attic. Now that we have a house firmly in our sights and expect to close in a month, we’re moving in to high gear. That meant a trip to the closes Habitat for Humanity ReStore with the back seat and the bed of my truck loaded with donations.
We gave away all sorts of leftovers from projects, like bathroom fixtures and lights, tile, small appliances, glassware, cooking pans, kitchen stuff, and framed art. I think my wife was especially thrilled to de-clutter.
Then we went inside to take a look around. They had lots of gently used furniture, which means I now know where I am taking any leftover furniture when we move. (The new house is smaller, so we’re down-sizing and getting rid of stuff.) Then we saw it: A 9-tray food dehydrator, brand new in box. Although we were there to drop stuff off, it was from a major brand and hard to pass up at one-fourth the normal sale price, so we bought it.
It’s staying in its box until we move, but we consider it a win!
Storing Your Own Food
We have a large pressure canner, and we also use the hot-water bath method for making jams and fruit preserves. My wife makes pickles, and we freeze meats in our upright freezer. But we’ve been missing out on dehydrating our own food, so we’re looking forward to this.
I’ve usually purchased dehydrated foods commercially in #10 cans. They make up an important part of our long term food storage planning. Once we get settled in our new home and have some time on our hands, we’ll see about dehydrating foods ourselves and storing them in jars.
There are plenty of blogs and YouTube videos out there on how to dehydrate foods.
Take Advantage of this Window to Prep
Headlines tonight are proclaiming that stock futures are down because governors are slowing their re-opening plans due to a resurgence of COVID-19. That means the people with money at risk are panicking.
If COVID-cases rise and headlines keep saying things like “Phoenix alone could see 28,000 infections per day,” everyone is going to panic. That’s going to mean more runs on toilet paper, cleaning and disinfecting products, meat, flour, yeast, and canned foods.
Stock up on things during this window of opportunity. When the panic trickles back down to the common man, the easy availability of food is going to be over and we’re going to see empty store shelves again.
