for chick coop

Preparedness Challenge 35

Welcome to the Preparedness Challenge! Sorry that its a week late! Its usually the last Saturday of the month, but just pretend its still May for a minute.

Each month USA Emergency Supply hosts a give away to encourage families to set something aside to prepare for a time of emergency or the unexpected. Those who link up or leave a comment of something they did during the month to be prepared will be entered in the drawing.

month, with all the "camping talk" here on the blog, we thought that an emergency kit for the outdoors would be a great item for everyone to have in their camping supplies.  Emergencies dont happen exclusively at home. In fact, often our medical emergencies happen when were enjoying the outdoors. (Wasp stings... that was our last "catastrophe".) Sorry I dont have a photo to show you the kit, but you can read about it HERE.


Another item were including is Kurt Kings "Herbs to the Rescue", an herbal first aid handbook that you can take with you - just in case!


How I Met The Challenge!

Heres what I did this month in each category (see category definitions near bottom of the post)...

• Food Storage: I replenished my wheat and oat storage since we go through this pretty fast. Did I mention I bought half a cow? It should be here this month (June)! But Im getting ahead of myself.

• Emergency Preparedness: I purchased two books on edible wild plants. I had put this purchase off for way too long. With all the spring weeds popping up all over my property, I figured now was a good time to get familiar with them! The first book I selected was Natures Garden by Samuel Thayer and the second was Edible Wild Plants, by John Kallas. Both were highly rated and between the two, they should cover a lot of plants!

• Sustainable Living: month I started several medicinal herbs from seeds, planted lots of summer vegetables in the garden, and brought home my new milk goat. I also did a bit of research on forages for animals and I experimented by sprouting some wheat for the hens. I did this without artificial lights or watering systems so I could see if it could be done easily if the electricity is down. No problem - especially since someone told me that the wheat grass is at its nutritional peak for chickens on day 4 after sprouting.

Now its your turn to join the Preparedness Challenge..

Join the Challenge & Enter The Give Away

To be entered in the drawing, leave a comment on something you did this week to be more prepared in terms of food storage, emergencies, or sustainable living (or all three areas!) OR link up your Preparedness Challenge blog post (you only need to comment or post, not both). Posts not related to at least one of the three areas of preparedness will not be counted toward the give-away. Please be sure to clearly state in your comment or post what you did this month to be more prepared (see my example above as one easy way to do this). Again, the three areas we are focusing on include: 


• food storage for lifes unexpected events whether related to long term effects from a disaster or a job loss and everything in between

• emergencies for times of power outages, natural disasters, and such

• sustainable living in order to be more independent, both physically and financially, and to live as close to the land as possible given each individuals situation