y2k supplies

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We've been using and restocking and rotating our long term supplies that we put together. Have had some good suprises and some bad suprises in what we consider our "dry run" of storing supplies that we would not ordinarily have a year's supply of.

Garden seeds: - Bad suprise!! We'd have been in big trouble on several seeds. Purchased new, packed correctly in big popcorn tins. Thoroughly bugged when we opened to plant. (This time, we could just run out and buy replacement, - but gotta rethink how to make sure we don't have all the seeds at risk again. Obviously, we bought and packed seeds and bugs.)

Pain pills & antibiotics: - Bad surprise - Month six and we are out. We'll be rethinking that one.

Flour, sugar, all baking and cooking needs: Good surprise - (and the one I was worrying about the most) Storage dates are on all containers. I opened the ones that had been stored seventeen months in buckets from the deli with lids and the ones in big totes with duct tape around the rims where the lid meets the body. Perfect.

Loving having the big farm tanks of deisel and gasoline.

How's your stuff looking - any surprises.

-- homestead2 (homestead@monreocty.net), June 05, 2000

Answers

The dog food and the tissues ran out about 2 months ago, and the TP is about done, as well as the toothpaste and shampoo. Suger, flour, rice, beans (dry - canned all gone), tomatoes (whole and sauce), jellies, pickles, powdered milk, soups (homemade and commercial, canned and dry - ie; oodles of noodles), and pasta look like they'll make the 1 year mark.

Gas is long gone, but kerosene, and propane will make the 1 year mark too! OTC Meds were a big surprise for me - they didn't seem to last as long as I thought they would - don't know where all of the aspirin and Immodium AD went to!

I stored my seeds out in the fridge in the shed - but then again I have the luxery of 2 fridges on the property - and had no problems with bugs or germination this year.

-- Eric in TN (ems@nac.net), June 05, 2000.


Ran out of toilet paper last month!!! Food supply held up well, as did seeds and personal care items. Water turned smelly. Did have a purifier, but watered the plants with it instead of wasting the charcoal filters. Never storing tap(municipal) water again. Makes you wonder just WHAT grew in there!

-- Sue (sulandherb@aol.com), June 05, 2000.

Dog food also ran out here. I did a dumb thing though. I had some 5 gallon buckets with lids on them, so I took advantage of them. I packed 5 lb. bags of flour (in a zip lock bag), matches, etc. but also put a bar of soap (also in a zip lock bag) in the same bucket. Went to make bread with the flour, couldn't figure out why the bread tasted and smelled like soap. DAAAAAAAAAA Needless to say, we learned the hard way on that one. I thought if things were in a zip lock bag that the smells would stay in that bag. WRONG!!!!!!

-- Pat (pmikul@pcpros.net), June 05, 2000.

LOL!! Really surprised! I thought I had a year's worth of everything. Have about 1 month left on toilet paper and rice both. Didn't know I used that much of both of them. Everything else looks good, except bottled water may only make it about 3 more months. I consider this a very good learning experience. Now I know what I really use of everything, and will never be without a year's supply again.

-- Jill Faerber (lance1_86404@yahoo.com), June 05, 2000.

Our town gets flooded in with no exits sometimes! We are such a small town if the power goes out, we are the LAST ones to get ours fixed! I think we are good yet for 19 floods & 76 storms with no power! ha-- just kidding--but ever time our kids come to visit --I say," need to do any shopping in our store rooms??"---If, we would learn to acquire a taste for powdered milk (for other than in cooking)---I probably wouldn't have to go to the store for about 2 more years! I have, had a lot of "without" times in my life --so when ever we had an extra buck--I bought food that could be stored & used latier! Figured it was a good investment! It has also helped others, when they needed a little help! Now, ya won't find any convience foods, chips, or the like---but, if ya get hungry I can feed ya! You name the kind of beans or what kind of rice! Pasta-& veggies!(grains for sprouting). I can usually whip out some kind of desert, & a glass of herb tea! No meat at this house!!!! Sonda in Ks.

-- Sonda (sgbruce@birch.net), June 05, 2000.


Just this week we were surprised by a leak in a 6 gallon water storage container...so we used it to water plants outside. It was brand new in December. I knew I didn't have a whole year's worth of stuff, and I certainly have enjoyed being able to look in the cupboard and find what I need. I have to get used to the re-stocking though. I have enough batteries for a very long time though!

-- Anne (HT@HM.com), June 06, 2000.

We still have plenty of most things left! I keep wondering whatever made me think I would use up a 5 gallon bucket of molasses in a lifetime, though! We used up all the dried noodles a long time ago, and cheese was gone by I think the end of February (except I have a small box of Velveeta in the pantry! But I was talking about cheese...)I have enough cans of tuna still to start my own industry, but we are plowing through it. Still some canned hams, too. Mostly I have a lot of sauces, cereals and grains left. Got lots of paper products, BLEACH (thanks Alan, I still have your purifying water instructions taped inside my laundry room cabinet!!) meds (people and critters), and grain for the animals. I did not get enough cat food but it was planned to feed them eggs/cereals if things were bad. Biggest problem for us would have been hay for next year and there wasn't anything we could have done about it except eat some of our sheep...also part of the plan, but not my first choice!

Oh yeah, the gasoline is gone! It's what I have been using for commuting to school...I never have any money for gas! I never have seem to have any money on me, unless I just sold some eggs and it just vanishes...Seeds are just fine. I buy mine from Territorial, and I am still getting great viability even with 1997 seed stock! And I am lovin' planting my garden this year....so many seeds and so much variety! Nice to have all this on hand!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), June 06, 2000.


We didn't have near enough, of anything-had there been a true y2k situation. A real eyeopener. Now, that's not to say I'm sorry to have planned for it. The 'oil/gas' price gouging this winter would have been a problem, had I not overstocked the pantry. Live and learn.

-- Kathy (catfish@bestweb.net), June 06, 2000.

We are still using our toilet paper and stuff -- I had been keeping track of how long things like that lasted, so wasn't taken by surprise there. We hadn't been able to put away a full years supply of anything, though, except rice and dry beans and powdered milk -- and we always have honey on hand. The biggest problem I have now is that since we have (all -- hubby, daughter, and myself) gone on the low-carb diet -- for life -- it will probably take a lifetime to use all that high-carb stuff up!! We weren't stocked up on flour, thankfully, due to my celiac disease, so don't have that to worry about. Well, honey doesn't spoil, and we can give some of the rest of it to family and friends, so it won't go to waste. And I do agree that the whole thing was a good exercise.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), June 06, 2000.

Sheepish, have you ever tried putting molasses in baked beans? Every time I do and take them somewhere everyone wants to know what the secret is. (I also add a little Jim Beam) Maybe that will help use your supply up. Molasses are wonderful. We need a strain to find out how everyone else uses them. Our supplies are holding up pretty well. I found OTC meds surprising as well. We still have plenty, but I didn't realize that we use them as much as we do. Paper goods are still fine. Canned meats are gone (other than tuna) Some of our things like canned soups etc I knew I didn't have enough of and I was right. This year I'm going to try canning them myself. I am SOOOO glad we stocked up. In a few weeks I'm traveling to the "big city" and the nearest mennonite bulk store to restock our shelves. The inventory should be interesting! When hubby does his annual training for the guard we plan on using the funds to restock for the next year and save for the future. Y2K sure helped us get on the right track!

-- Jennifer (KY) (acornfork@hotmail.com), June 07, 2000.


Our supplies have held up fine tho there are a few thing we have run low on. vitamins are low, we bought a number of bottles of lemon juice, the dates have expired and it has gone bad. TP? we have enough for another 6 months. We had cans of Tomato sauce that rusted through and leaked. I still have a 55 gallon drum of kerosene, the 350 gallon tank of gas that i got in December ran out last month but I proabaly have enough diesel for another year. If there had been a problem I would not have been traveling as much, I am sure my gasoline would have lasted longer. Our water storage never exceedeed 15 gal. it was only for a few hours of backup until I got the well running with the generator. I am sorry now that i bought such a big, (heavy) generator but i did that well before our stocking up frenzy. I have planted last years sweet corn seed along with some from this year, I see no difference in production. We have 3 refrigerators and 2 freezers, one freezer is empty the other half full but we will be butchering a beef and a hog soon and need the space. We can see some of the mistakes we made for putting in supplies but we would have been in pretty good shape had the worst happened.

-- Hendo (redgate@echoweb.net), June 07, 2000.

Still plenty of everything and all seems to have stored well thus far except...

I thought I had bought a bag of sorghum to plant this spring and when I opened it, surprise, surprise, it was a bag full of weevils.

-- William in WI (thetoebes@webtv.net), June 07, 2000.


I became familiar with food storage and self reliance by exposure to Mormons. They have done this for many years. It's amazing to see what some of them have put up. I did it on a minimal basis untill I thought there would be a y2k problem. I really beefed up my efforts last year. I had some kind of problem with little white worms in the raisins. Yuk! Anybody know what they are and how to prevent them? I think we would have had enough rice, beans, wheat, sugar, honey, yeast, pasta, the basics for a year. The paper products would have run out about now. The canned goods and extras would have run out about now also. We planned to purify water from a pond out back. We were really lacking in fuel if there had been a problem. I continue to keep up our suppliesby rotating and replacing the used items. I plan to put up alot of my own stuff this year for the first time. Denise

-- Denise H. (jphammock@earthlink.net), June 08, 2000.

Love reading about what you stored. No one in UK stored much at all there was very little heard about Y2K problems here. Where on earth did you keep a years worth of everything you must have bigger houses than us in England

-- Sue Cuthbert (fareacre@btinternet.com), June 11, 2000.

Sue, my house is very small.I stacked 5 gal. buckets in a 1/4 of a childs room almost to the ceiling. I also bought another big pantry type cabinet from Walmart and had the space under the beds packed tight. Things like charcoal and fuel went into the garage. Come to thonk of it I put quite a bit in the breezeway too. So in other words everywhere there was a nook or cranny, I filled it! I really like having it even though there werent any y2k problems. Where there is a will there is a way! Denise

-- Denise (jphammock@earthlink.net), June 11, 2000.


Sue, food storage space has always been something we planned for ever since we've been a we (22 years). At our other house, we had a cellar house for our apples, potatoes and such and a nice fruit cupboard with shelves that held almost 1000 quarts. (Make those shelves STRONG. Once a shelf gave out and dumped 66 quarts of tomatoe juice on the floor - broke every one - worst mess you ever saw. )

In the new house we planned for our fruit cupboard space in the basement and made it big enough for storing the home canned food and the purchased supplies and potatoes and such - and built it to double as our fallout shelter. Seemed to be the logical place, since it is where all the food is. We've already had occasion to spend a few nights down there during a nasty series of tornadoes in June of 1998.

I never go down to get something from the fruit cupboard that I don't pause to appreciate the buckets and sealed totes of long term supplies. They are a great source of comfort to me. You never know when they will be a Godsend to someone you know. Our son rented a cottage and set out to live on his own. He was a little naive about how far his income would take him. He said he had it all covered but food. It only took me a few minutes to fix him up with a month's food for one from our y2k supplies. He said "No, not from your y2k supplies!" We said - these supplies were for who ever needed them and when ever they needed them. This is the year 2000 - no matter what did or did not go wrong.

-- homestead2 (homestead@monroecty.net), June 11, 2000.


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