Lou McLeod: Top 15 PREParedness Posts of 2015 at Mom with a PREP

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It’s time to look back at the Top 15 PREParedness Posts of 2015, and capture what has really moved me, and moved you as readers!

It’s been a year of growing at Mom with a PREP. Our focus shifted from merely getting PREPared, but actively living a more self-reliant life. Don’t get me wrong, emergency PREParedness* is still at the top of our mind for our family, but we’ve also expanded on the idea and begun to think more heavily on those things that will lend themselves to us becoming more self-reliant, healthier and happier this year.

*And you know me…EVERYTHING is PREParedness related!

Top 15 PREParedness Posts of 2015

101+ Meals in a Jar Recipes

Meals in Jars are a great way to put aside whole meals for your food preps. Through the canning or dry vacuuming process, you can put a meal up to help create long-term food storage. While there are all sorts of fun things you can store in a jar in the fridge or keep on a shelf for a short period of time, I’m going to concentrate mostly on those food storage meals that you can put by for long-term.

What Foods Can You Not Dehydrate?

Have you ever wondered if you could dehydrate something as wonderful as avocados? I have. I love them, and they have such a short lifespan, and I want to preserve their awesomeness…but can I actually dehydrate them? As with every food preservation safety list, there are foods you should, foods you might not want to, and foods you shouldn’t preserve.

Family Emergency Binders: Create Your Own from Ready-Made Resources and Free Downloads

Do you have one place where you keep all of your important records/documents handy? If ever you had to make a run for it, would you have all of the important documents you needed to rebuild your life? Hopefully, it’s in a fireproof location, and in a great organized binder where you can find everything quickly. No? Then get started!

Square Foot Gardening Mistakes – Learn from Ours First!

Square Foot Gardening – our favorite method of managing a garden in a small suburban landscape. But we did make a few mistakes along the way. Learn from our mistakes before you tackle your garden!

Build a Brick Rocket Stove

Do you need an alternative cooking source that is inexpensive, quick to put up, relatively mobile, and easy to use that is more than a small rocket stove? Today, one of my friend, Bunny Wickham, is guest posting on the blog, sharing her story of how she and her husband built a concrete brick rocket stove in one afternoon. They now have an alternative, non-permanent means of cooking at their home in the case of an emergency. This is even portable in case they need to relocate.

15+ Chicken Nesting Box Hacks

Recently I told you about my Dad’s DIY Chicken Tractor that he made on the cheep. One of the things he used was a salvaged nesting box to help bring the cost down for the coop. While setting a box with some hay down seems easy enough, you actually need to have a ‘home’ for your chickens to lay their eggs and feel safe. Sure, they’ll lay eggs anywhere, but it’s a good idea to have a place.

150 Preparedness & Homestead Items You Need to Stock

If you want a checklist of those items you need to have to be better PREPared for your family, to be more self-reliant, and to begin living a more homestead-driven life, check out this list put together by a great group of women living the life! Please don’t let this list overwhelm you! It’s just a list that you can work on as you go. Not every item is something you’ll need for your particular circumstance, so don’t feel like you have to have it all right now. Use the list as a reference guide for those things you can use, keep track of what you need to purchase or learn to make, and take pride in how far you’ve come, and make goals for what you need to accomplish!! It’s a tool, not a judgement!

How to Rid of Annoying Fruit Flies and Gnats in the Kitchen

Those little fruit flies or gnats that you get in the summer (not the ones on the outside that try to eat you)? You know those irritating little things that seem to infest your house the second they get a whiff of something that’s not perfectly ripe? The ones, that if you don’t realize it, can infest a whole pantry in a black cloud of ick when you drop a potato on the ground and don’t realize it, and it gets kicked into the back behind your buckets of dry goods? Yeah…those gnats or flies or whatever they are. They’re awful. But I have a few ways to try to combat them that will help!

How to Dehydrate Marshmallows

I admit that I buy those envelopes of hot chocolate for the winter. My kids love it, it’s so easy to mix with a bit of milk and be done. I can make my own, but the packets are SOOOOOOOOOOOO convenient aren’t they? But there are never enough marshmallows in them for us. During the fall, tons of different flavored marshmallows become available for Christmas baking. But we don’t necessarily use them all during that time and want to be able to enjoy them year-long as treats. So what’s a girl to do? Dehydrate them!

How to Create Pill Bottle Firestarters

One of the best things that you can do for your kids is to teach them to be more self-reliant and knowledgeable about their own survival at an early age. Make it a part of everything that you do and it won’t seem like such a weird concept.

Create a 72 Hour Emergency Kit – FREE DOWNLOADBLE CHECKLIST

Picture this: A local emergency of some sort has emergency personnel knocking on your door telling you that you have 5 minutes to evacuate your house (fire, gas leak, railroad collision, earthquake). What will you spend those 5 minutes grabbing? Hopefully you’ll say your children and your 72 hour kit (and then whatever else you think you have time to grab and can carry).

50 Organizing Tips for Food Storage & Emergency Supplies

Every year I have to reorganize my pantry at least twice – usually during the spring and fall. Our food choices change, our stockpiles change, we get new equipment, and everything has to change to accomodate it. So I’ve put together a list of organizing tips to help you with your challenges. Whether you’re an organizing pro or just getting started, I hope that one of these ideas helps you gain a little control over what can become preparedness clutter!

150 Homesteading, Preparedness & Survival Skills to Learn

In our modern age, few people could mark off 15 of these skills as something they are knowledgeable AND skillful at doing. I can mark off quite a few that I know, understand and pratice; I can check mark quite a few more where I have knowledge of how to do it, but not necessarily the skill to actually do (which means a check needs to be further studied and learned); and then there are the wholly blank where I have little or absolutely no clue about at all. The good news? Looking at the checks and blanks gives me a place to start!

25+ Cinder Block Projects for the Homestead

You have all of these ideas, but never enough money to make them come true. But have you thought of other ways of putting those projects together with materials that might not have cost as much and can be upgraded for a fraction of the cost of the original project idea?

How to Dehydrate Cherries

Do you find that you love cherries, but only want to buy them when they are actually in season — whatever are you to do the other ten to eleven months when they aren’t available? Dehydrate them so that you can preserve the in season goodness the whole year!

And here are a few of my favorite articles that you may have missed from this year!