New To Prepping

I was over at The American Preppers Fourms and read a couple of posts from a new member. For some reason those post's have stayed with me. She is very new to prepping....maybe even just kicking the idea around. In the second one (which I can't find...GRRR) she was still feeling overwhelmed and wanted to know where to start. Here is an excerpt from her first one.

Hi, I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm somewhat new to prepping and just trying to get started. There is so much to learn and do. I find it a bit overwhelming.

I woke up thinking about it again today. It has nagged at me until I realized what it was....

THAT WAS ME about a year ago. I think sometimes we forget about the folks out there just starting out.
Not on purpose of course. But sometimes we just do. I realized that I have come along way in a short amount of time but I should never forget that I was where she is now not all that long ago.

I didn't leave a post back to her and I feel just awful about that. I have been searching for her second post all over and just can't seem to find it. But I will.... I owe her that....

She reminded me that I should extend a helpful hand whenever I can. We were all new on this journey at some point. And sometimes ya just need to be reminded.

Funny

Revolution

What NOT To Do When Canning

I managed to get some canning accomplished yesterday afternoon. I also made a rookie mistake that I can assure you will never happen again.
I was waterbathing a load of strawberry jam in the pressure canner and was trying to open the lid.
Well the dang thing had created a seal. Did I stop and let the pressure release? Oh no, not me. I forced the dang thing open. A word to the other rookies out there...... DON'T DO THIS. I was lucky to only come out of it with a scalded foot. It could have been a whole lot worse.

Since I don't have the room or the weather here for strawberries I look for them to go on sale. I found some for $1.71 a pound and grabbed three pounds. Enough for 8 jars of jam. I also put up three more pints of pickled okra and three jars of bread and butter pickles. Anyone know of another way to put up okra? I'm all ears.

I HATE WEEDS! It's official! I've been pulling weeds for the last two hours and that's just in the west garden. I haven't finished there yet and still have the entire East garden to go. LOL it never ends! I guess I should be glad something is growing well as hot as it has been here this summer.

Well here we go. I haven't got a single thing in my head to blog about today but as this IS my site I guess I can just let it roll and see what happens!

The first attempt at putting in the fall garden has been almost a 100% total loss. One good thing about living here in Cental Texas though is that we still have about a month before it gets too late for planting the fall crop. The drought we are in hasn't made this a good year. I planted all of the West garden(except for the pea patch- which is amazingly still producing!) about a month ago and all that has come up are about 10 turnip plants. Sad but true. The part I hate the worst is that I wasted all those good non-hybrid seeds. Oh well, I suppose I ought to chalk it up to the learning curve.

The east garden is still producing a little okra and the yellow squash is slowing way down but I got a few baby squash from it this morning. Enough for a side dish for dinner tonite. The new tomato plants are coming along. I sure hope they do well as we got almost nothing from the spring plants. This is the first year that the spring plants haven't lasted through the fall. They just flat burned up. Such a hot summer!
The one thing that I planted with any luck so far this fall is winter squash. It is doing well and actually is blooming already!

Well I am off to make some bread and I still have errands to run!
Guess I ought to get busy!