Living Life in Rural Iowa

Food storage is one of the most fundamental facets of prepping, homesteading, and self-sufficiency. You want to make sure you have your needs for water, food, and shelter covered before all else. That is basic prepping, but in this day and age, you might want to take your food storage to the next level. 

To increase food storage (and take it to the next level), a lot of people (including me) really push growing your own food to help supply your food storage. You have better, more nutritious food on hand and you get back far more food than what you pay for seeds and plants. You are relying a little less on the food supply chain which also helps your budget.

Growing most if not all these foods listed below is fairly easy. You want to have good soil or use raised beds, but these vegetables do not need a lot of tender loving care to grow. You will want to keep the plants from being eaten by deer, rabbits, and other creatures until they are big enough to survive. 

With cold frames or row cove…

For many preppers, bartering is part of their plans. Bartering is the exchange of goods and services without the exchange of money. Say you needed eggs from your neighbor, but didn't have any money to pay for them. You might offer some produce from your garden as payment for the eggs. Your neighbor and you are bartering goods with the outcome that it will be beneficial to both of you.

Bartering works if you are practical about what you have and the value of the items you have to barter with. Most people will be looking to barter things they can eat or use. They will be more willing to help you roof your home in exchange for you helping roof their home. Ideally, bartering should be equal value and equal service. Most people will be very happy to trade on these terms and be conscientious about fulfilling their end of the bargain.

Having watched many people (including my father) barter successfully time and time again, bartering does work. You need to be conscious of the value of the t…

Depending on what part of the country you are in, the coronavirus restrictions are lifting in time for the summer. Although many businesses and other places are being cautious about letting people in again, they are starting to open up. 

However, this party is not over with yet. There have been predictions of another wave of this virus as well as possibly a third wave. Schools may not be able to have school the whole year again and some schools are already talking about going online for the next year. 
If you were not prepared for the first wave of this pandemic, you were not alone. Many people were not prepared. If some of the preppers were being honest, they were not totally prepared either. There were a lot of unpredictables and the timelines differed depending on where you lived. 

If and when the next wave(s) of this virus comes, there will be a few things that you can be fairly certain will happen:

1. More local businesses will be closed again or operating under severe restrictions.
2…

Besides water, food is the next critical thing to store for any prepper. Food is one of the seven core areas of preparedness. You can live three days without water and three weeks without food, but who wants to do that if you can be prepared ahead of time. Having a good supply of shelf-stable foods is essential for your well-being as well as for survival. 

Most of the food you store will be shelf-stable (meaning you don't need a refrigerator or freezer to keep the food good). Ideally, you want to start with 2-4 weeks worth of food for short-term preparedness. For most events that can happen right now, 2-4 weeks is ideal because you will still have access to the grocery store at some point. 

For long-term preparedness, you want to start with at least three months of food stored which means you will be leaning heavily on your food storage unless you are able to grow food in the meantime. You want to have a good variety of foods that are filling. If you are planning to eat the same thi…

With the renewed interest in self-sufficiency and learning new skills, we are constantly looking for new ways to live a simpler life. You want to become more independent and learn to produce your goods and food. Those are noble things to do and learn! 

In the course of learning new things and picking up new skills, you may need to purchase items that you cannot make yourself. You may not have the knowledge yet to make the thing you need or you need that item to finish your project. 

You may live in an area where you can grow a lot of food and have wonderful gardens, but you are restricted from having chickens, rabbits, or other livestock to produce your meat. You want to supplement what you are growing and producing, but feel resigned to going to the grocery store to get the rest of your groceries. 

While one of the biggest tenets in self-sufficiency to produce and grow your own food, you also need to realize that you may not be able to produce it all. Some people are willing to drastica…