Living Life in Rural Iowa

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 sev

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 th