Pain Control When There Is No Morphine

Pain changes the shape of an emergency. A person who could walk becomes unwilling to move, somebody who should be resting cannot sleep, then fear arrives and everything feels worse than it did ten minutes ago. Most people assume pain control starts with medication, and I think it starts earlier. Something else is worth knowing […]

from Survivopedia

Rising Cost of Living: A Grandma’s Honest Look at Keeping Up

Let’s sit down together for a few minutes, maybe with a cup of tea or coffee, and talk about something that’s on almost everyone’s mind these days. The rising cost of living is hitting families hard, and I feel it right along with you. I’m a grandma, actually a great-grandma, and I’ve watched prices go up and down over the years, but lately it feels like they only go one direction: up. I just picked up two boxes of Quaker Oats (ten pounds each) for under $8.00 each. That was a bargain. There are only two of us now, so those 25-50 pounds of oats are no longer needed at my home. Yes, It’s been an adjustment. I’ll place them in airtight containers, and they’ll be good for at least two years.

I remember when a cart full of groceries didn’t make my heart skip a beat at the checkout line. Now I find myself doing math in my head as I shop, putting things back on the shelf, and wondering how young families with little ones are managing at all. If you’ve felt that same knot in your stomach, please know you aren’t alone. Let’s talk about what’s happening, how it affects our families, and the practical things we can do to keep our homes running and our spirits up.

Why Everything Seems to Cost More

When I talk with friends at church or neighbors over the fence, the conversation almost always turns to prices. Groceries, gas, utilities, insurance, rent, medicine, and even a simple birthday present for a grandchild all seem to cost more than they did not so long ago.

There are many reasons for the rising cost of living. Costs for farmers, truckers, and stores go up, and those costs get passed along to us. Bad weather can ruin crops. Supply problems can leave shelves bare and push prices higher. Housing has become harder to afford in most places, and wages don’t always keep pace with what we pay at the register.

I’m not an economist, and I won’t pretend to be. But I don’t need a degree to know what my receipt says. What I do know is this: we can’t control the economy, but we can control how we respond to it. That’s where hope begins. I must confess, I’m discouraged at the amount of money we can spend on groceries. Thank goodness we have food storage; I can cook from scratch and make bread.

How Rising Prices Affect Families Like Ours

The rising cost of living doesn’t just show up on a receipt. It shows up at the dinner table, in our sleep, and in our relationships. I must say, I’m shocked at the families going through drive-thrus to feed their families. It’s expensive. The lines of cars are wrapped around the block. I realize they may have sports events, dance lessons, and other activities pulling at their time, but I hope they realize how much they’re spending every week for the convenience of the drive-thrus.

Young parents are working longer hours and still struggling to cover the basics. Many grandparents on fixed incomes are watching their savings shrink as they try to keep the lights on and the pantry full. Some of us are helping our grown children and grandchildren more than we ever expected, because we love them and we want to.

Stress about money can quietly creep into a home. It can make us short-tempered with the people we love most. It can steal our joy and keep us awake at night. I believe it’s important to name that stress out loud because once we do, we can start to face it with a plan rather than fear.

A Grandma’s Perspective: We’ve Been Here Before

My parents and grandparents lived through hard times, and they taught me lessons I still use today. They didn’t waste food. Clothes were mended instead of tossed. Most grew gardens, canned their harvest, and shared what they had with neighbors. They knew how to make a meal out of almost nothing and make it taste like love.

Those old-fashioned habits aren’t just sweet memories. They’re practical skills that can help us survive the rising cost of living right now. Frugal living isn’t about being cheap. It’s about being wise, grateful, and prepared. It’s about stewardship of what God has given us.

Practical Ways to Stretch Your Family Budget

Here are some of the things I do, and things I encourage my own family to do, to keep up with higher prices without losing our peace.

1. Make a Simple Budget and Review It Often

I know, budgeting doesn’t sound exciting. But you can’t fix what you can’t see. Sit down with a notebook and write out what comes in and what goes out each month. Include the little things, like that daily drink from the drive-through or the streaming service you forgot you had. Many families find money hiding in places they never thought to look. Once you see where your dollars are going, you can decide to make adjustments regarding where you want them to go going forward.

2. Plan Your Meals Before You Shop

Meal planning is one of the best tools I know for saving money on groceries. Look at what you already have in your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer first. Build your meals around those items, then make a list for only what you truly need. Stick to that list as best you can. Shopping without a plan, especially when you’re hungry, is a sure way to spend more than you meant to.

3. Cook From Scratch More Often

Convenience foods cost a lot more than the ingredients it takes to make them at home. A pot of homemade soup, a pan of baked beans, a loaf of bread, or a big batch of pancakes can feed a family for very little. Cooking from scratch also lets you control what goes into your food. Plus, it’s a wonderful way to spend time with children and grandchildren in the kitchen, passing down recipes and memories.

4. Build Your Food Storage Slowly

You don’t have to buy a year’s worth of food in one trip. When you see a good sale on items your family actually eats, pick up a few extra. Rice, beans, oats, flour, pasta, canned vegetables, and canned fruit are great places to start. Over time, your pantry becomes a cushion that protects you when prices jump or when money is tight. Remember to rotate your food so the oldest items get used first. Food storage on a budget is absolutely possible, one can at a time.

5. Waste Less Food

Did you know many families throw away a surprising amount of the food they buy? That’s like tossing dollar bills in the trash. Use leftovers for lunches. Turn wilting vegetables into soup or stir-fry. Freeze bread before it goes stale. Save meat bones to make broth. Spotty bananas make the best banana bread. A little creativity goes a long way.

6. Grow Something, Even If It’s Small

You don’t need a big farm to grow food. A few pots of herbs on a sunny windowsill, a tomato plant on the porch, or a small raised bed in the backyard can make a real difference. Gardening also teaches children where food comes from and gives them a sense of accomplishment. And there’s nothing quite like the taste of a tomato you grew yourself.

7. Lower Your Utility Bills

Small changes can add up. Turn off lights when you leave a room. Unplug things you aren’t using. Wash clothes in cold water and hang them to dry when you can. Adjust your thermostat a couple of degrees and grab a cozy sweater or blanket instead. Seal drafty windows and doors. These simple habits can trim your monthly bills without much sacrifice.

8. Shop Smarter

Compare prices at different stores. Try store brands, which very often are just as good as name brands. Buy in bulk only when it makes sense, and you have space to store it properly. Check clearance sections and use coupons or store apps if they work for you. Thrift stores and yard sales can be treasure chests for clothing, household goods, and toys for the grandkids.

9. Rethink Entertainment and Gifts

Fun doesn’t have to be expensive. Some of my family’s best memories came from picnics at the park, board game nights, library visits, and walks together. For birthdays and holidays, consider homemade gifts like baked goods, knitted items, a jar of homemade jam, or a handwritten letter. Children remember time and love far longer than they remember any toy.

10. Learn a New Skill

Learning to sew a button, change a furnace filter, can vegetables, or bake bread can save money for years to come. YouTube, library books, and experienced friends are wonderful teachers. Every skill you learn makes your family a little more self-reliant and a little less dependent on rising prices.

Leaning on Family, Friends, and Community

One of the sweetest things I’ve seen during hard times is how people come together. Neighbors swap garden produce. Friends share bulk purchases. Church families organize meal trains and pantry drives. Grandparents watch grandkids so parents can work, and grown children help their aging parents with errands and repairs.

There’s no shame in asking for help or accepting it. If your family is struggling, please reach out to your local church, food bank, or community programs. And if you’re in a position to help someone else, even in a small way, do it. A bag of groceries, a home-cooked meal, or a kind word can lift someone’s whole week.

Keeping Our Hearts at Peace

The rising cost of living can make us anxious, but I hold tight to my faith during uncertain times. I remind myself that God has always provided, even when the way forward wasn’t clear. Philippians 4:19 says, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” That verse has carried me through many lean seasons.

Gratitude helps too. When I start to worry about money, I try to count my blessings instead. A roof over my head. Food in the pantry, even if it’s simple. Family who loves me. Grandchildren who make me laugh. Friends who check in on me. When we focus on what we have instead of what we lack, our hearts grow lighter.

Teaching the Next Generation

As a grandma, one of my greatest hopes is to pass along the wisdom I’ve gathered to my children and grandchildren. I want them to know how to cook a meal from basic ingredients, how to save a little from every paycheck, how to care for what they own, and how to trust God when life feels uncertain.

Involve your kids and grandkids in budgeting conversations in ways that fit their age. Let them help plan meals, compare prices at the store, or plant seeds in the garden. These lessons will serve them for a lifetime, no matter what the economy does.

How To Make A Small Grocery Budget Stretch

Emergency Preparedness and Food Storage

Final Word

I won’t sugarcoat it. Keeping up with the rising cost of living is hard, and it may stay hard for a while. But we aren’t helpless. With a little planning, some old-fashioned skills, a supportive community, and a strong faith, our families can weather this season.

Start small. Pick one or two ideas from this post and try them this week. Maybe you’ll plan your meals, pick up a few extra cans for your pantry, or bake a loaf of bread with your grandchild. Every small step adds up, and before long you’ll see the difference in your budget and in your peace of mind.

I’d love to hear from you. What are you doing to stretch your family budget right now? Do you have a favorite frugal recipe or money-saving tip that has helped your family? Please share it in the comments below so we can all learn from each other. We really are in this together. May God bless this world, Linda

The post Rising Cost of Living: A Grandma’s Honest Look at Keeping Up appeared first on Food Storage Moms.

from Food Storage Moms

The Dark Side of Bugging-In That No One Talks About

Staying home in a crisis sounds like the easy choice, and on paper it is. You’ve got a full pantry and a roof, you know, so why trade that for a tent in the woods? That’s the thinking behind nearly every bug-in plan, and for good reason.

But the problems tend to start a few days in, and they rarely come from the direction you were watching. A modern house leans on the outside world for things you never think about on a normal day. So once that outside world stops working, the house itself starts letting you down in ways that add up fast.

We’ve spent decades getting comfortable with everything we need arriving through a wire or a pipe from somewhere we never see. And some of what goes wrong can’t be fixed with more supplies, no matter how full the basement gets.

A few of these problems could even end with you loading the truck and leaving the home you worked so hard to prepare.

8. The Skills You Never Practiced

Reading about a skill and owning it are two different animals. You’ve got the book on the shelf about wood stove cooking and water purification, and that counts for something. Then day four arrives, it’s dark at five in the afternoon, and you find out that you’ve never actually done any of it.

Cooking on a wood stove takes weeks to get a feel for, since the heat won’t hold steady the way a dial does. Butchering a rabbit the first time, by headlamp, with your family waiting on dinner, goes about how you’d expect. And a water filter you’ve never assembled comes with instructions written in six-point type.

So, before the first big storm rolls in, sit down with your family and go through the 6 winter home drills you must try ASAP, one weekend at a time. A few of them take less than an evening, yet they show you exactly where your setup breaks while you can still do something about it. Keep a notebook nearby, because the list of fixes tends to run longer than anybody expects. 

7. One Broken Part Can Shut Down Everything Else

Your whole setup probably rests on a few small parts that cost less than a tank of gas, and they tend to quit in the middle of a cold snap. Your well pump stops when its pressure switch dies, and your solar panels go useless once the charge controller fries. In a long crisis, you can’t drive to the supply house for a new one, because it’s closed and nothing is shipping.

So, to keep your most precious gear running, make sure you have these around the house:

• A spare pressure switch for the well pump. It’s cheap, and it’s the part that most often leaves you without water.
• Fuses for your solar system. A blown fuse can pass for a dead charge controller, so learn the secret trick that brings dead batteries back while you stock up.
• Gasket rope for the wood stove. A worn door gasket leaks smoke and burns your firewood twice as fast.
• O-rings and a pigtail hose for propane. One cracked hose can shut down your heat on the coldest night.
• Spark plugs and air filters for the generator. Pair them with this 10-minute tune-up that gets a stored generator to fire on the first pull.
• Leathers for the hand pump. Once they dry out and crack, the pump lifts no water at all.

6. Isolation Wears You Down Faster Than Hunger

For the first few days, you might enjoy the quiet and feel almost like you’re on vacation. But by the second week, you lose track of the days, and without your diner coffee or your Sunday pew, you lose the routines that kept you steady.

If you share the house with family, tempers rise fast, because nobody has anywhere to go to cool off. So you and a spouse of thirty years can end up snapping at each other over who used the last of the coffee.

When you live alone, you face a different problem, because nobody notices when you skip meals or sleep until noon. And past a certain age, losing easy access to your doctor means a dizzy spell or a missed refill can turn serious before anybody finds out. So you should set a daily schedule now and stick to it. A GMRS radio helps too, since you can agree on a nightly check-in with a neighbor and hear another voice before bed.  

Buying the radio is the easy part, and a lot of people stop right there, with the box still sealed in the closet. Before you ever key the mic, though, take a few minutes to learn the #1 thing to do before using a ham radio, which many people forget about. And if you forget it too, you could put your whole family at risk.  

5. You’re Still Hooked to the Grid in Ways You Can’t See

Plenty of us picture bugging in as cutting the cord, but the cord runs deeper into the house than you’d think. City water arrives under pressure from electric pumps at the treatment plant. On a well, your pump needs power too, so losing the grid means losing your water the same hour.

Your sewer line works the same way. Many towns move waste uphill with electric pumps called lift stations, and when those quit, the system backs up toward the lowest drain it can find. In plenty of neighborhoods, that drain is in somebody’s basement.

Heat has the same problem. A gas furnace still needs electricity for its blower and ignition, so a full propane tank heats nothing without power. A backwater valve on your sewer main solves one of these, a hand pump for the well solves another, and a wood stove covers the third.

4. You Can’t Count on Your Generator in the Long Run

A generator works fine for a three-day outage, but it can’t carry you through a long one. A midsize unit burns 12 to 18 gallons of gas a day running full time, so 50 gallons in the shed buys you maybe ten days of careful use. 

And the fuel goes bad as it sits, because gasoline starts breaking down in three to six months and ethanol blends pull water into the carburetor. The noise also tells everyone within half a mile that your house has power.

So the solution is to have a few backup power sources that don’t need a gas can:

• A sphere-shaped solar collector. The 3D Generator catches sunlight from all sides, so it keeps producing in the early morning and late afternoon when flat panels drop off. Its design comes from the way a housefly’s eye takes in light from every angle.
• A pocket-size solar charger. A Pocket Solar Generator fits in a kitchen drawer and keeps your radio and flashlights charged without making a sound.
• A thermoelectric generator for the wood stove. It sits on the stovetop and turns the heat you’re already making into power for small batteries, right through the winter months when solar is weakest.
• A propane conversion kit for your generator. Propane keeps for years without going stale, so the generator you already own runs on fuel that won’t gum up the carburetor.
• A pedal generator. An old exercise bike hooked to a small alternator charges a battery bank while you work your legs, and it runs just as well on cloudy days.
• A power plant you build in stages. With the 3-Month DIY Modular Powerplant, you put the system together in sections, so you can start small and add capacity as your budget allows.

3. The Hidden Cost of Bugging In

Few people ever sit down and add up what a self-sufficient home for a family of four really costs, and the total can take your breath away. A complete residential well typically runs $5,500 to $15,000, and a hand pump for it adds a couple thousand more. A full off-grid solar system averages around $51,000 installed, so power alone can cost more than a new truck. Then you add a wood stove with a proper chimney and a year of food for four, and you’re easily past $60,000 before you plant a single row.

And the spending keeps going long after the install. A well pump usually lasts only 10 to 15 years, and lithium batteries wear out on about the same schedule. Meanwhile, you keep rotating food and replacing worn parts whether you ever use them or not.

The smart way to handle it is to build in stages, starting with water, then heat, then cooking and finally power, because that order matches what kills people first. Buying used saves you real money too, and a cast iron stove from an estate sale heats a room just as well as a new one.

2. The Work to Feed Yourself Never Stops

Living off your own land sounds peaceful when you read about it on a winter evening. In a long crisis, though, the garden and the animals turn into a full-time job that doesn’t pause for weekends or bad backs.

Without a pump, you’ll haul water to the garden by the bucket in July, and a quarter acre of vegetables drinks more than you’d guess. The chickens need feed you can’t buy anymore, so you either grow grain for them or watch the egg count drop. Then August comes, and you’re canning tomatoes over a wood stove in a kitchen that feels like a hundred degrees.

One hailstorm or a bad week of blight can wipe out months of that work, and there’s no grocery store to fall back on. For anyone in their sixties or seventies, the body gives out long before the seed supply does.

Even so, you can cut a lot of that work by setting up your land to do part of it for you.

For examples, a self-feeding chicken coop means far fewer trips across the yard with a feed bucket in the snow. A 3-barrel water harvesting system off the roof puts water right beside the garden, and it saves you most of those trips in July. You can also plant the forever medicinal garden once and watch it come back year after year without reseeding.

For the hot weeks in the kitchen, Claude’s secret forever sausage recipe and a few other foods that keep for 10+ years let you put food away once and stop worrying about it.

If you’d like fish and greens from the same water, I recommend you to get into aquaponics and raise both in a small space near the house. Put together, these setups leave you with more time and a lot less strain on your body.

1. You May Have to Leave Your Home

You can do everything right and still wake up to a morning when your part of the county becomes unlivable. A chemical spill upwind or a wildfire coming over the ridge can force you out, and no amount of gear in the basement changes that. A well-stocked home also makes you slower to leave, because years of work sit down there and your gut tells you to stay. So you wait, the roads jam, and soon there’s no way out at all.

For that reason, write down your leave triggers now, like a fire within a set number of miles or water rising past a mark you picked. Then pack a bag for the door using this bug-out bag tier list, so the items that keep you alive go in first and the extras only if there’s room. Keep copies of your deed and insurance papers inside, and plan a second route that stays off the main highway.

The Art of Bugging-In

Chaotic prepping is something I see all the time among the preppers I know. Many of them have no 30-day plan and no 60-day plan, and they’ve never adjusted their bug-in for their age, their gender or their health needs. Yet it only takes one afternoon to go through what you have and build a plan that really works, with high-protein meals, nutritious MREs and a diet that fits your age.

With this famous prepping program, you put that kind of plan together step by step. Here’s how a complete bugging in plan should be:

• Map out exactly what your family eats on day 1, day 30 and day 60, so nobody runs out of protein halfway through.
• Find the 50+ survival foods that keep muscles and joints strong after 60, when a rice-and-beans diet starts wearing you down.
• Turn your own pantry into homemade MREs that hold up for years and cook in minutes on a camp stove.
• Adjust your plan for a diabetic spouse, a bad heart or a grandchild who shows up at your door.
• Run the one weekend drill that shows you which supplies your family burns through first.

So, bugging in is still the right call for most of us, and I’d make the same choice. Just go in with your eyes open about the hard parts, and keep a way out ready for the day your home stops being the safest place to be.

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Just in Case Grandma’s Recipes Disappear: How to Save Family Recipes

How to collect, digitize, back up, and print your family recipes and the stories behind them, plus how to make and gift a family cookbook.

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How to Grow Mushrooms in a 5-Gallon Bucket

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Mushrooms are easy to grow if you create the right conditions. In this video from the Youtube channel, FreshCap Mushrooms, Tony explains a simple way to grow mushrooms in a 5-gallon bucket using Aspen woodchips and some Oyster mushroom spawn.

What You’ll Need

• A 5-gallon bucket with a lid
• About 5 pounds of oyster mushroom grain spawn
• Enough aspen wood chips to fill the bucket
• A large plastic tote or storage container
• A drill with a quarter-inch bit
• A spray bottle

To start, take a 5-gallon bucket and drill some quarter-inch holes in the bottom spaced about 2 inches apart. Drill some quarter-inch holes on the side of the bucket, also spaced about 2 inches apart.

The holes on the bottom let excess moisture drain out, while the holes on the sides let the mycelium breathe and give the mushrooms a place to grow out of the bucket. A quarter-inch hole might not look like much, but it’s plenty of room. In the video, Tony harvests a cluster of oyster mushrooms weighing close to a pound that grew out of a single hole.

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In a large plastic container, soak aspen woods chips in hot water. You can buy Aspen wood chips at some home centers or on the Internet. You can use hot water from the tap but as the container starts to fill, top it off with a couple of gallons of boiling water to get it to 80 degrees Celsius. That’s 175 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pasteurizing the chips kills off many of the competing organisms that could contaminate your bucket, giving the mushroom mycelium a head start. It also softens the wood chips, which makes it easier for the mycelium to work its way through them.

Tony mentions that plain aspen chips might do fine with just a soak, but pasteurizing gives you a much better chance of success. A kitchen thermometer is handy for checking the water temperature, and putting a lid on the container will help it hold the heat longer.

If you can’t find aspen, other hardwood chips such as oak, maple, or alder will also work. Avoid softwoods like pine and cedar, which oyster mushrooms don’t grow well on.

Let the wood chips soak overnight. Before you add the spawn, make sure the chips have cooled down to room temperature. If they’re still hot, they can kill the mushroom spawn.

The next morning, grab some soaked wood chips from the container and let them drain in your hand for a few seconds and drop them into the bucket. Fill the bottom of the bucket with an initial layer of chips about 2 inches thick and top with crumbled Oyster mushroom spawn.

Break the spawn up as much as you can so you don’t end up with big clumps. That way, it’s spread evenly throughout the bucket and can colonize the chips faster.

Don’t worry if your spawn has been sitting a while and has turned into a solid block or even has a few tiny mushrooms growing in the bag. As Tony shows in the video, it’ll still work fine as long as it smells fresh and mushroomy. If it smells sour or you see green or black mold, don’t use it.

Oyster mushrooms are a great choice for beginners because they grow quickly, they’re very forgiving, and they can outcompete a lot of the molds and bacteria that might otherwise ruin your crop.

Top this first layer of spawn with another layer of wood chips and sprinkle some more spawn on top. Make sure you gently compress the wood chip layers as you go.

Pressing the chips down helps the mycelium spread from chip to chip and colonize the whole bucket. If your chips are dripping wet, squeeze some of the water out before adding them. A good test is to squeeze a handful of chips. If just a few drops of water come out, the moisture level is about right.

Repeat the process in layers until you have filled the bucket to the top. Make sure the very last layer is wood chips rather than spawn. For reference, Tony used about 5 pounds of grain spawn to fill his bucket.

Cover the bucket with a lid and place it either in the garage if the weather is cold, or if the weather is warmer -outdoors in the shade. Try to put the bucket in an area protected from the wind as well. The mushrooms will need some air circulating but they thrive on high humidity and you don’t want the wood chips to dry out.

After a week, lift the lid and check the wood chips. They should feel compact and you should notice the mycelium or young mushroom growth starting to spread into the chips. If the weather is particularly dry, cover the bucket with a plastic garbage bag but lift it from day to day to let air circulate.

Try not to open the lid too often during this stage, since the mycelium does best when it’s left alone. It usually takes about 10 to 14 days for the bucket to become fully colonized. When it is, the chips will be bound together with white mycelium and the whole thing will feel solid. At that point, if the bucket has been sitting in your garage, it’s time to move it outside where it can get plenty of fresh air.

After two weeks, check the bucket again. You may notice some mushroom sprouts emerging from the holes in the side of the bucket. As these buttons continue to grow you can mist them with water from a sprayer. Continue to do this as the mushrooms grow and mature.

Humidity is most important when the mushrooms are first starting to appear. If the tiny mushrooms, called pins, dry out, they’ll stop growing. Once they’ve grown past that initial stage, they’re much less fussy about humidity.

Fresh air matters too. Oyster mushrooms, especially blue oysters, are sensitive to carbon dioxide, so plenty of fresh air helps them grow into big clusters with large caps. If your mushrooms have long stems and small caps, they probably need more fresh air.

As the mushrooms mature you can begin to harvest and make sure you pick them before their caps start to turn up. That’s a sign that they are about to quickly dry out and release spores.

To harvest, just take a sharp knife and cut the entire cluster off right where it comes out of the hole. Store your fresh mushrooms in a paper bag in the refrigerator, where they’ll keep for about a week. Oyster mushrooms should be cooked before eating rather than eaten raw.

After harvesting your mushrooms, you can leave the bucket to see if you get a second harvest. If little or nothing shows up, dump the wood chips in the yard and cover with straw. You should get a second or third crop this way and they may continue to grow in that area over the years.

Of course, this is much easier to understand if you can see it done, so be sure to watch the video below to learn more.

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