The Everyday Bean

In the past few weeks, we’ve learned many lessons. Here are some of them:

1. We thought we were prepared and we are prepared more than a lot of people are. However, we are woefully lacking in certain items such as powdered milk and comfort foods.
2. We are not prepared well for the period called the starving time or the hungry gap. That’s the period of time between when fresh foods run out and the garden or crops start producing. For us that’s right now. It’s between February and June. That is something I’ll write a lot more about later. I am starting my garden seeds with that in mind.
3. We are craving fresh foods. In fact, we were craving them so much that we went to the store and bought some. If this were a real scenario, we wouldn’t be able to do that. We need to develop a system or infrastructure so that we have fresh food.
4. There is a steep learning curve with sourdough. Seriously! It works but it takes some finesse.
5. We need to get chickens and plan to increase the size of our flock. We currently eat a lot of eggs and don’t have a coop large enough to house more than six chickens. Six hens do not give us enough eggs to eat eggs except for baking on a regular basis.
6. I need to learn more skills and teach them to my husband and children. I want to learn to grow herbs. I want to learn to waterglass eggs during the spring and summer so that we have them in the fall and winter. I know this is a food storage challenge, but I want to learn to sew, knit, crochet, and tat.
7. We need to work on infrastructure for our long- term root crops such as potatoes, carrots, onions, sweet potatoes, beets, etc. We may need to get a refrigerator for the basement or convert our storage room into a cold room. Fortunately, my husband is in construction.
8. We need to store more oil and figure out what to do once it is gone. I’m going to have to convert from coconut oil and olive oil and use things like lard, tallow, and butter etc.
9. Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is learning to eat seasonally. As Americans, we are so accustomed to eating what we want whenever we want it. If we are going to be truly self-reliant, we are going to have to eat what’s in season and prepare it in ways that aren’t boring. Appetite fatigue is a real thing.

Those are a few of the things we have learned so far. I am sure there will be more as this experiment unfolds.

By the way, I have changed the rules for this challenge just slightly. I am going to allow us a $25 per week grocery budget for fresh foods. And I am going to allow us a budget for pizza and for milk. I have certain health issues that require good nutrition and everyone needs a good and healthy diet.

If you have any suggestions or thoughts on what I’ve written here, please share. Constructive thoughts only please.