Preparedness Challenge #15

I have been remiss the last few weeks as far as my blog goes, I apologize. But I have continued to work on being prepared. Thank goodness.

I have been reading lots of books on homesteading and medicinal herbs. I live on a small piece of property and I am sure there are medicinal herbs growing somewhere on this property. My goals this next month is to hunt them down and identify them, possibly drying them out for storing.

I have started a small library on books that I have checked out of the library. If I like the book, I buy it online and keep it for reference in the future. My latest discovery is Homesteading: A Back to Basics Guide to Growing Your Own Food, Canning, Keeping Chickens, Generating Your Own Energy, Crafting, Herbal Medicine, and More (Back to Basics Guides), Abigail R Gehring. I absolutely love this book. It covers everything from gardening to herbs to building a root cellar. It will make an excellent addition to my little homesteading library.

My garden is pretty much done. It is so hot here that nothing did very well. I have learned a lot this season and really have high hopes for my fall garden. Today I am actually going to go through my seeds to make sure I have what I need to get started. Perseverence is mine. I do have one little moon & stars watermelon, but I don't think it will make it. It is only the size of a nickel, lol. I also have potatoes ready to harvest and will be doing a post on those soon! We had a lot of cool and wet weather this spring and everything went in too late (I believe).

My food storage is lacking a little bit but since the reading of the new book above, I have lots of ideas. I have been looking for a dehydrator and ball jars on Craigs list and have found some jars, but no luck on the dehydrator. I may have to break down and buy one. Also, Likewise Ye Older Women is giving away her ebook on stocking your pantry. It is a free download and you can go here to get it. http://likewiseyeolderwomen.blogspot.com/2011/07/dear-readers-as-those-of-you-know-who.html

We are having a lot of friends and family in this month so I may not be posting much, but will continue on with the preparedness and gardening updates. It is summer time after all and we have another tubing trip planned for this coming Tuesday. Everyone is looking forward to it and there are about 14 of us going (so far). You can be sure there will be pictures to follow.

I linked up to the Preparedness Challenge, will you? Thanks for reading! Have a Happy & safe 4th!