BEYOND the STRANDLINE TIP OF THE WEEK:

DENTAL FLOSS:  It’s a dancer’s trick. Ballerina’s have to sew ribbons on their shoes and mend costumes—constantly. Nothing works better or holds up tougher than using dental floss for mending clothes, backpacks, and shoes. Waterproof, heavy duty, and almost impossible to wear out, dancers use dental floss instead of regular thread for quick mending jobs. It’s tougher than quilting thread.

Stock up. Dental floss is a fabulous multi-use item to include in your storage. Just make sure you also store heavy duty needles with larger eyes.

In the novel, Beyond the Strandline, Tess recognizes her backpack because of the dental floss used to mend rips and tears in it. It’s one of those details that come from shared experience and thinking through various emergency scenarios.

SEARCH IT OUT

New to prepping?  Sure. But the Internet makes getting prepared, getting ready, and planning ahead as easy as doing a search on Google. Here's a fun link to an article from the UK; couldn't do that in the old days.

Pinterest is a place to find fellow preppers and planners.

Pinterest Preppers:
Read all about it in the news.

WINTER PREP! A RE-POST

Here are two ideas that might come in handy for your family.  The first is one that I hadn’t gone into such depth, but can see many benefits! It’s putting in EMERGENCY numbers in your cell phone. If you have a smartphone, you can just look up these numbers. However, under stressful circumstances, the ability to easily scroll to what you need could be very helpful. Take a few minutes of your time to be prepared! Here are some important ones, but think of your family and those places you’d want to be able to contact easily! You’ll need to figure out a way to list them so they POP on your phone list.

ICE-with your next of kin emergency numbers                      Local Fire & Police

Water, Power & Gas companies                                              Poison Control

Nearby hospitals                                                                   Doctor(s)

Neighbors                                                                              Towing or AAA

Insurance Agent                                                                    Co-workers/Boss

Church (Pastor, etc.)

While we’re getting ready for Winter….Do you have an emergency car kit….IN YOUR CAR?? Gather these items up, many will already be in your home, get a box and in they go~

• bottled water
• packaged food (protein bars, nuts, etc.)
• blanket
• package of body and hand warmers (these work well inside gloves and shoes)
• flares
• flashlight
• jumper cables
• rope/chain
• small shovel and windshield scraper
• kitty litter
• battery operated weather radio
• batteries
• extra clothes (including socks/insulated shoes)
• thick jacket and hat, gloves, ear muffs
• extra cellphone charger (or battery backup)
• TP/wipes

If you usually travel with babies or small kids, then you will want to include these extras:

• extra food and water                                                          Dry formula you can mix with water
• extra clothing and blankets                                                 infant or children’s Tylenol
• diapers                                                                                Toy or game to keep them occupied

CAN DO!

Try it out. Mindy’s advice to try out long-term food storage items is perfect. Try it out in smaller sizes before you invest.

Emergency food storage has come a long, long way since the days we were filling our shelves with food we canned ourselves and put in glass jars, not that we shouldn’t continue to perfect our skills in this area. I’m just saying that we’ve come a long way, baby, when it comes to emergency food supplies.

They’re popular. They’re varied. And more companies selling more emergency food means more competition, means more good deals. Let’s hear it for free enterprise.

Number ten cans, jar canning, buckets, pails, kits, assortments, MRE’s, and now smaller, more versatile fourteen-ounce size cans of dehydrated and freeze-dried foods.

Try it out.

Some dehydrated/freeze-dried foods, once opened, need to be used up and quickly and some sit quite nicely on the shelf for a while.

The smaller can sizes are perfect for experimenting without wasting a lot of money, and if you don’t get to them for a while . . . well . . . it’s long-term storage; you’re still good to go.

I rotate and use my long-term storage a lot more in my everyday cooking these days, finding that it’s more economical, in that I don’t waste food.

Tomato powders get gross fast and tomato pieces or chunks turn dark fairly quickly, but I’ve had excellent luck with green beans, peas, corn, mushrooms, and other vegetables, and I love dehydrated mashed potatoes.

What works for you and yours? 

Next time:  How do you know when it’s too old?

Linda (Can Do) Zern

 

 

     

BUY A BOOK FOR YOUR HERO!

Genre fiction can be tricky. There are books for boys. There are books for girls. There are books for cat lovers. BEYOND the STRANDLINE is a book for guys, gals, and lovers who have cats. amazon.com/author/lindazern

GENRE FICTION: YOU BE THE HERO!!

Genre fiction can be tricky. There are books for boys. There are books for girls. There are books for cat lovers. BEYOND the STRANDLINE is a book for guys, gals, and lovers who have cats. amazon.com/author/lindazern

Getting ready for Winter....are you??

Here are two ideas that might come in handy for your family.  The first is one that I hadn’t gone into such depth, but can see many benefits! It’s putting in EMERGENCY numbers in your cell phone. If you have a smartphone, you can just look up these numbers. However, under stressful circumstances, the ability to easily scroll to what you need could be very helpful. Take a few minutes of your time to be prepared! Here are some important ones, but think of your family and those places you’d want to be able to contact easily! You’ll need to figure out a way to list them so they POP on your phone list.

ICE-with your next of kin emergency numbers                      Local Fire & Police

Water, Power & Gas companies                                              Poison Control

Nearby hospitals                                                                   Doctor(s)

Neighbors                                                                              Towing or AAA

Insurance Agent                                                                    Co-workers/Boss

Church (Pastor, etc.)

While we’re getting ready for Winter….Do you have an emergency car kit….IN YOUR CAR?? Gather these items up, many will already be in your home, get a box and in they go~

• bottled water
• packaged food (protein bars, nuts, etc.)
• blanket
• package of body and hand warmers (these work well inside gloves and shoes)
• flares
• flashlight
• jumper cables
• rope/chain
• small shovel and windshield scraper
• kitty litter
• battery operated weather radio
• batteries
• extra clothes (including socks/insulated shoes)
• thick jacket and hat, gloves, ear muffs
• extra cellphone charger (or battery backup)
• TP/wipes

If you usually travel with babies or small kids, then you will want to include these extras:

• extra food and water                                                          Dry formula you can mix with water
• extra clothing and blankets                                                 infant or children’s Tylenol
• diapers                                                                                Toy or game to keep them occupied

TWO CAMPS & **SOLAR STORMS

Spent last weekend at the Authors for Authors Book Fair, selling books, chatting with authors, and explaining “prepper” fiction. My book “Beyond the Strandline” is realistic “prepper fiction.”

It was fascinating. There were definitely two camps of readers: those that were looking for books on cats or cats on books or escape to cat land and those that not only understood “prepper” fiction but were in to it.

The cat crowd was definitely the larger group. Please understand; I like cats and books about cats. I, myself, own some cat books. I have a cat.

But I have always enjoyed books that invited a reader into scenarios that stretched my understanding of what might be and placed me in worlds that require something of the characters involved and vicariously—me.

What would I do if my home were threatened by brutal civil war as in Gone With the Wind, and how would I save Tara?

Would I have the courage to pull the trigger and sacrifice my friend, Flag, like in The Yearling to ensure the survival of my family?

Where would I go to find salt, an essential nutrient for human health, in a collapse situation like that in Alas Babylon?

Prepper fiction allows us to safely peek through the windows of science fiction where the stakes are high, the consequences life altering, and the choices resulting in life and death.

Prepper fiction is the stuff of heroes and solar storms.

Cat books are good too.  

   It's all about the sun . . . or **solar flares. #beyondthestrandline WHAT IF?