Weathering the storm by preparing

So Tropical Storm Fay has been hanging over Florida for 3 days now. For those family and friends not in Florida - don't worry we are all OK! I've lived in Florida my entire life and Jacksonville has been blessed to NEVER have a direct hit from a hurricane. Basically it's a really bad thunder storm that lasts for days and days and days. Except there usually isn't any lighting or thunder - just high winds and rain and rain and rain. The city has cancelled school and work since Wednesday. So what do you do when you shouldn't really go outside (although we have a little bit)...work on your food storage.

We are on a huge food storage kick right now. Tuesday night, right after they announced the city was closing down, I wanted to try to make jar bread for food storage. In order to make it, you must use Knox gelatin, not eggs, to allow for a longer shelf life. I headed for the store which was already a mad house. I thought people might not be out until the next day, but sure enough there was a million people there, no buggy's (shopping carts) to be found, and everyone loading up on water, non-perishable food, and batteries. Seriously is this the first hurricane season all of my neighbors have been through? Don't they know this can and usually does happen at least once during the hurricane season. So I go to get my Knox gel and got out as quickly as I can.

I make the banana jar bread. Next we make 7 quarts of cooked beef. And I've been working on getting my recipes fine tuned. My calling is 2nd counselor in Relief Society which puts me over food storage and our Bishop has asked each family to get 3 months supply of food by September 2nd. Neal and I have made that goal with Bishop's storehouse food BUT I came across a DVD from a Sis. DeWitt out of Arizona that put a whole new, easy, and dare I say, fun way to get prepared with a one year supply of food. Let me know if you want a copy - you can't download it anymore from the Internet.

I hope everyone else is having nice weather....at least let Florida inspire you to prepare and get your food storage started!