Becoming Self-Reliant

This year we have raised our food storage game. It really started almost a year ago when Jon was asked to give a talk in the adult session of Stake Conference. His topic was, FOOD STORAGE. He didn't want to stand up there and tell people to be prepared with their food storage and not be prepared himself. So we purchased these Emergency Food Supply buckets from Costco that we had been eyeing for quite some time.We then for sure had a three month food supply but wanted to work towards a full year supply.

There were three things we have done this year to help accomplish this goal.

1. We purchased 800 pounds of wheat and a grinder. Jon was very excited about this! Morgan, Mason, Jon and I sealed the wheat in Mylar bags with our own iron in our garage one evening! We now have 17 full buckets of wheat in our pantry!2. Canning has been a fun family activity this summer and fall. We purchased 3 flats of strawberries and picked raspberries from the Reids home. We love homemade jam at the Jackson house and have several bags of berries frozen! B & B happily helped Jon do all the strawberries. I was not so happy to help because we were going on a big road trip the very next day. Just last week I bought 5 boxes of pears so this weekend was spent canning! With one box left we have already have 60 jars of pears. I need to go and buy more jars tomorrow because I have run out!

3. Last weekend we FINALLY set up our Canned Food Rotation System that Jon's parents gave us last year for Christmas. We love it and want to have it filled by the end of the year. We figure once we have this filled we will basically have a year supply of food including the food in our pantry. We're very thrilled to have accomplished so much in a year's time.