paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Oct 5, 2017 22:45:40 GMT 10
So as to not dump my entire photo diary into the preppers diary thread, I figured I'd start this one...
I recently attempted to dehydrate both blueberries and blackberries. Both were from frozen: blueberries store bought then frozen for around 72 hours, blackberries were from a foraging trip 6 months ago and have been frozen since. No other preparation was done, they went straight into the dehydrator.
They were both dehydrated at 135 Fahrenheit (57 deg Celsius)
^^^ So that's what I started with. 11 punnets of blueberries, some of them were HUGE which did cause some problems. $2 coin for reference... I made no attempt to measure how many blackberries I was using as they were an afterthought.
I was checking every them every 12 hours to see if they were OK. Took nearly 72 hours to get to a level of dehydration I was happy with. I was chasing crunchy blueberries as I want these for long term storage and possibly some 'just add water' meals I'm working on, so they needed as much moisture removed as possible. Even after this time I had a handful of rejects, these still felt like hard raisins and had 'give'. All of the blackberries were successful after 72 hours. My rejects:
The yield on the blueberries from the 11 punnets was 500ml volumetrically:
Close up:
Yield on the blackberries:
Close up:
tomatoes mentioned in the preppers diary that they should be 'checked', after 48 hours of dehydration my wife looked up the Excalibur manual for me and it said the same thing.
I'll trial the checking next time but if it ends up with an inferior product I'll stick to this method, while it was a LONG dehydration time I'm very happy with the end result.
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Oct 2, 2017 21:52:46 GMT 10
Nearly a fortnight since its release and I still love this song... vid is very youtube insider but I spend far too much time on Youtube for my own good
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Oct 2, 2017 21:32:04 GMT 10
This evening after getting into PJs and brushing teeth I asked my daughters if they wanted to do some vac sealing with me before bed. They love pushing the button and watching it squish down... We got to the corn I'd done last night and my eldest came out with - "We're working hard like the ants, aren't we dad?" which lead to a good discussion on food storage that showed me that she'd 'got it'.
Was a beautiful moment for me. It's a reference to an Aesop's fable I sometimes read to them called 'The ants and the grasshopper'. For those that don't know the story it's a very simple one about... you guessed it, ants and a grasshopper. The ants are always working to store food away for the winter while the grasshopper sleeps, plays and mocks the ants for working so hard. Winter comes and well... as in real life, the grasshopper doesn't make it through the winter.
I highly recommend the book, just be careful... as is the nature of many of these stories some will change the ending where the grasshopper is maybe just a little sad, or he goes and lives with the ants instead. Kind of ruins the lesson and isn't keeping with nature itself.
Does anyone else have any favourite stories they tell to their children to encourage a preparedness mindset?
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Oct 1, 2017 21:08:19 GMT 10
Just started with Audible a couple months ago and have been loving it so far. I spend a minimum of 10 hours per week in my car so I'm always looking for ways to make that time productive with podcasts or audio books.
Does anyone have any audio books related to prepping that they would recommend?
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Oct 1, 2017 20:20:51 GMT 10
Its ok it is not asbestos, At least that is my opinion as an electrical contractor REC 6012, that has had to cut holes in many ceilings. What your looking at is the old type plaster that had hemp strands in it for strength. Just while you are working up there please be mindful that the electrical wiring gets warm in normal use with power going through it, and it you bury the wiring in insulation it can overheat, likewise be sure to keep insulation well back from any down lights that may get hot during operation as even it the insulation does not burn if they cannot keep themselves cool they will over heat too. Fun places to work ceilings, never know what you will find, once I found a tiger snake between me an the man hole, needless to say you can get out up through the tiles if you have too!
Thanks for the quick response. That's a huge relief. When the building inspector came through a few years back when I bought the place he told me they were probably asbestos so I'd been a bit on edge.
Light fittings aren't a problem, I'm not so fancy as to have down lights! Just basic bayonet fittings without fixtures, they work
On the subject of insulation & wires... my solution thus far has been to use a plastic product similar to flashing (I think it's for concreting) to keep the glass away from the wires. Hopefully it works? I guess we'll find out...
I actually found two large green street signs owned by department of transport in there after I first bought the house... about 30cm high and 2m long... My house is halfway between two towns so I suspect the previous owner didn't like the look of them and stashed them in the roof? Gone now but was rather strange finding them!
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Oct 1, 2017 19:16:13 GMT 10
Currently mid way through a remodelling project and I've come across a very suspect piece of plaster board.
I know asbestos is fibrous, was used in construction during the period my board may have been affixed and should not be disturbed without good knowledge, appropriate PPE and a permit. Beyond that I'm out of my depth.
Before I fork out half a grand for the inspection I thought I'd try here. Does anyone have any experience with the stuff? Know what it looks like? Has anyone gone through the process of getting a permit for removal and done the removal themselves?
I'll put pics of the suspicious board below if anyone feels like commenting on it specifically but any stories of experience you've had with the stuff would be useful.
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 28, 2017 20:08:26 GMT 10
As requested, mustard pickle the wife makes:
It's from the "Australian Blue Ribbon Cookbook" by Liz Harfull, it's a country show cooking book with recipes from winning show cooking.
She uses "a little less sugar than that, so it's not too sweet"...
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 25, 2017 22:28:16 GMT 10
I'd slice it & blanch it before dehydrating to accelerate the process. Blanching will help burst the cell walls, allowing moisture to escape faster.
I read your post at work on my phone during lunch and my big take away was 'blanch it first'.
Went past aldi on the way home, picked up another 5kg of broccoli came home on a mission and jumped straight into processing nearly 8kg of broccoli!
Chopped it off the stem, rinised, salt bathed then blanched the lot. 4 full trays
Feeling rather proud of myself they went into the dehydrator and I retired to my computer desk for the evening with a tea.
Only to read... "slice it and blanch it first"...
Thanks tomatoes for the mention of the food processor!!! I set the slicer blade to 6mm and quickly buzzed the lot of it.
I ended up instead with 8 trays that looked like this:
Now to decide what to do with the left over 2.5kg of stem...
On a side note I mentioned to my wife "hey did you know you can make broccoli stem into mustard pickle?? Want to make me some?" only to be told that it wasn't news to her and that I'd already eaten broccoli stem mustard pickle many times...
I guess it's fermenting if I want to try something new.
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 25, 2017 0:23:21 GMT 10
I came home with a couple of kilos of broccoli today from Coles, at $1.50 per kilo. But we'll just eat it in the next couple of days. I use to make a nice broccoli soup many yrs ago - may not sound good, but it was. I might have to look up that recipe. But what it makes me think is that it could be useful dehydrated. A lot of my dehydrated veg is done with soups in mind. It can be cut nice and small and the finished texture isn't that important. I can't imagine canning it plain, but if I needed to go that way I'd probably consider something like a mustard pickle. Again this was many years ago, but when we had a flourishing veg garden we use to make all sorts of things into pickles or mustard pickles. I'd probably do that or dehydrate it. Or if I couldn't decide, I'd freeze it. I have a lot of frozen fruit but I just make sure I have sugar and jars to turn it into jam or preserves (which may not use the sugar) if we were without power for an extended time. If I had a lot of frozen broccoli I'd do the same - have in storage stuff to pickle it if need be.
One of my favourite soups ever was made from bacon bones & broccoli stems, a few broccoli heads thrown in for appearance. Was made regularly by chef I worked with just out of high school. If you do dig up that recipe I'd be very interested
Mustard pickle is the wife's territory, maybe I'll have to put some aside and request it to be pickled. I'll be buying at least a few more KGs at this point as I've got too many ideas now!
Would be good to also have dehydrated broccoli, do you cook it before dehydrating?
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 25, 2017 0:17:31 GMT 10
I'm going to have to finally just go and put a hole in a lid so I can drop an airlock in it. I'm sure I've still got the locks and grommets in storage from when I used to brew.
I imagine the stems would taste amazing fermented. Even if I end up freezing a bunch from this process would be good to having something to do with the stems other than soup...
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 25, 2017 0:12:20 GMT 10
i reckon it would turn very soft. but then again canned fruit does the same so give it a go anyway and see what happens.
Suck it and see hey!
First time I used the pressure canner... took me a bit of fumbling around to find all the gear (wife was completely uninterested in the concept of canned broccoli and went to bed) but I got there.
Oven sterilised the jars, raw packed the broccoli, half a teaspoon of cooking salt, covered with boiling water and then 30 minutes at 10 psi.
Fair bit of discolouration on the broccoli, water changed colour a lot too!
Will test in a week or so and report back on results.
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 24, 2017 23:37:04 GMT 10
I worked with a bloke who had a rental in Armadale... You wouldn't believe it, he struggled to find good tenants! "I got the place for a good price" he would say... Things are cheap for a reason.
I rented a place in kwinana for 18 months while my first house was being built. Was all we could afford while paying mortgage on the land... It was an experience to be sure, within a month of being there a mate had a star picket thrown through his car window, nothing stolen, they were probably just bored. The thing I will say about those stats is that they represent what the cops see and what is reported, the locals will have a better picture if there is low police coverage or they're corrupt.
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 24, 2017 16:48:12 GMT 10
Aldi have broccoli in their '7 day deals' at the moment for $1.49/kg, I came home with 4kg of it thinking I could can some of it. In my usual way I took to youtube for research and....
Plenty of people basically saying you cant do broccoli or cauliflower...
Has anyone here tried it? If it doesn't work, why not?
Will probably just end up freezing it all but figured I'd attempt to tap into the well of knowledge that is this forum before giving up.
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 22, 2017 0:00:24 GMT 10
It's not really something Australians want the government to "fix".
Fuel storage costs money. On the scale of a country that is a lot of money. Any attempt to raise resiliency of the supply will make the fuel more expensive.
Ask the average Australian if they want to pay more for fuel so that supply can be guaranteed and you'll understand why the government won't touch it.
Those that actually care have fuel stored at their own cost. I see that as a much better solution when compared to government stepping in.
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 19, 2017 10:54:08 GMT 10
I remember watching a video by southernprepper1 (from memory, not 100% sure it was him) and he had a view of the game I really liked.
He said it would be an excellent game to play with new friends/potential new members to a group. It would quickly give you an insight into the way they think and their moral guidelines. The game gives you a much more natural framework to discuss these issues and people don't feel like they're being interviewed so you get a much more natural side of them.
I imagine it would also be a less formal way to raise these situations with family to stimulate discussion. I think the game could very useful for this and I'll be keeping an eye on the project for sure.
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 15, 2017 12:25:21 GMT 10
Haha... This will be an interesting one.
The naivety required to believe you could overthrow a first world government with uncoordinated riots leads me to think these are just pissed off young people.
The whole thing reminds me of a conversation I had with some occupy protesters who would use phrases like 'arent you pissed off with the injustice?' & 'I don't think it's fair'. They seemed to struggle when asked things like 'Yeah sure, but what are you trying to achieve?'
If handled appropriately this will do nothing but raise support for trump. The timing is wrong, the approach is wrong... Learn how to engage in politics properly or get a hobby.
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 15, 2017 10:54:22 GMT 10
We don't really have good stores of veggies as we only stockpile what we eat a lot of and most of our veg is fresh.
We do keep a fair amount of tinned goods like corn, beatroot, tomatoes ect. We try to keep around 6 months worth for normal consumption but if our supply of fresh veggies was cut off that would become around 2 months!
We also don't keep much tinned fruit as it's not something we use much. Anything related to baking however dried apricots, saltanas, rasins, currants, dates, nuts we have heaps of and that's what we'd rely on if things got tough.
I really need to get more into pressure canning this summer. Look out for those deals and get some canned and get it into the rotation. My wife doesn't like cooking with dehydrated veggies so what we have is very limited.
We did have curried dehydrated cauli when it was cheap but that was all consumed as is and really didn't last long... Was too tasty!
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 11, 2017 19:58:06 GMT 10
Word is the French government is poised to start it's own civil war to take the country back from the muslims who have taken control of large parts of the country. Also ANTIFA is planning a revolution attempt to overthrow Trump on Nov 4th. They plan to start major rallies in all the major cities and let loose for days/weeks until they overthrow the government and force trump to resign.
An ANTIFA plan to overthrow the government?
Better dyna bolt down all the bins & stock up on coffee beans...
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 9, 2017 12:37:30 GMT 10
We had a combined 240v / gas fridge when I was living off grid. I never really liked it, it ended up as the shed/Christmas fridge.
There was a manual process to start the pilot light to swap it over to gas and it never really kept things as cold whilst on gas.
If I was doing it again I'd just buy an efficient dedicated electric fridge and a generator. I get it if you're putting it in a caravan or a bush block/weekender but as my main fridge? never again.
They're tiny, expensive and will never be as efficient as a dedicated electric.
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paranoia
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Post by paranoia on Sept 1, 2017 12:58:50 GMT 10
Here are some considerations i have put together, please feel free to chime in and or disagree, all opinions are valid and will be considered as nothing is in concrete as of yet. 1) The Event is 100% free 2) The Event is not 'registered', just a communal gathering of people possibly interested in subjects coming together. 3) There is no official leader, rather some folk that facilitate the event and obviously its my name on the venue so i dont want it trashed and if someone turns into an idiot i can ask them to please leave.(im not expecting this, but ive dealt with people/crowds for a long time and it does and can happen, so just saying). 4) It needs to be a non-prepper friendly event that helps people understand preparedness from a kindergarden level as their might be folk who aren't preppers there, also possible homesteaders, farmers, hunters, or just plain locals with nothing else to do or taking a look etc. 5) Business's are free to contact me if you want to come and sell stuff, and ill set you up a table, but products need to be in line with anything to do with preparedness. I have friends who may possibly set up a table with all sorts of their gun shop odds and ends bar anything guns and ammo as its illegal unless permitted and then causes our event to have to be registered, licensed and hire security bla bla. 6) Re workshops educators. a) What will be available for you is a computer with powerpoint and or media file playing abilities, a large screen and projector for display. Microphone, amp, tables, and whatever else you might need just let me know. b) Family event. I have spoken to an older prepper mate about whether i should run an 'adults only' event, or open it to 'the whole family' as i know that folk will want to bring their children, but if the words fly (like ive seen as some registered hunting gigs) it wont go down well. My friend uses rough language and he told me that even as a trady he knows their is an etiquette on the job site where he doesn't use obscenities, so workshop runners would need to keep it clean. (Im open to thoughts on this still though so chime in if you agree/disagree). c) Keep it legal. I can never guarantee you who is in the building, so you will have to be careful with your words or cautious in respect to any content which may step across lines that we probably didnt even know existed (sigh). 7) Times: Saturday. 8am Hall open for setup and workshop speakers, business's, kitchen. 10-11am, First workshop 11-15am coffee break 11:15-12:15 Second workshop 12:15am-1pm Lunch 1-2 Third workshop 2-2:15 Coffee break 2:15-3:15 Fourth Workshop Close Thoughts please. thanks I love it mate. Trying to expand these ideas to the general public and give prepping a rebrand is very important long term and will make us all safer. I take my family to many of the country shows and various fairs, one focused around preparedness would be great. I think it would be important for us to have an Ausprep table at such an event. You can plant these ideas in people but a place to ask questions that come up a week later is another good way to reduce the barriers to entry for preparedness.
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