Being prepared

Todd and I have been looking into food storage and emergency preparedness lately. Todd gave a sunday school lesson on it, and we're starting a garden and I love the idea of growing my own food and storing it for our family (self-reliance). I went to a garden class today and they said one blackberry plant (triple crowned variety) can produce 30 lbs of blackberries! Berries can freeze for up to a year. I've been looking into the "square foot gardening" because we don't have a lot of space, and we can get a lot of vegetables in a small space. I'd LOVE to have a lot of land and be able to can and freeze everything we had on our land and be able to live off of that. Add chickens, maybe a cow, and solar panels on our house and we'd be set:). (By the way, I have looked into solar panels.)

And then there's been the earthquakes, tsunamis and snow storms. When the roads are closed in a snow or ice storm no one can come in to deliver the food to the stores- we've had first hand experience with that! (our drive from AR to UT). In Hawaii they have tsunami warnings right now, and everyone rushed to the store for the last can of spam and headed for the hills. It's nice to have a 72 hour kit to be able to throw in the car at the last minute and the supplies we needed if the stores run out or close. Food storage/ emergency preparedness has always been too overwhelming, too costly, etc. but having a family plan, 72 hour kits for everyone in the family, and water storage is easy and covers the essentials.

Today we bought a feezer for the garage to start a food storage little by little, when things go on sale and when we get our garden in. There's some initial costs with a garden, but all we'll add the following years is compost and seeds, and I figure we'll make up those costs in the first year in grocery savings.

Here are some good links I found for making family plan and 10 steps to being prepared:
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