ROOT CELLARING

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.—JRR Tolkien

ROOT CELLARING: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables

Authors: Mike and Nancy Bubel

Genre: Non-fiction, Prepping, Food Storage

I first checked this book out of the library to study it in 1999, I immediately purchased a copy after viewing the book to add it to my home library.  It has been a valuable asset to me ever since.

While there are many books on prepping they often say “store x amount of food per person” but give little or no information on the proper way to do it. 

Watching shows such as “Doomsday Preppers” can also be frustrating.  Many times they will show basements or garages lined with shelve full of glass jars and no information on how or why the storage is set up.  More over everything is in a glass jar.  Those jars cost money and quite frankly if you have an earthquake, a tornado, a blast or anything similar those jars will break. 

What if TEOTWAWKI does happen? Where are you going to get the glass jars in the future or the canning rings to seal said jars?  Good old fashion common sense and a knowledge of the old ways of food storage is essential.

Not a prepper, I know I’m not, but I do like having good nutritional food stored on hand in a proper manner to feed my family at all times. While I do can, dry and freeze foods, some foods can be stored for long periods with little to know preparation in a root cellar. 

No root cellar?  Then create one.  No don’t go rent a backhole and start digging, there are ways every person in the world can root cellar with little or no effort and no hole in the ground, but if you can dig one, so much the better.

In the book Root Cellaring Mike and Nancy Bubel take you through the steps of good root cellaring.  They start you in the very beginning with what to plant that will store well in a root cellar—a good thing to know.  Even if you don’t garden, you can use this info on what to buy in bulk on sale to store in your established dark cool place for proper storage results.

Once you grow the produce they tell you the proper way to harvest your produce (or pick it out at the green grocers) and prepare it for storage to get the longest life out of it.

This is followed up with the care of your stored foods over the cool winter months to help prevent spoilage and loss. 

In section four they tell you numerous ways to create a “root cellar” no matter where you live. Important tips like air flow are included in this section.

They then go on to tell you their own personal experience in doing cellaring and finally recipes are included for those wonderful foods you place in your root cellar. Because after all what is the sense in storing food if you aren’t going to eat it.

While I’ve had this book for many years I still find myself referring back to it periodically to refresh my memory on various aspects of it, or to check on a recipe.

I consider this one of the most valuable homesteading/prepping books on my resources book shelf.  Therefore it gets an A from me.

Jan who needs to tidy up her root cellar and start filling it up again in OK

THE DISASTER DIARIES…

 

The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.”

- B.B. King

THE DISASTER DIARIES…

How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Apocalypse

By Sam Sheridan

               Genre: Non-fiction on prepping with a little fiction thrown in.

When I asked about what types of books I should write reviews about people responded frequently they wanted to hear about books on prepping.  With the state of the world around us I understand this completely.  They wanted both fiction and non-fiction on the subject.  This book fills the bill on both levels.

Sam Sheridan writes about his true life mission to become safe in the world no matter how or when the apocalypse hits. 

Before marrying and having a son he was an adventurer. He had worked as an EMT, a wilderness firefighter, a sailor, a cowboy, and even a construction worker at the South Pole. 

He had also traveled the world as an amateur boxer and mixed martial arts fighter.  He had thought he was prepared for anything and everything and he worried it would all hit the fan some day.  He had been a soul that was filled with what ifs from childhood.

Then he married and had a child and he suddenly realized full force how unprepared he was.  This book is the story of his journey to be more prepared than your average prepper.  Well beyond the usual buckets of grain and deodorant in the basement. 

The fiction in the book is the ongoing “story” of why he sought training in so many fields.  The fictional story starts with the “big one” hitting near his home in Los Angeles, CA and with his son and wife trapped in the back seat of their car under a slab of bridge.

In this scenario he needs to figure out how to rescue them before a semi-truck that is dangling on the remaining bridge pieces above them falls to crush them fatally.  Obviously he needs to move the heavy concrete swiftly and get them out of the car, but how? 

This is where the non-fiction steps in and he tells of seeking out an Olympic weight lifter for specialized training.  He goes into the details of how to do a proper lift.  He gives some wonderful detail on the type of training he received, who he received it from and what NOT to do. 

Back at the fiction part you find out if the training works, or what other knowledge he might have to include to protect his little family as they struggle to survive not only the earthquake, but other scenarios as they struggle to live the next several years in TEOTWAWKI.

The continuing story covers just about every apocalyptic scenario you can think of and the specialized training he took in real life to not only survive, but to thrive.

It’s all covered from rioting gangs, thru zombie attacks, to three years of solid snow. You learn along with him on how to drive like a stunt driver, shoot like a sniper, knife fight dirty, steal cars, do first aid, drive a sled dog team, build an igloo and much more.

Survival is the theme of this nomadic family as they flee LA just ahead of the mechanical giant alien spiders and run into other troubles along the way.

The book is written in a no nonsense manner and if you are easily offended by the rare swear word (and I do mean rare in this book) then this book is not for you.  If you are interested in learning some basics on survival in all aspects of a possible TEOTWAWKI situation then it is a good book to read to get the basics of true survival under your belt.

In my rating system I gave it a B.  Although the swear words were rare, I saw no need for them at all, but that is my own preference and that is not why I gave it a B.

Parts of the book really dragged for me.  I know that at my current age I am not going to go train with an Olympic weight lifter, nor am I likely to take up Eskrima.  I’d be happy just to be able to pick up a fifty pound bag of feed and carry it right now.  So all of the training detail was a bit slow for me.  I did read it thoroughly though so I’d know how to move that feed without hurting my back in the future.

Nor am I ever likely to take on a gang of zombie like creatures intent on eating me and mine for dinner with nothing but a sharp knife.  Yet, I did read that section in case I do ever find I might need to.  I’m going to be the pot roast for certain.

Like I said the book drug a bit for me toward the end, after the fictional part was finished and I more skimmed than read the last few pages.  But then it was late that night and I was tired. 

Would I recommend this book?  Yes, if for no other reason than to be an eye opener as to how unprepared we all are for any doomsday scenario.

Jan who needs to take the stairs more so she could possibly at least walk to safety in a hurry if need be in OK