Essential Preparedness Tools of the Trade Part VIII - Otter Sled

I probably should have addressed the usefulness of the "Otter Sled" earlier this winter, but until we had a drifting snow, it didn't occur to me!

We bought an Otter Sled about three years ago, and have used it extensively ever since.  Otter Sleds were designed for ice fishing, but their practicality on the prepared homestead makes them a necessity for any prepper.  They haul huge amounts of cargo, have tall side walls and double as a boat in an emergency.  For our family, the Otter Sled is an all season workhorse.  Obviously, it is a wonder in the winter when we are up to our eyeballs in snow, but it has proved its worth in every other season as well.  We use our sled every day to haul a huge load of wood into the house, the kids use it for sledding down the sled hill.  We have been known to haul groceries, fuel and mail in it when the driveway has been drifted in.  In the spring and fall, the Otter sled is a better choice than any wheeled vehicle for toting heavy cargo around the homestead.  It slides over mud and moves through the grass easily.  And in the summertime, our kids use the Otter sled as a boat in the neighbors pond! They float packs and gear that they don't want to get wet across the creeks on the way to their super-secret hidey holes in the woods.

Hauling wood into the house

Hauling kids

Precious cargo

Hauling the mail up our drifted driveway - really!

As much use and fun as we get out of our sled it is no comparison to its survival value.  The sled is incredibly tough and very suited to hauling behind snowmobiles and other tracked vehicles.  You can haul it while on snowshoes, skis or even horseback.  And Otter makes a zip up cover for the sled to keep cargo dry or cover and insulate a patient you are transporting through the backwoods.

Otter sleds come in many sizes (even one that is Olive Drab - my personal favorite!).  They are available at most feed stores and usually sell out very quickly when snow season hits.  As far as I am concerned, our Otter sled is one of our most valuable winter-time survival assets.

Wood Cookstove Tools of the Trade

The longer I have cooked on a wood cookstove the more I have come to realize the importance of a few good cooking utensils.  I find that I turn to the same pans and skillets over and over because of their superior performance both on the stove top and in the oven.  Using my stove has been an education, but the lessons I have learned are invaluable.  It has afforded me the opportunity to refine my techniques while I gather appropriate tools - before I really NEED them.  Here is a partial list of what I have learned.....

Cast Iron is your friend.  The beauty of cast iron is that it durable and perfect for use both on the stovetop and in the oven.  It cooks evenly and holds heat well - and after it has been properly seasoned, withstands the high heat of a wood cookstove remarkably well.  I have a variety of cast iron in many shapes and sizes.  Skillets by themselves are a workhorse, but coupled with a lid, they are indispensable.  I use skillets for all manner of stovetop dishes, but I use them extensively in the oven as well.  They are perfect for cooking a Frittata on the stovetop and finishing in the oven.  When I make pizza in the cookstove, I always cook it on the stovetop first.  Wood cookstoves are notorious for browning or even burning the tops of your baked goods while leaving the bottom white and gooey.  The answer to this problem is cooking on the stovetop first and popping in the oven for the final cooking and browning.  Cast iron is perfect for this.  Not only does it perform well on the top of the stove, but equally well in the oven.  In addition to numerous skillets, I have a cast iron Dutch Oven.  The Sheepherders Bread recipe I have just fits into my Dutch Oven and cooks to golden perfection when covered with the lid.

German Pancakes

Roasting pans.  The wonderful thing about roasting pans is that they have lids.  One thing that I quickly learned was that things brown long before they are cooked through.  You either have to buy truckloads of tin foil, or you have pans that you can cover to slow the browning process.  I generally bake until the top is golden brown and then cover with a lid.  This allows whatever I am baking to cook all of the way through but not become a charred mess on top.

Cake pans with slide on covers.  Just like roasting pans, they have a cover.  One of the biggest challenges in wood cookstove cookery is keeping the tops of your foods from burning.  Covers also keep moisture in casseroles and other dishes.  Wood heat is very dry.  Covering your dishes while they cook slows the evaporation.

Pie Shields.  Just like cast iron lids, roasting pans and cake pans with covers, pie shields will keep your pies from becoming burnt offerings.  It is amazing how a tiny, thin piece of metal protects your crusts from becoming inedible.

Tin Foil.  O.K.  I just had to say it.  Some of your pans just don't come equipped with lids.  As you can tell, my main concern while cooking on my cookstove, is keeping the tops of all my cakes, pies, breads and everything else from becoming blackened soot.  A few rolls of tin foil are worth their weight in gold!

Pear Pie

One final thought regarding cooking on/in a wood cookstove.  Most wood cookstoves have non-standard oven sizes.  My folks have a cookstove with a rather small oven.  Mom has had to search high and low for skillets and pans and cookie sheets that will fit in her oven.  Had she not been diligent in her search now, she may very well have been in for a very big, not-so-pleasant surprise at the End of the World as we Know It.

Wood Cookstove Cookery is an art and a science.  It is a challenge that is well worth the effort.  Having the proper cookware will be the difference between success and sheer frustration.

Essential Preparedness Tools of the Trade Part VII - Hot Water Bottle

Our shouse gets very cold in the winter!  We stay toasty during the day, as our wood cookstove pours out the heat, but at night, it is another story altogether.  We stoke our stove at night and it just barely boils along, putting out very little heat.  It is ready to spring to life every morning, but just keeps the shouse above freezing at night.  During most of the winter, this isn't really much of a problem at all, but when the temperatures dip below zero, it can get a little frosty.

Filling the hot water bottle

Sliding it into it's fleece cozy

One of the ways we have found to keep the kids warm and toasty, even on the coldest of nights in a metal building, are hot water bottles.  It becomes a nightly bedtime ritual.  One by one, starting with the youngest children, they bring their water bottles into the kitchen to have me fill them before they run off to bed.  Sometimes, they have me fill their bottles a little early, so they can squirrel them away at the foot of their bed, then, by the time they are tucked in, a toasty warm bed awaits them.

Tucked at the foot of the bed ready to
warm cold feet

The winter Master Calvin was born was bitterly cold.  We had an uncharacteristic arctic wind from the North and our shouse was literally an icehouse.  It was so cold, that Sir Knight and I had Master Calvin sleep with us, just so he didn't freeze.  During the day, when he was napping, I would tuck a hot water bottle dressed in a polar fleece cover into his basket with him.  He slept contentedly for hours in his cozy basket, even when we could see our breath in the shouse because of the cold.

Ice on the inside of our window,
in our bedroom

We have one hot water bottle per person in our family.  Not only do we use them for warming tootsies on cold nights, but for earaches, tummy-aches, cramps and even injuries requiring a heat treatment.  We have used our hot water bottles to warm brand new babies and brand new kittens.  There is something about hot water that soothes most anything.  Hot water bottles are the perfect alternative to heating pads, perhaps even better, due to your ability to control the temperature.  They require no electricity, only a wood stove and a pot of water.  They will slowly and effectively warm a hypothermic person, sooth a crying baby or relieve joint pain in an elderly loved one.

Hot water bottles have medical uses also.  They are available (online and at certain drug stores) with a douche and enema kit.  Although not particularly romantic to talk about, these medical instruments could be the difference between extreme discomfort (or even death) and a quick, effective remedy.

Master Calvin cuddles with his bottle

The Little Stinker!

I believe that the addition of a hot water bottle to every bug out bag is a must.  Consider having to "get out of dodge" with little children or aging parents in the middle of winter.  When making camp for the night, you have hungry, cold, tired people on the verge of panic and hysteria.  You have no ability to offer them any sense of normalcy.  You can't give them much food.  You can't provide them with shelter.  There is no heat other than what can be extracted from a small camp fire.  But you can heat water.  Immediately, there is hope, relief, warmth.

Hot water bottles are a cheap investment with a tremendous return.  I would suggest one for each member of your household, plus extra for whoever else you might be caring for.  And don't forget a few to have on hand for charity.  Hot water bottles are an essential preparedness tool of the trade.

Essential Preparedness Tools of the Trade Part VI - A Milk Cow

This is one Essential Preparedness Tool of the Trade that I do not currently have - much to my chagrin.  A milk cow is a provider of so many good things that their value can not be underestimated!

Sir Knight and I bought our first cow 13 years ago, after our daughter was stillborn.  For months after our daughters birth, I found it difficult to get out of bed in the morning.  I really just wanted to hibernate and wallow in my grief.  I had two other children to take care of, and did manage to feed them and teach school, but beyond that, I was so wrapped up in my own feelings that I found it difficult to do much else.  And then we bought a cow.  Having a cow gave me a reason to get out of bed every morning.  The early mornings spent tucked under the warm belly of my milk cow, listening to the rhythmic ping, ping of milk hitting the bucket proved cathartic to my wounded heart.  My arms grew stronger as joy was returned to my soul.

My first cow's name was Ginger and she had only two working "quarters".  She was a Jersey with huge brown eyes and a docile countenance.  She had just freshened when we bought her, so we were thrust into the duty of milking rather unceremoniously.  Sir Knight and I had never milked a cow before, but we had armed ourselves with a good book and a willing spirit.  Five o'clock rolled around (she was used to being milked at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m.) and we mustered up our courage, grabbed our brand new stainless steel milking bucket and headed to the barn.  We were pathetic!  After about 5 minutes of milking, our forearms and hands were aching, so we had to trade off and on until we finally squeezed the last little bit of milk from our patient cow.

Gathering what little strength we had left in our arms, we hauled the 2 1/2 gallons of milk that Ginger gave us into the house to strain and cool.  Our very dear friends had had a milk cow briefly and during that time, they had shown us how to properly care for the milk.  First, we strained the milk through a stainless steel strainer into sterilized glass gallon jars, then we put the jars into a sink full of ice water in order to cool them quickly. We never topped the jars off until they had fully cooled, so that any off flavors were able to dissipate and not collect on the top of the lid and drip back into the milk.  After the milk was cool, we would cover the jar top with plastic wrap and cap off with a lid.  Then we would put a piece of tape on the jar lid and I would write the date and whether the milk was from the morning milking or the evening milking.  After that, we would put the milk in the refrigerator, always using the oldest milk first.

To this day, I am a hawk about how my milk is taken care of.  I insist that everything from the milk bucket to the strainer to the jars be sterilized.  I wash everything with Super Washing Soda, which is the only thing that will completely cleanse milking implements of their sour smell.  The benefits of properly caring for your milk and milking implements are well worth the time it takes.  The milk will last longer, taste better and you won't worry about unfortunate food born illnesses.

Milk cows provide so many good things that I can scarcely mention them all.  First, they provide a beef calf every year.  As long as you have a milk cow, you will always have beef to put in the freezer or to can.  Then, of course, there is the obvious - milk.  Milk alone is wonderful, but what you can make with milk, now that is divine!  I got my start in dairy products with yogurt.  The first recipe I tried was from my "More with Less" cookbook, and I have used it ever since.  I made yogurt a gallon at a time (in four, one liter jars) and would sweeten it slightly with honey!  Oh, yummm!  The kids love to put a little jam in their yogurt and stir it up.  I like my yogurt a bit on the thick side, so I always add a little gelatin to the hot milk mixture.  When the yogurt has set and cooled, it is almost as thick as custard - just the way I like it.

After trying yogurt, Cottage Cheese was the natural progression.  It too, turned out wonderfully, so, of course, I had to try my hand at hard cheese.  Sir Knight bought a Wheeler cheese press (Made in England) for me for Mother's Day one year, and it has been put through it's paces ever since.  I started out with Farmhouse Cheddar, then moved on to Gouda, Caerphilly and eventually Parmesan.  I LOVE making cheese.  I always have such a sense of accomplishment when a round of cheese comes out of the cheese press!

When we have had too much milk, or when our cow has been sick and we have had to medically treat her, we would pour the milk into a 5 gallon bucket and clabber it with some vinegar or lemon juice.  Pigs love this treat and chickens gobble it up.  We also like to save and freeze Colostrum when our cow first freshens so that we are able to nurse any other sick animals that might find their way into our farmyard.

We currently are surviving without a milk cow.  Our last cow died within a few months of calving, stuck down by Grass Tetney.  So many times, we have seriously contemplated getting another cow, but we keep waiting.  We don't have the proper facilities where we are and have high hopes of moving - and so we wait.

Milk cows are a vital part of any homestead.  They are what preppers dreams are made of.  They are fresh meat, milk, yogurt, cheese, sour cream, ice cream, whipped cream and butter.  If you have a milk cow, you will not only survive, you will survive in style!

Essential Preparedness Tools of the Trade Part V - Attitude in Adversity

The generator pulled my chain this morning - again.  It's a great little beast, however, it does have some carburetor issues that need to be addressed.  Sometimes our generator purrs like a kitten and sometimes, no matter what I do, I can't keep the thing running.  Today, was one of those days.

My great desire is to be a woman with a quiet and gentle spirit.  I long to meet adversity face to face, smile gracefully, and do the next thing.  The reality of me is something different.  I get frustrated and irritated and start murmuring.  I think "no one else has to mess with their stupid generator" or "if only we would have taken care of this when we should have, this wouldn't have happened".  I become discontent and my focus becomes "poor me", making me ineffective in taking care of the business at hand.

As I sat stewing about my current problem, I started thinking about the life that we have been preparing for.  We have been stocking up on food, communications equipment, weapons and ammunition.  We have been cultivating skills to serve us in a grid down situation.  We have been canning, shooting and deepening our faith.  But, have we been molding our attitudes to deal with adversity?  Do we meet adversity with quiet faith and a can-do attitude, or do we moan and complain and say "it's not fair"!  Do we stomp our feet and throw a fit or do we stare adversity down and come out victorious?

Today, I decided to quit stomping my feet like a spoiled child.  A broken generator and living 10 years off the grid have taught me that adversity is a way of life.  Much more important than the adversity that comes my way is how I handle that adversity - that is the real test.  

It occurred to me that one of our greatest assets for a preparedness lifestyle is our attitude.  We can all have a great attitude when everything is going well and life runs smoothly - but the rubber meets the road when the difficult things happen.  We can choose to make our life easier or more difficult when adversity comes our way.  We can choose to throw a temper tantrum or we can choose to make the best out of whatever life throws at us.

Later this morning, after I had talked to God about my attitude, I tackled the generator again.  I filled it with fuel, leveled it out and pushed the power button.  You know what?  It purred like a kitten!  

Essential Preparedness Tools of the Trade Part IV - Non-Electric Lighting

When we moved into "Little Shouse on the Prairie", we had two windows, and they were both in the back of the shouse, not in the living areas.  What we were thinking, I will never know, but I do know that it was like living in a cave.

Sir Knight and I had prepared for Y2K, so we were ready to take on life with no electricity, or so we thought.  Although we didn't have electric lights, we did have Aladdin Mantle Lamps and a Petromax Multi-Fuel lantern made in Germany.  We had some plain old kerosene lamps, but they were old school - who needed them?

We brought out our highly polished, perfectly beautiful Aladdin lamps, put them in prestigious locations in our rather crude living room, and lit them.  They were something to behold indeed.  The light was even and bright.  You could easily read or work by the light they put out, and Sir Knight and I wondered why anyone would ever have a need for electric lights.  The light put out by the Aladdin was so warm and glowing - it positively lit up the room with it's wonderful radiance.  And then, it burst into flames.

We found that although the light put out by the Aladdin Lamp is superior, the lamp requires constant attention.  You don't just light an Aladdin and then go feed the animals.  If you do that, you will return to a burned out mantle (no small thing at $14.00 apiece) or your house on fire.  If you use an Aladdin, you have to be willing to babysit it.  For folks with no children, who only use the lamp for reading (and they are right next to it to adjust it as required), it may be a wonderful option, but for a busy family with no time to fiddle with a light all of the time, it can be disastrous.

After our adventures with Aladdins, we turned our attention to the stunningly beautiful Petromax Multifuel Lantern made in Germany.  Touted as the toughest lamp out there and used by German troops in the field, we thought this might be the perfect lamp for us.  After all, we are harder on things than most military units!  The Petromax is a technological marvel.  It made out of blindingly shiny stainless steel and when fitted with the shade, will fill your house with the equivalent of three 100 watt light bulbs.  Pretty good for an off-grid lighting option.

We filled our Petromax with fuel, and noticed what at first appeared to be rivulets and then became rivers of fuel seeping through the bottom seam.  After many conversations with the importer, we sent our old (brand new) fuel tank back and were sent a new one.  This time, there were no problems with leaking, so we decided to fire up the old girl and see how she ran.  The Petromax has a pre-burner that atomizes the fuel so that it will light quickly, before it has gotten sufficiently warm to atomize the fuel on its own.  I'm telling you - it is like lighting a blow torch in your kitchen!  You have a tank full of pressurized fuel (you pump the Petromax up just like a Coleman lantern) with a blow torch on it and then you put a lighter to it.  Now don't think that doesn't take a lot of prayers and a lot of faith!  The light that the Petromax puts out is unparalleled.  It is bright - really bright.  The Petromax is, however, fussy.  It leaks (both fuel and pressure), the mantles break incredibly easily, the pre-burner works sometimes and not other times and it is complicated to use.  It caught on fire more than once and the last time, it caught my kitchen table on fire (the table still bears the scars) and I vowed never to use it again.  It scared me.  I was afraid the whole darn thing was going to blow up and kill us all.  The best thing that ever happened to that Petromax was Sir Knight drilling holes in it and putting electricity to it.  Now I use it every day, hanging over the loveseat in the kitchen, emitting a the lovely glow of a compact fluorescent.

A new Petromax -our old one hangs in the kitchen

After a number of hysterical, tear-filled phone calls to my father, he took pity on me and brought up a Coleman lantern and a Dietz Lantern.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  No more fussing with suicidal Aladdin lamps and no more bargaining with homicidal Pertromax lanterns.  Just plain, simple, humble Coleman lanterns, with their soothing hiss on cold winter nights.  They worked.  I didn't have to worry about them catching their mantles on fire or the pre-burner igniting the table.  The mantles were cheap, the fuel was cheap, parts were available and inexpensive and the light was wonderful.  Sir Knight bent wire coat hangers and hung a hook in the living room and one in the kitchen (off the garage door track) and we had two Colemans, which lit the entire living area of the shouse.  Some of my childrens' earliest  memories are of waking up to the sound of me pumping and lighting the Coleman lanterns and opening up the drafts on the wood cookstove.  To this day, they love Coleman lanterns.  They are the sound of home.

One of our trusty old Colemans

And those humble, plain, old school kerosene lamps?  I love them!  Trim the wicks, fill them with kerosene, light them and adjust the wick and you are done!  They give off a pleasing glow, plenty to light those dark corners, and they never fail.  There is nothing to remember, nothing to tweak, nothing to brake (except, perhaps the chimney - I always keep extras).  I really like lamps that hang on the wall.  We have children.  It just keeps accidents from becoming emergencies.

Wonderful, plain old kerosene lamp

The Dietz Lanterns that my dad brought up were invaluable for night time feeding of stock and milking in the winter time.  We live in a windy area, and regular lamps are immediately blown out if you step outside.  The Dietz just keeps on shining.  The kids used it (and still do, sometimes) when they fed the critters when it was dark, when they brought wood in at night and even for night time sledding.  I used it for many years in my milking parlor.  There was nothing nearly as romantic as being snuggled up to a warm cow, watching the snow gently waft to the ground, listening to that rhythmic ping, ping of the steaming milk hitting the milk bucket, bathed in the glow of the Dietz lantern.

And then there are candles.  Candles, of course, are not particularly good to read by, they strain your eyes too much, but they do light the way down a dark hall, brighten a dark corner and provide a warm, soft glow.

Candle mold

Having your lighting needs provided for will offer you a wonderful sense of security when the power grid goes down.  Knowing how to use your lighting sources and having them ready and available is essential.  The last thing you want to do is run around looking for the mantles, wicks, funnels and fuel when it is pitch black and the kids are panicking.  We still have our coat hanger hooks hanging from the garage door track, just in case. We keep our Coleman's clean and serviced.  Every fall, I clean our kerosene lanterns and fill them with fuel.  And, even now, I am working on perfecting my candle recipe.

We hope that we will always have enough solar to keep our lights on, but we are prepared if we don't.

Essential Preparedness Tools of the Trade Part III - Working Hands

One of the most oft overlooked aspects of preparedness is practical application.  You can have all of the tools, supplies and reference materials to weather any storm that comes your way, but without willing hands to do the job, your preparations will be worthless.

Making Lemon Curd

Dipping Caramel Apples

When you consider all of the jobs our hands need to do, it is absolutely amazing.  We have got to be willing to get our hands dirty, do the hard things and soldier on.  I look at all of the things my husband does with his hands.  He works on generators, wires electric systems, chops wood, flips crepes, bandages injuries, hugs children, fixes fences, re-loads ammunition, shoots guns....the list could go on forever.  My husband is not a man afraid to get his hands dirty.  His hands often look as though they have been through a war.  They are scared, smashed and scratched.  They are the hands of a working man.  They are also often folded in prayer.  These are the hands we will need in order to survive the coming collapse.

Bandaging an injured toe

Kneading dough

Maid Elizabeth works at a grocery store.  She now works in the bakery department, but she used to be a checker.  She enjoyed her job as a checker, however, there was one aspect that she really had a hard time with - welfare.  She noticed a few things about the folks that would come through her line bearing their welfare card.  The first thing that she saw was that most of the ladies using their food-stamp card had professionally manicured fingernails.  They were often so long, that the women had to use a pen to push the buttons entering their PIN number.  They didn't empty their own cart, but waited for the checker or a bagger to empty it for them.  They bought no food that would require preparation.  They refused to put their own groceries in their car, but, once again, expected someone else to do it for them.  Then, to add insult to injury, they would get cash from their welfare card and gamble on the slot machines located next to the checkout lines at the store.  What will these people, who don't know how to work with their hands, do when the shumer hits the fan?  They will shrivel away waiting for someone else to take care of them.

Checking battery voltage

Watering batteries

Tinkering with the generator

Many people who go to work every day and provide for their families have forgotten how to work with their hands.  They type at lightening speed on their keyboards, are very experienced in texting and can maneuver their way through most any computer program, but can they lance a boil on a horse and nurse the wound back to health?  Can they sow seeds and tend a garden?  Can they repair a small engine and keep mechanical equipment in good working order?  Can they kneed bread and prepare biscuits?  Can they milk a cow or nurse an orphaned lamb?  When things get bad, all of the computer knowledge in the world won't amount to a hill of beans.  Only real life skills such as suturing, bandaging, animal husbandry and gardening, butchering and canning, cheesemaking and sewing will make life worth living.  If you don't have these skills, now is the time to learn.

Hanging laundry

Our children can be our greatest asset, but only if we are teaching them to use their hands.  In the day that we live, children are often bombarded with absolutely backward ideals.  They are taught that being entertained is the only thing that matters, that work is a thing to be avoided at all costs and that it isn't "fair" to have to earn your own way.  One of the sayings we live by in our home is "work before play".  Our kids have learned that a movie can only really be enjoyed after having spent the day fixing fences or chopping wood, that a cup of cocoa on a cold day is even better after they have trudged through 3 feet of snow in a blizzard to feed and water the animals.  They are learning the value of working with their hands.  They will be an asset to our family when TEOTWAWKI hits because they understand the value of work.  Rather than battling spoiled children who whine about doing the dishes, we will spend our time taking dominion over the tasks at hand.  

Our hands are one of our greatest preparedness tools.  Learn how to use them!

And remember, He made this with HIS own hands!

Essential Preparedness Tools of the Trade Part II - Wood Cookstove

I may have mentioned my love affair with our wood cookstove (a time or two) before!  I LOVE it! It is the heart of our home.

We bought our stove about 13 years ago and have never regretted it for a day.  Ours is a Pioneer Maid, manufactured by the Amish in their barn.  We bought it from Lehman's Non-Electric prior to the Y2K nonsense and had it shipped with two Baker's Choice cookstove's purchased by our neighbors at the same time (greatly reduced the shipping costs).  The Baker's Choice is made by the same folks, but is a smaller model.

A perfect breakfast!

After drooling over the cookstoves in Lehman's for a couple of years, we decided on the Pioneer Maid for numerous reasons.  The Maid is larger than any other wood cookstove on the market.  The firebox is HUGE.  We can easily put 5 to 6 pieces of 16" chunks of wood at time in the firebox, which is handy for keeping a fire overnight or when we are going to be gone for longer periods of time.  It is airtight, unlike all of its antique counterparts, which allows us to stoke the stove and allows for better control when baking and cooking.  The stove is completely repairable (heaven forbid it break) because is is entirely constructed out of mild and stainless steel.  In fact, our stainless steel top cracked near the lid and we just welded it up.  We have never had another problem with it!  Our stove has an 11 gallon waterfront on the side of the stove so that we always have hot water at our disposal.  We even have a water jacket that goes into the firebox so that we can plumb it into a hot water tank for all of our domestic hot water use.  We don't have this feature hooked up, but we would love to hook it up some day and say good-bye to the propane tank!  We bought the warming oven option with our stove rather than a warming shelf.  I don't know how people live without this handy feature.  Our dinner plates are always warm and I just pop a plate full of food in the warming oven to keep it warm until everything else is ready.

Filling the water reservoir

I can't tell you how many times we have run out of propane or battery power, or both, and had to rely solely on the wood cookstove for hot water, hot food and a warm shouse.  Our stove has been a laundry-mat, a hot water heater, a room heater, a microwave, a dryer, an animal hospital and an auto-clave.  It is where our family clusters when the winter winds howl and were our meals are prepared.  The wood cookstove is where I can our foods, melt our wax for candle making and mix up soap.  It warms our children, our towels and our feet.  It drys our boots and gloves and pasta.  It bakes our bread, helps our dough to rise and has rejuvenated more than a few hapless farmyard critters.

I can live without electricity, without running water and without a flushing toilet.  I can get by without refrigeration, a clothes dryer and even a washing machine.  But my wood cookstove is a gift from God.  In it, He provides us with heat, food, hot water and great comfort and security.

If I had to have only one End of the World tool, it would be my Pioneer Maid.  I would leave behind china and generators and solar panels, but our Maid is my servant girl.  She provides warmth and sustenance to this modern day pioneer family.

Our wood cookstove is an Essential Preparedness Tool of the Trade.

Essential Preparedness Tools of the Trade Part I - Faith

Sir Knight and I have talked at length about preparedness.  We have written lists, taken inventories and read about others' preparedness efforts.  We have had "off-grid" weekend experiments, done unit studies on "The Little House on the Prairie" and even went so far as to take the plunge and become "non-electric".  We have made a lot of mistakes and we have learned a tremendous amount.

One question that I hear a lot is "what is the best off-grid/preparedness tool"?  I used to answer that question flippantly with something like "our wood cookstove or Coleman lanterns or a generator".  Those answers, while accurate to a certain degree, fall short of communicating our greatest strength.

Our years of living off the grid, of struggling to be self-sufficient and independent, have, in reality, shown us how dependent we really are.  When we have exhausted our strength and money and resources and the generator breaks....again, we have to look up.  When we can no longer do it on our own, we have to ask the One who can do anything.

"Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God".  Psalm 20:7

We have learned that although we can stock up on food and fuel and equipment, our trust is not in those things, but in God alone.  We believe that God has called us to prepare, and we are heeding His call, but we have no idea what comes next.  And to tell the truth, it doesn't really matter.  Our only job is to do what He tells us.  Our trust is in Him, not in the mass of "stuff" we have collected.

If we ever experience TEOTWAWKI, all of the food supplies and preparations we have made will be a blessing, however, God himself will sustain us.  It is He that directs how those provisions will be used.  We have learned that we cannot put our trust in what we have, rather in Who we serve.

We have all heard "there are no atheists in foxholes".  The same goes for a global disasters, national disasters, local disasters or family disasters.  When push comes to shove, we all need something to believe in.  Our faith has seen us through a life-threatening ordeal with our infant son, a still-born daughter and the hardships of an off-grid life.  Our faith will see us through whatever comes next, be it years of tranquility or years of untold horror.

"Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh.  For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken."
                                            Proverbs 3:25-26


Our Faith in Jesus Christ is our first, best preparedness tool of the trade.