Long Term Food Storage for Self Reliance at the Off Grid Log Cabin

Description

Long term food storage for self reliance is one of my primary concerns at the off grid log cabin, and the DIY bushcraft woodworking projects I engage in this week help me achieve this. The wilderness homestead in the forest is more self sufficient when it includes at least one year's worth of food in storage, and beans, rice, grains, legumes and canned preserved goods are critical to my survival in a SHTF situation. Prepping for a survival situation is easy to do in this remote location since I have access to endless forests, wild game, fish and plant-based wild edibles, but for things that I can't grow or find easily, storing things like grains and legumes in a safe place is one more step in my quest for complete food security and self reliance.

In this episode, I build more floating shelves with wood from the land to store food in mason jars. I make a couple of meals with food from the shelves, including split pea and rice soup and beans with rice.

Using a Husqvarna chainsaw, something I haven't done at the property since before I started building the cabin, I cut down a large dying maple tree and use a Granberg Alaskan chainsaw mill to cut a slab of wood for a leg for a new table for the log cabin.

Using power tools will continue to be the exception rather than the rule, but in order to achieve everything I have planned at the homestead this year, I need a chainsaw to mill my own lumber. One I'm done building the infrastructure, including all of the buildings, I'll go back to using hand tools only since I want to be able to live with as little inputs from the outside world as possible, including fuel and parts for equipment.

Links to products I use at the cabin;

Solar LED light bulb 15W

http://amzn.to/2BQvSQ2

Agawa Canyon Boreal 21 Saw

http://amzn.to/2BPV6OF

Copper Fairy lights

http://amzn.to/2BCmF0X

Solar String Lights

http://amzn.to/2DvgU2n

Lodge Dutch Oven

http://amzn.to/2kHuxDQ

Rocksheat baking stone

http://amzn.to/2kF6eql

Mora Knife

http://amzn.to/2BOiv35

Lamp OiI

http://amzn.to/2qz0nZ1

Wall Lantern (candle lit)

http://amzn.to/2Dpa0MK

Moka Pot

http://amzn.to/2DEomvO Canada

http://amzn.to/2ndmtw6 USA

Canon 6D

http://amzn.to/2EdaZjs

DJI Mavic Pro

http://amzn.to/2DHuJib

Bragg's Sprinkle

http://amzn.to/2EdouzK

Axe

http://www.torontoblacksmith.com/

To see what I’m up to during the rest of the week, please follow me on my other online channels;

Website: http://myselfreliance.com/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/MySelfReliance/

Personal Facebook Page (Shawn James) – https://www.facebook.com/shawn.james.msr

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/myselfreliance/

Mailing Address:

P.O. Box 20042

Barrie, Ontario

L4M 6E9

Canada

Tags: Self Reliance,off grid,log cabin,diy,wilderness,bushcraft,wood,cabin,tiny home,woodworking,maker,woods,My Self Reliance,long term food,long term food storage,food storage,my self reliance,my self reliance cabin,log,off-grid cabin,food,storage,grid

Video Transcription

I'm starting to stalk the cabin with more food sort of like a prep prepping situation so I can get it like a years where the food store here and you know non-perishable stuff that's gonna last anyway why am I telling you this right now so I'm here carving more dowels because I'm hanging some more floating shelves one long one six and a half feet in the kitchen up high and then a couple maybe right here just inside the cabin door for books and then probably on the back wall above the table or on the kind of bench there so I want to store as many jars of beans as possible that storage in the floor have never really said exactly I don't think what I'm using it for it's not really meant as a fridge as a as a like cold storage for everyday use which is why I'm not concerned about the depth and difficulty of getting it down into it now if you look at my the way I've changed the hinge now so it opens up it's a lot easier to open and the hinge is not in a way in a spot that you're gonna step on it or stub your toe on it because I'm putting a door over that back back wall to go to the covered porch which I'll be building this spring so storage is food is going to be one of my highest priorities this year so that cellar down on the bottom that icebox in the bottom it's a basically a spot for more stable temperature so I can store jars even food down there like canned goods and mostly jars like mason jars I'm gonna do up big batches of preserves this year again

that'll be stored in there just so it doesn't freeze during the winter and doesn't overheat during the summer until I get the Maine's cellar built even then I'll still keep stuff in here as well so that's the purpose so I plan on building a little fridge back in the back corner underneath that drawer in the kitchen that would be for everyday use like milk and cheese and butter and stuff like that that's a plan for food for this year so that I'm just like I said just making dowels so I can get some more shelves up to store more mason jars full beans and rice and stuff like that for now

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so every year I get a pretty big vegetable garden going and this year it's gonna be here at the cabin so I've just cleared a couple of trees that would actually on the path of just over here to the in front of the cabin to enrich the soil it's really acidic soil up here so I have to add some wine to it and then I'll start composting and adding organic material as well but it's just sunny enough I think that I can grow vegetables beans is one of the primary vegetables I grow I grow up bush beans and pull beans and typically I let them dry I'll eat some of the some of it fresh like green beans but or string beans but a lot of it I let dry and then I store it in jars like this so starting to stock the shelves here it's something that lasts a long time almost forever once it's dried and it's extremely healthy so I'll be cooking a lot more bean meals so I've been soaking these beans all day and I'll cook up some rice yeah I think that's what I'll do so I'll put rice and beans in a pot with some stewed tomatoes and some onions and garlic and stuff like that and I'll eat that for lunch tomorrow as well so I got to put this on the fire for about an hour like I said then I'll go back outside you don't actually have to drain them and if you do drain them you can keep that water reserve it use it for other things I don't have anything else planned for it right now so just go discard that water and get some fresh stuff basically what I'm doing here is putting up a bunch of greens and I'll throw it in this pot with some stewed tomatoes while the beans are still cooking and probably less 20 minutes or so I'll put the rice in I think I'll do a mix of wild rice and long green rice although I've got some regular longer'n rice as well but no I think I'll do the the wild rice mixture with the beans I have celery here leeks and Swiss chard know that I've got onion and pepper as well sweet pepper so that it's not that advanced all that much flavor but it adds a lot more nutrition I've been eating a lot of greens especially leafy greens in particular over the last several years not sure how long but I mentioned my high blood pressure in a little while ago couple months ago or a month ago and eliminated some things that I was eating too much I mentioned a little bit too much meat and too much poor especially salt pork a lot of salt so it was raising my blood pressure but went to the doctor and after you know improved my diet for a month or two that's got to be two months ago that I said that and I went to a doctor a week or weekend half ago and my blood pressure is fine it's right back to normal

117 over 83 I think so very happy to say it back on track again so this kind of meal is very heart healthy beans rice and green vegetables and some sweet peppers and onions so very very healthy I tend to eat a lot of this kind of stuff my frittata in the morning are full of all of these same things till it's a great way to get your vegetables and it's hard to sit there and we've had enough vegetables even to a regular meat potatoes kind of meal to get enough when you throw it all into a pot like this or into an omelet in the morning get a lot of that your servings of vegetables that way

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just on that one shelf right there or probably got a month worth of calories at least for one person at least more than that and it'd be way less than 100 bucks there if I had I bought it all and I've even if I paid even if I bought organic

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so mentioned last night of the night before that I'm starting to pare down the the complexity of the meals and trying to reduce the overall costs of the meals as well and to do that meeting a lot of beans and rice and peas and greens and stuff like that stuff that I can store so I'm kind of experimenting on some of the meals that I can make cheaply with these ingredients that I have stored in the in the mason jars up on the Shelf here so tonight I'm having rice split piece of tomato stew tomatoes onion it at the sourdough bread which this one is sure yeah this one's whole wheat my wife also made rye this week as well that's why I was checking to see what it was so sourdough whole-wheat sourdough bread [Music]

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