Preparedness Challenge: April Edition

Can you believe it's been more than a month since we've talked preparedness? This past month has just blown by; a blur of beautiful weather, yard work, holidays, eye-opening experiences and outings with the kids. This is, without a doubt, my favorite time of the year. The grass is green, the fruit trees are covered with blooms, wild mushrooms and asparagus are popping up everywhere you look and every morning, I get to wake up to birds tweeting in the tree at the back of the house. It IS a wonderful life!

Part of the beauty of practicing preparedness is that, well, like the old story goes "I can sleep when the wind blows." Ever heard that story? Prepare a little every day, spiritually, physically, mentally and you'll have nothing to fear. If you're prepared for the storms in life, then you can better appreciate the beautiful, sunny days.

That said, how have you prepared for life's storms over the past month?

Store Something: This month we put up dried corn and wheat, dehydrated fruit, bottled water and a few other goodies. I've also been playing around with a Foodsaver and am pretty excited about the new possibilities for food storage.

Grow Something: We planted most of our garden yesterday, with the exception of the warm weather plants (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant). We haven't planted the corn patch yet as we want to be sure that it's a 'soy' year instead of a 'corn' year and we don't end up with a patch of corn so dry and nasty that even the raccoons won't eat it.

Harvest Something: Within the next day or two, we'll have rhubarb ready to go! In addition to rhubarb cobbler, I want to try canning rhubarb in chutney form.

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Preserve Something: Strawberry jam, 2 batches! I know what you're thinking: "Bad homesteader! Using commercially grown berries instead of locally grown." Deal with it! I was desperate!

Learn Something: I've learned so much over the past month! All the things I'd learned as a youth about God transferred from my head to my heart. Suddenly, it all made sense.

Practice Something Useful: I'm still knitting away! I knitted a dishcloth with an impression of a fish on it. I say 'impression' because it isn't quite right and it only gives you the suggestion of a fish. Just like an Impressionist painting! Call me Monet. We went fishing with the kids, although I'm not sure that you'd call catching a 6 inch long fish useful.

Do Something the Old-Fashioned Way: This one is a little tougher. We collectively spent about 2 weeks sick in late March, so our usual old-fashioned habits took a backseat to convenience. It's no fun baking bread when it's all you can do to drag yourself out of bed in the morning, right? I did mix up some killer tonics to try and beat the cold. My ginger tea was delightful whether you're sick or not.

Have Fun! This HAS been a fun month. We had our Easter celebration, took the kids fishing, played Charlie Brown football and enjoyed a Kindergarten spring program last night. What is it about 90 kids doing the chicken dance that is so darn funny?????

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So that's an overview of our lives over the past month. What have you done so that you can sleep when the wind blows?