Preparedness Challenge: June Edition

I don't know about you, but I can't believe that June is nearly over! We've been struggling to get back to a normal summertime routine, now that Isaac is out of school and it's daylight til 9 pm! Who wants to go to bed early when there's fireflies to catch and marshmallows to roast and berries to pick and fields to explore? June has brought us our first crops for the year and that means canning season is right around the corner. June is such a wonderful month, I hate to see it end! But time stops for no man, and the news is getting scarier and scarier, so intermingled with all the lazy summertime fun is a good bit of preparedness action.

Here's what I've done:

Store Something- This is a tricky one since I haven't stored anything-yet. BUT I did find a local source for wheat and corn! And this week is the wheat harvest, weather allowing! So God willing, next week, I'll be Foodsavin' wheat like there's no tomorrow.

Grow Something- Last week we planted the last of the tomato seedlings and transplanted a few volunteer tomatoes into their respective spaces. I can almost taste those delicious heirloom tomatoes!

Harvest Something- We've just begun to harvest sugar snap peas and green beans, along with a few onions to season the beans. The berry harvest is tapering off, sadly, but it was great being able to step out the back door and pick fresh blueberries, strawberries, black raspberries, yellow raspberries, red raspberries and serviceberries. The blackberries are just beginning to turn, so a few more weeks and we'll have our next round of fresh berries!

Preserve Something- So far this year, we've put up dried blueberries, blueberries in syrup, strawberry jam and frozen berries. Not a bad start.

Practice/Learn a Useful Skill- Knitting, as usual!

Do Something the Old-Fashioned Way- How about trading? Bartering and trading were a time-honored tradition in early America, so why did we ever stop? This weekend, I got the deal of a lifetime when I traded a jar of homemade apple butter for an old Singer treadle sewing machine. I'm trying not to get too excited because it needs a good deal of work, but it has real possibilities. And being married to someone who learned a bit of sewing machine repair in the Army, well that helps a bit, doesn't it???

Have Fun- This HAS been a fun month, with VBS, Father's Day, and good hot weather for swimming and playing in the sand. We've watched baby birds hatch out of their nest on top of the downspout, enjoyed some thunderstorms with awesome lightning displays. We've eaten fresh berries, picked straight from the vine and still warm from the sunshine. And who can forget the homemade rootbeer floats, enjoyed on the front porch late one Sunday evening? Oh June, I'm going to miss you!

So what have you done to be better prepared for the future?