OldMtWoman – I’m so glad to hear that your DH got home safely, and I hope you will both be feeling better soon! Yes, I’m really happy to have found out about the locally grown seeds available for sale. I also was glad to have found lists online of the plants that the County Extension Service’s Master Gardeners sold at their annual Spring greenhouse fundraising sale here over the past few years. In most cases, those lists specified the particular varieties of the plants being sold. I took notes as to varieties they sold since those plants were all grown in this County by the Master Gardeners and their assistants. Now I feel fairly confident that I know which varieties will do well in my garden – so hopefully I won’t waste money or time trying to grow ones that wouldn’t do well in this climate. I definitely know about card catalogs, lol. I was a volunteer librarian at my High School back in the late 1960’s 🙂
Muffy1938 – I keep lists of my food storage items and my preparedness equipment and tools in my computer but I don’t use a spreadsheet program. I just type the lists in long Word or Open Office documents that I have divided into categories. If I want to, I can always use the Tab or column features in the software to line up the information neatly. Once I update a particular list, I make a couple of digital copies of it on flash/USB drives and also upload one set of the lists into an old netbook I use for back-up storage. Occasionally I will print out a hard copy of each list to have just in case all my digital back-ups crash somehow. I have heard that some other people keep their preparedness inventory information handwritten on 3 x 5 cards, and update the individual cards as needed. Switching gears here, lol, if you decide to get a jar sealer accessory for your FoodSaver machine, keep in mind that they come in either regular or wide-mouth sizes. (Apologies if you already knew that). If you get the regular-mouth size jar sealer accessory and have any trouble getting a jar’s lid/flat to vacuum seal down on the jar’s rim, try placing an extra lid/flat upside down inside the jar sealer accessory before placing it over the jar and the lid/flat you’re actually going to vacuum seal. Usually having that little bit of extra pressure on the lid/flat you’re trying to seal will do the trick. I have never had to do that with the wide-mouth jar sealer accessory but often have to do so with the regular-mouth one.
Littlesister – Congratulations on the great deal on the roasts!
Yesterday, I spent a few hours online tracking down technical specifications and user guides for my older Goal Zero solar-powered devices. I have hard copies of the user guides “somewhere” but, naturally, they’re misplaced among all the moving boxes <sigh>. Today, I watched more videos on Modern Refugee’s YouTube channel, re-watched an old YouTube video (by “Misty Prepper”) about making cold process goat’s milk soap, and did some more work on updating my pantry inventory list.