Canning meat

[FC]

I bought more beef tips to can since cattle are being sold off this year, due to the drought. I wonder if Argentina will have the U.S. market covered next year? I've canned some green beans, and will can more. Tomatoes are finally producing well; also cucumbers. I used to dislike the midwestern vinegar cucumbers omnipresent on the farm, but I like this recipe I just tried out. Cucumbers, onions, salt, pepper, dill weed, rice vinegar, and garlic. 

[Dr.Hess]

I came across the notes I made after we went a week without electricity in the ice storm of 2008.  These are items that I found should be on hand for such an emergency:

 

Inverter, large (several KW)

Romex with ends to make an extension cord

Storage batteries, charged

Propane cylinders, small for cooking - 6 to 10

Digital micro TV with spare batteries

LED flashlights

Wash tub

Firewood, 1-2 weeks supply always

Lighters, assorted

Kerosene lamps, kerosene and/or lamp oil, lamp wicks

5 gallons of gasoline, relatively fresh with Stabil

Wind up alarm clock

Paper plates

 

 

Sure, there's a lot more stuff, like food, soap, batteries, etc., but these are the things I found that one does not normally think of having on hand.

 

[FC]

Good ideas. I’d add an old plunger type clothes plunger, kettle, kerosene stove, windup radio, lights that use my battery shop tool batteries. A rain barrel, and a barrel with gravel, charcoal, and sand, with a larger LifeStraw filter. A case of MREs. A small solar charger.

[AzRednek]

My uncle that lived through several Los Angeles earthquakes swore by his Coleman stove and lanterns. He made the mistake of buying a cheapie low output generator to keep his refrigerator and freezer running. It died after a few hours. He warned the noise from a generator invites thieves and neighbors with extension cords. He later invested into a quiet RV generator. If he didn’t lose city water he vigorously boiled drinking water fearing sewage getting into the city’s water supply. My uncle was a hard core Democrat and wanted nothing to do with guns for protection. He had the give them what they want attitude saying there isn’t anything I have worth killing for. 

[Dr.Hess]

The Coleman type pump up "gas" stoves are great.  I carried one around in my saddlebag when out touring.  When it was low on fuel, I'd just un-do the fuel line at the petcock and fill it from my gas tank.  That was before the new ones that are supposed to burn the white gas ("Coleman camp stove fuel," etc.) and regular gasoline, but it didn't bother it at all.  It did best with unleadded gas, so that's what I would put in the bike. You can't hardly find them anymore.  I bought one from China that has different fuel jets, including kerosene, diesel, and gasoline.  They are not as convenient as the propane ones, which are about like just using a gas stove, but gasoline or diesel will always be around when you run out of propane/butane.

[AzRednek]

I too prefer the pump up stoves and lanterns. They do work well with unleaded gasoline. Coleman or generic brands of fuel has additives that gives long term storage of the fuel fresh. It also has some rust preventive qualities that are not found in unleaded gasoline. Where one runs into trouble with unleaded gasoline is its tendency to go stale, invite rust and not burning as well or clean until the generator gets really hot. When I used unleaded in my Coleman appliances I dumped all the unleaded out of the tanks before storing away until the next camping event. 
 

in reverse, Coleman fuel can be used in a car. Back in the 80s my friends picked me up at the LA airport in a renal car. We ran out of gas and there were not any gas stations we could see. A five minute walk to a 24 hour grocery store we bought thee gallons of Coleman fuel, plastic funnel emptied the fuel into the car’s gas tank the car ran fine. 

[Horsefly]

For maybe 12.00 I bought an adapter at Academy Sports that converts pump up Coleman stoves to propane. It’s held on with a spring. Works great. I melt lots of lead for fishing weights and jigs and piece of cake when I run out of either fuel. 

[Horsefly]

Double what I paid couple years ago. 

[Dr.Hess]

I bought that Coleman single burner gasoline stove specifically to melt lead for casting, decades ago.  It worked fine.  I have since lost it.  It is either in a box somewhere in the garage or I might have loaned it to someone and not got it back.  We stopped carrying it when we were camping once in Yellowstone and another couple asked to share our tent spot (they were full.)  They were riding smaller bikes, like 750 class, and if I recall, were 70 years old, so had been doing it for a long time.  They had a little propane stove that was so easy to use versus my pump up stove that when we got home weeks later, I put the Coleman up and bought a propane one to carry.

 

With the pump up one running gasoline, I would typically put it outside the motel room, light it, let it flare up until it "started making," that is, until the gasoline was coming out the jets as a gas and it had a nice blue flame, then put my coffee pot on it and make coffee.  When the coffee was ready, it would boil out the 2 cup pot and put the flame out.  With the propane ones, it's put it on the sink counter or bathroom floor, light the burner and go.  And it has come in VERY handy when we loose power, which has happened to us twice in the last 22 years.  Once from an ice storm where we had no electricity at all for 7 days, and once from the line from the pole to the house broken where we had 110V on one lead only and no 220V for heat or the stove, etc. for a month, in the dead of winter.  The first team of electricians did nothing at all except "Yup, that's the problem all right" and gave us COVID.