Prepper/Survival Supplies

[MrMan]

Are you guys sequestering yourself during all this? This is a thread for discussing how to have supplies and things you need during a lock down.

I am in the US now, staying in a house with a yard. I was assigned to work from home, so I still have my job and my income. (Praise God for that.)

My wife and I... mainly my wife.. stocked up on supplies, starting before it got too hectic. We have canned food, a freezer, shelves of food upstairs, boxes of food in a large basement, along with other supplies. We never did get masks. We have maybe 8 bottles of hand sanitizer. We aren't true preppers with solar panels or non-electric water pumps. We are renting now, thinking of buying a few hours from here in several months.

This place has a lot of space in the back that gets little sun and an old style, mixed grass and weeds front yard. I've eaten clover and dandelions recently out of the front yard to try them. They were actually pretty delicious in a stir fry. Dandelions are bitter, especially later in the year. I was curious because if the lock down gets really severe, we might not be able to buy groceries. The greens I planted won't start bearing for another month or six weeks depending on which type it is, except for the Kailan left over from last year.

I was reading about freezing eggs. You can crack them and put them in an ice cube tray. You could probably use the egg carton for this if you poured half an egg into each slot. It might be best with frozen scrambled eggs. I told my wife about it. She said she'd take care of it. We have room in the freezer now after I got some milk. We should have just done condensed milk. I got too small of a stash of that since there wasn't much left that had fat in it by the time I bought that.

I am thinking of growing mushrooms in the back of the house on or under the deck. We have buckets. I need wood chips and mushroom spores. It looks pretty easy online. My wife is concerned that our freezer might run out of meat before this is over. She wanted another one, but can't find one available now. I suggested buying more dried beans and mushrooms for protein, and rationing the meat. Fresh mushrooms would make a good addition.
I'd have to buy some untreated wood chips or saw dust. We might need to get more cooking wine for the mushroom sauce my wife makes if we do this.

I was thinking of buying a couple of hens. My side of the street has a creek and a patch of land that connects by a creek up to many acres of hunting land, here in the suburbs. There are deer and coyote out there. I haven't had trouble with the deer getting through the dense mess behind my house up into the garden. But I wonder if chickens would attract the coyotes. The neighbor across the street has a low salary and a great back yard for chickens. I was thinking of offering to buy a bag of feed and a couple of chickens for him and splitting the eggs until we move. We wouldn't have to freeze scrambled eggs if we did that. I'm guessing coyotes would be less of a potential threat, but there are still hawks around.

If I can figure out where my collard greens seeds are, I may plant them in the partly shaded back yard and see how they do. Alternatively, as a substitute for fresh green vegetables, I could buy sour kraut and Chinese pickled mustard greens. We've got a big container of kimchi. Maybe we could use another batch of bok choi.

Are you guys buying supplies and setting up as 'preppers?'