TESTING, TESTING...

 Although the "suggested focus" each month is a way to guide us through creating, adding to, rotating our food storage, kits and emergency supplies, it is only a suggestion.  Sometimes, we just need to work in a little here and there, the point is to DO SOMETHING each month to be prepared for future needs.

Our household has owned a wheat grinder/flour mill for more than 40 years.  Never been used.  A few years ago, we purchased a "hand crank" mill for our preparedness supplies.  I grew up watching my mother grind wheat and bake bread each week.  Mostly as a way to rotate our HUGE store of wheat.  I came from a large family and my folks believed in food storage!  Many a FHE was spent price comparing between grocery stores and then calculating a plan of action.  We each had our assignment and pad of paper to "research" our products and write down the prices.  It was a blast at the time, as an adult, now, it is a chore.  Thank goodness for technology that lets us price shop from home much of the time. 

I was not a fan of whole wheat bread, whether it was store bought fluff or the hard crusted homemade stuff, so I never had a desire to try and make it on my own.  We have wheat stored, as we have been instructed to do so.  But, I have only recently even learned how to bake bread, let alone grind the flour too.

A week or so ago, wee decided to pull out the wheat grinders and give them a TEST!   Learning curves all around I tell ya!  Much respect to you professionals out there.  Ironically, I served a 5 year service mission at the "MILL" in Kaysville, and still didn't gain the desire to grind my own.  Go figure.

First off, we tried the hand crank mill.  We now know that if the world comes to an end as far as electricity goes, we will have flour to do something with!   We also procured an electric motor attachment for the had crank mill, just in case, haha.  Altogether, testing both hand crank and motor driven, we processed about 6 cups of wheat.  We sifted the flour to obtain a finer flour texture, which gave me nearly 2 cups of fine flour, leaving about 3 cups of a more coarse flour for my brave wheat bread loving neighbor. 

This week we are getting set up to test the "vintage" wheat grinder that has been waiting patiently in our storage room for years.  Fingers crossed that us cavemen can figure out such an ancient "modern machine" after-all, when we received it as a wedding gift years ago, it WAS top of the line!

So, here goes!   

Our point in all this silliness, is - as part of your rotating food storage, go ahead and test out your stuff!  Create meals using only food storage items.  Go camping, even if only in the backyard and test out that outdoor equipment and cooking options.  Even a simple hide and seek game with flashlights would test your batteries! (sounds fun in my head...)  Good luck, (wish US luck...) and Prep on!

And, by the way... I did make ONE loaf of bread.  It wasn't TOO bad.