Food Storage II

As I stated in the last post, vacuum sealing is the ideal way to store much of your food. We also can as much food as possible. Our only problem is that we do not have a lot of storage space for canned food. We can the items that we cannot dry and that we have storage room for. At the present time we are looking at canning two wild turkeys. The only other way to keep meat is in the freezer and when you do a lot of hunting and have quite a bit meat, the freezer fills up. We normally can venison, but have never tried wild turkey. I am sure it is no different than canning any other type of meat. The other thing that I do with meat is to jerk quite a bit of it. I am also going to try jerking some of the turkey this year. The reason that I do so much drying and jerking is that once I vacuum seal it, I can store it anywhere, even where it will freeze. Our home has no basement and limited storage space, so being able to store food where it might freeze in the winter is a great help. I have not yet done it at this location, but intend to bury an old freezer or refrigerator for extra food storage space. If it is an upright freezer or a refrigerator, you just dig a large enough hole to lay it down in with the door facing up. The door needs to be below ground level and then you can cover it with hay or straw and some boards. This is like a root cellar and it is a storage area that you will only want to open occasionally. This will keep food from freezing and will keep most other people from knowing where you have your surplus food stored. It works well for storing other items such as guns and ammo as well. A chest freezer is the best as it is the largest and holds the most. It is just that the hole needs to be much bigger and that is more work. If you have a storage shed on your land that does not have a floor, this is the ideal spot to bury your chest. Next best is right next to a garage or other building so that the lumber used to cover the hole can look like that is just a storage spot for the lumber. The more you can hide from prying eyes the better off you are. As a survivalist, you do not want to be ripped off.