Prepping – Making Do

There are skills that our grandparents and great-grandparents had, that we (as a society, at least) are sadly lacking in today. The art of “making do” is one of those skills. It’s something we MUST learn to do, and quickly. Whether we have some type of country-wide emergency, an apocalyptic event, or a recession, the ability to “make do” is crucial.

So what is “making do,” you ask? It is actually an amalgamation of important skills. First and foremost, it is living within your means, no matter how uncomfortable. That means putting away the credit card and paying cash for things. If you can’t afford something, you don’t purchase it. Don’t live a filet mignon life when you have a hamburger budget.

It’s so much more than that, though. How many of you have mended a pair of socks or your jeans because they got a hole in them but still had a lot of life to them? Likely very few of you. Until the last ten years or so, I hadn’t done much of that myself. Even as someone who had a very low income, I could afford our frankly very cheap clothing. Today, even though I have access to considerably more money, I tend to spend less.

I do know how to darn a sock, mend a hole in a knitted sweater, and hem or patch clothing. I practice these skills on a regular basis. A good example of this is that I discovered my favorite holiday dress was eaten into (likely by a bunny, but we don’t know for sure). There are several jagged holes, and they’re near the hemline. I could patch the holes, but they would be very noticeable, and I don’t want that. I could darn them or put a decorative patch on them (which I’ve done with some of my jean skirts), but again, it wouldn’t look nice. It’s a nicer dress. Instead, I’ve decided to shorten the entire dress. I tend to wear it with tights or leggings anyhow, because it’s quite short and revealing, so taking off the 1.5 inches to remove the holes will not really be seen. As a bonus, it will give me a strip of the dress’s fabric that I can use for future patching, should it ever be necessary. My lovely holiday dress will live on, and I will enjoy wearing it despite a few mishaps.

Monday’s article was on making bone broth from your turkey carcass, and that’s yet another way to make do. Use every calorie like it’s your last, and you’ll find that you have plenty of food to go around. This year, I have several turkeys in my freezer (thanks to a local store having them on sale for a mere $0.38 per pound!), so I didn’t need to can the broth that I made, but in previous years I’ve done so. This year, I froze a few “broth cubes” and “broth pucks” (4 and 8 oz “pucks” of broth, useful for making soup in small batches) after I was done making my turkey noodle soup on Monday evening. The idea of making broth out of things you’d usually throw away is a very old one, and it’s a great way to make every bit of food scream before it’s discarded.

The same method of making broth can be done with beef bones, as well as most other bones. I admit I don’t really like pork broth, but I’ve made seafood broth from heads and tails of fish, and from shrimp tails and bits. If times were truly tough, I would save every potato peel and onion skin to add to broth.  You don’t even have to save them where they might go bad. One of the best ways to keep items for making broth is to stuff them into a baggie in the freezer. They don’t go bad, and the act of freezing them begins to break down the starches and bones and such, which makes the broth that much richer.

My living room has a double door that, in the summer, I absolutely adore. I can look out and see the front yard, and sunlight pours in and lights up the room. In the winter, it lets the cold air in, no matter how well we seal it. For years, I’ve covered it with one of the army “woobies,” because they work. It’s just not PRETTY though. So this year, as a gift to the family, I’m going to be making a nice, quilted door cover. It’ll move easily from side to side, go on with magnets (the doors are metal) for easy up and down, it’ll match my room decor, and it’ll be changeable. What will I use to make this lovely door cover? Scraps of quilting fabric that have been taking up space in my storage room for a decade. I’m going to separate the scraps into lights and darks, and make a pretty but easy pattern. I’ll whip it together with my sewing machine (either the electric one or the treadle, depending), and then sandwich it together with a big top sheet that no longer has a fitted sheet to go with it. Inside, I’ll either use some quilt batting which I have on hand, or I’ll ask Chris to comb me out some wool strands, which will get quilted right into the cover.

Our grandparents and great-grandparents, and in some cases our parents, were the first “recyclers.” They did so not to save the environment or to avoid filling up the landfill, but because they didn’t want to waste things they owned. Clothing would get passed down from child to child, or to friends and family. Wrapping paper got re-used. Books were shared back and forth. Everything had three or four uses in it before it would be considered trash.

Trump may get our economy back on track quickly, but no matter what he does, we’re going to be dealing with the fallout of Bidenomics for at least a year. I’m sincerely hoping that Elon Musk will go through with at least some of the austerity plans he is suggesting, which means we will all have to tighten our belts, for the good of this country. I’m willing, but more importantly, I’m prepared for this.

If you don’t know how to make do, now is a good time to learn. If you want to know more, ASK. I’m happy to share information with anyone.