Good save though! Repurposing failures is a win.

 

I have an 8x10 shed that is set up for feral cats; we have a huge need for cats out here because of all the rodents. I had just gotten 5 of them free from the county, and put them into the shed (like you are supposed to), to acclimate them to being there and being fed there for a few weeks. Well... it was getting to be summer and I left the window cracked open.

Two days after I got them, they all disappeared because they were able to get that window open just a little bit more and squeeze through. No sign of any of them was ever seen again.

 

Also -- I think the rule for this thread is that you have to also post something of your own. You can't just comment on what someone else did @jeff_k p ). So pony up!

 

Also -- I think the rule for this thread is that you have to also post something of your own. You can't just comment on what someone else did @jeff_k p ). So pony up!

Whooaaaaaa...🐎🤣

I think I've shared this under a "failure"/save...

Had a co-worker give me a bunch of pears...ah great! I'll make pear wine. Fermentation went well enough. But I let it sit for a bit to settle out. When I opened it...WTH? What's that scum on top? What's that smell? Ohhhh. Vinegar...well, that's not good. A failure. I couldn't just pour it out. Why not bottle it and use it as vinegar? Yep, that'll work.

That scum? The Mother...

Kept that too, now I can just make vinegar with store bought apple juice if I want.

@I'm Sincere. @2ftgd 👍

 

Couple years ago, I built a big open bottom box out of 2x6s, 15 feet by 20 feet, something like that. We ordered 6 or 7 yards of “dairy compost” and filled up the box. Bought all kinds of plants, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins… Planted them in the box and everything was dead in 10 days. Even weeds wouldn’t grow in it all summer.

 

OMG! Where do I start?? 😬😬😬

My most recent will do, I guess ...

There are 2 of us living here. I have recently come to the realization that only 1 of us eats at home. It doesn't matter if I cook something he "likes" if he is not "in the mood for that". 🙄🙄🙄

I have enough food in this house that me, the dog, the cats (ok, maybe not the cats -- they are as picky as TOM is, but the chickens for sure (they are in hog heaven! 😁) are NEVER gonna have to go to the grocery store again. 🤦 The fact that I worked at a grocery store for a year recently didn't help. Every time we had a big sale on something I was canning, dehydrating, freezing and freeze-drying my little heart out! 🤷

Oh ... And I have 10 chickens! TEN!! There are several dozen eggs on my counter right now because I DON'T NEED anymore FD'ed eggs! 😂😂😂😂

 

One fall we went out where the range cows hang out and picked up dried cow pies. We figured the cows were eating natural so their poop would be good for our attempt at a natural garden...
Guess what? Cows eat weeds and the weed seeds must not die in the digestion process.
We had some amazing weeds growing in our garden that next year.

Or what about the time I insulated my chicken coop with some left over styrofoam packing sheets.....the chickens ate it....now if they would only lay their eggs already in styrofoam cartons..

 

One fall we went out where the range cows hang out and picked up dried cow pies. We figured the cows were eating natural so their poop would be good for our attempt at a natural garden...
Guess what? Cows eat weeds and the weed seeds must not die in the digestion process.
We had some amazing weeds growing in our garden that next year.

Or what about the time I insulated my chicken coop with some left over styrofoam packing sheets.....the chickens ate it....now if they would only lay their eggs already in styrofoam cartons..

I did this once. coworker with a horse said I could have all the horse manure I wanted. So I took my trailer and filled it to the brim. Thought I was going to have a great garden that year. I was wrong.

I since learned why you use "composted" manure. The heat of composting kills the seeds. Otherwise you have a nice garden of lush weeds.

 

When I first got my freeze dryer I was sooo excited to be able to put away more food I ran several batches without making absolutely sure they were TOTALLY dry!! They weren't.. Lost 20 or so meals for sure and now have to mark everything from those first batches as possible bad.. after squeezing the mylar and feeling that the food inside was "crunchy" and not spongy I opened up several at random and they were good but still I now have an additional 40-50 double serving mylar pouches that I can't be 100% sure of until they are opened and checked.. I will use them in the short term and probably be able to salvage most of them but a huge hit to my storage and a valuable lesson learned.. STOP CUTTING CORNERS...

 

Yessir
Cutting corners and making substitutions in proven recipes

 

Not watching the propane tank level, 5 days now without heat....during the worse cold snap of the year.

 

And I am splitting wood by hand in the cold because I waited until I was out of split wood to get out the log splitter that I hadn't used in a year and a half. Nope won't start and it's in the shop now.

 

I have a recent one. A couple of years back I saw a little handheld battery operated sewing machine for sale at Grocery Outlet. I was intrigued, it was affordable and it ran on batteries so I bought it. Yesterday I finally made the time to get it out of the sewing box and try it out. The thing is absolute garbage! It has a single thread stitch, like a knit stitch and unravels, I can't backstitch to make the stitching stay and it works only sporadically. It was one of the most frustrating pieces of junk I have ever encountered! After over an hour of fiddling with it and trying to stitch the armpit seam of my sweatshirt back together I tossed the entire thing in the trash and just hand stitched my sweater back together. And for whatever it's worth, yes I am proficient with a normal sewing machine, lol.

Always test out your preps before you need them!

 

When I bought this place, I got a huge deal on it because it had been a hoarder house and they did drugs here. The owner was ill and on oxygen, and just didn't want to deal with it, and also wanted to make sure the people who'd lived here (squatters) could not make an offer on the place. Long story short, the place was beyond a mess, and even after all the garbage and drug stuff was cleaned out, there was still a rodent problem.

There's a second house on the property, and it has a big empty room where I decided to store some preps. I got a big tote that seemed airtight, and opened maybe a half dozen or so of those huge bags of pinto beans and filled it. A few months later when I went in there, I found that rodents had chewed through the bottom, gotten in under the lid, and covered the ground in that room in pinto beans. They didn't stop there, and managed to get the beans all over that house. I cleaned it up, did some major trapping, and am still finding beans hidden here and there.

 

I lost about 10 pounds of pasta because I did not freeze it when I first bought it. And back then I did not know about oxygen absorbers

 

wait??? I have 50 boxes of Prince thin spaghetti on my shelf in my cellar .....all dated and I use the oldest box every week and buy a new one to replace it.....I think i'm eating the spaghetti from 2020 or 2021..... it always tastes good to me???? what am I missing?

 

I have an 8x10 shed that is set up for feral cats; we have a huge need for cats out here because of all the rodents. I had just gotten 5 of them free from the county, and put them into the shed (like you are supposed to), to acclimate them to being there and being fed there for a few weeks. Well... it was getting to be summer and I left the window cracked open.

Two days after I got them, they all disappeared because they were able to get that window open just a little bit more and squeeze through. No sign of any of them was ever seen again.

Well, they are out there eating somebody's rodents, just not yours. 😁

Couple years ago, I built a big open bottom box out of 2x6s, 15 feet by 20 feet, something like that. We ordered 6 or 7 yards of “dairy compost” and filled up the box. Bought all kinds of plants, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins… Planted them in the box and everything was dead in 10 days. Even weeds wouldn’t grow in it all summer.

Try any successive years?

OMG! Where do I start?? 😬😬😬

My most recent will do, I guess ...

There are 2 of us living here. I have recently come to the realization that only 1 of us eats at home. It doesn't matter if I cook something he "likes" if he is not "in the mood for that". 🙄🙄🙄

I have enough food in this house that me, the dog, the cats (ok, maybe not the cats -- they are as picky as TOM is, but the chickens for sure (they are in hog heaven! 😁) are NEVER gonna have to go to the grocery store again. 🤦 The fact that I worked at a grocery store for a year recently didn't help. Every time we had a big sale on something I was canning, dehydrating, freezing and freeze-drying my little heart out! 🤷

Oh ... And I have 10 chickens! TEN!! There are several dozen eggs on my counter right now because I DON'T NEED anymore FD'ed eggs! 😂😂😂😂

I completely understand! Just cooking for 2 of us now, and it is so strange. I bake a batch of cookies thinking, hmmm... no kids to give them to. So I send some home with whoever stops by!

One fall we went out where the range cows hang out and picked up dried cow pies. We figured the cows were eating natural so their poop would be good for our attempt at a natural garden...
Guess what? Cows eat weeds and the weed seeds must not die in the digestion process.
We had some amazing weeds growing in our garden that next year.

Or what about the time I insulated my chicken coop with some left over styrofoam packing sheets.....the chickens ate it....now if they would only lay their eggs already in styrofoam cartons..

Horse manure did that to my garden one year. Never again!

When I first got my freeze dryer I was sooo excited to be able to put away more food I ran several batches without making absolutely sure they were TOTALLY dry!! They weren't.. Lost 20 or so meals for sure and now have to mark everything from those first batches as possible bad.. after squeezing the mylar and feeling that the food inside was "crunchy" and not spongy I opened up several at random and they were good but still I now have an additional 40-50 double serving mylar pouches that I can't be 100% sure of until they are opened and checked.. I will use them in the short term and probably be able to salvage most of them but a huge hit to my storage and a valuable lesson learned.. STOP CUTTING CORNERS...

Hanging my head in shame too, I did that with dehydrated carrots once. Got all fuzzy, too far gone to even give the chickens. Live and learn!

Not watching the propane tank level, 5 days now without heat....during the worse cold snap of the year.

Brrr...some mistakes are more uncomfortable than others. Hope you get heat soon!

I have a recent one. A couple of years back I saw a little handheld battery operated sewing machine for sale at Grocery Outlet. I was intrigued, it was affordable and it ran on batteries so I bought it. Yesterday I finally made the time to get it out of the sewing box and try it out. The thing is absolute garbage! It has a single thread stitch, like a knit stitch and unravels, I can't backstitch to make the stitching stay and it works only sporadically. It was one of the most frustrating pieces of junk I have ever encountered! After over an hour of fiddling with it and trying to stitch the armpit seam of my sweatshirt back together I tossed the entire thing in the trash and just hand stitched my sweater back together. And for whatever it's worth, yes I am proficient with a normal sewing machine, lol.

Always test out your preps before you need them!

Don't you just hate that! My first sewing machine was this HollyHobby machine that kinda squirted out glue as you moved the fabric along. I was 6. I told my mom I wanted a real sewing machine. The right equipment makes all the difference!

When I bought this place, I got a huge deal on it because it had been a hoarder house and they did drugs here. The owner was ill and on oxygen, and just didn't want to deal with it, and also wanted to make sure the people who'd lived here (squatters) could not make an offer on the place. Long story short, the place was beyond a mess, and even after all the garbage and drug stuff was cleaned out, there was still a rodent problem.

There's a second house on the property, and it has a big empty room where I decided to store some preps. I got a big tote that seemed airtight, and opened maybe a half dozen or so of those huge bags of pinto beans and filled it. A few months later when I went in there, I found that rodents had chewed through the bottom, gotten in under the lid, and covered the ground in that room in pinto beans. They didn't stop there, and managed to get the beans all over that house. I cleaned it up, did some major trapping, and am still finding beans hidden here and there.

Messy buggers! They could have at least cleaned up their messes! 😁


Ok, keep them coming! Still waiting for yours, @jeff_k !

 

I had stored about 100 lbs of rice and some one shared the if it turs yellow toss it. well in the midst of moving I saw that it had turned yellow so I tossed it out.
The only foods I took with me are caned foods and oat meal.

 

I had stored about 100 lbs of rice and some one shared the if it turs yellow toss it. well in the midst of moving I saw that it had turned yellow so I tossed it out.
The only foods I took with me are caned foods and oat meal.

How long did you have it? I bought 300 pounds of it when covid was just happening.
Ive been using it up and its still ok. We were going to bag it with O2 absorbers but never did.It was American made rice.

 

I dont know of this counts .I went for a day hunt and when we got to the place ,pulled the rifle out of my bag and realized the bolt was at home. I was the spotter with my binos on that one.

 

I dont know of this counts .I went for a day hunt and when we got to the place pull the rifle out of my bag and realized the bolt was at home. I was the spotter with my binos on that one.

Yes, I can relate. Forgetting your ammo is always a bad idea.

 

In 2011 I put up 60lbs of pinto beans. I sealed the beans up in a mylar bag with O2 absorbers and put them in a food grade pail. I did all the right things. Fast forward 10 years to 2021 and I opened the pail.

The beans looked perfectly fine, however there was no amount of boiling that would get them to soften up. However, they did soak up some of the water and yet they remained hard. They probably would have made great beanie flipper ammo (even cooked) but as far as being digestible. Not so much.

As far as my experience? pinto beans are a no go for LTS.

The pails of rice I put up in 2011 were fine... no problems.... lesson learned...LOL

 

Pinto beans need a pressure cooker to get them soft again. I don't own one, so don't prep Pinto beans. My failure, was I tried to cook up old pinto beans on the stove and had the same experience. Someone on this forum told us about the pressure cooker. Lentils are way better though and need less water too.

I tried gardening in pots and we have so much rain that year, that everything was water logged! I had root rot in everything. I learned a year or two afterwards, that having taller containers with rocks in the bottom and better drainage holes would work better. However, I came up with an idea a couple nights ago. Why not cut out the bottom of a pot, while keeping some of the bottom to hold the chicken wire inside the pot, and then putting chicken wire down and put the right sized rocks on top? It would certainly drain better and if you put it on top of the HOA's silly rocks you have for a personal yard space, and the roots won't go into their land, if you get the right chicken wire and rocks. I'm going to try this again this year. I really am desperate to finally learn gardening skills.

I can't remember anything else I've done. Oh doh! I once decided to grow carrots in a container garden out my balcony when I lived in an apartment. I had took out the weeds, by pulling out the carrots and leaving the weed behind. That one weed was so smelly and strong, I had to have my neighbor help me get rid of it! That was the beginning and the end of my gardening for a few years.

 

Mistakes, I've made a few, but then again too few to mention...

Well there was that time I joined the Army.

 

My biggest mistake was probably not moving to Wyoming fifteen years ago. But by now I'd be grouching about all the "interlopers" crowding the place up.

 

But by now I'd be grouching about all the "interlopers" crowding the place up.

They’re called “foreigners.”

 

Packaged up several hundred pounds of grains, including barley. I opened a bag a few years ago and smelled like dirt.
now I’m thinking that it wasnt dry enough, but i don’t really know. I didn’t know about the shatter test, just figured grain was grain and could be stored in Mylar with O2 absorbers. But it could be that barley just doesn’t last like wheat?

regardless, i now have probably 200 lbs of barley stored that i don’t know if it will be good when i open it. and i also wonder about all the other grain. No problems yet with the sorghum, Millet, or rice

 

Learned that we needed to drill extra holds for ventilation in our 40' shipping container. It had gotten so hot in there, the fireproof cabinet that is in it overheated and leaked out fire-retardant material all over the place.

 

Quick tip; we did this at a local range I belong to: solar powered exhaust fans. The club has 3 40' shipping containers. Fans in all three.

 

When moving from the people's republic of Illinois to SW Missouri, we had an unconditioned storage unit for about 1.5 years while our house was being built. Not withstanding the copious amount of mold (didn't impact preps) in said storage unit, I had several tubs of Aguason Farms preps left in that heat that I'm sure are destroyed. Fortunately, was only about 8-10, but still something I should have been mindful of.

 

Man o man, great thread. When I first started storing the 1lb propane tanks for a camp stove and later heater buddies, I kept them in the house downstairs by the gas furnace and water heater 🙄 didn’t realize when/if they leak the gas settles on the lowest spot… you know by the pilot lights. Well Im still alive to tell the story. Luckily no leaks or blow ups. They are now stored outside away from the house in a shed👍

 

I dont know what you are talking about. I never make a mistake such as 90% of the first batch of food I bought expiring before I learned rotation. I never thought about bugging out to the woods and living off the land with just what I could carry on my back. And I definitely didn't join what turned out to be a sketchy MAG and ended up losing multiple 5 gallon buckets of food because it wasn't worth the risk of retrieving them.

I would never of made those specific mistakes mentioned above.... again.

 

And I definitely didn't join what turned out to be a sketchy MAG and ended up losing multiple 5 gallon buckets of food because it wasn't worth the risk of retrieving them.

I would never of made those specific mistakes mentioned above.... again.

Yeah ... I didn't do that one either. Bunch of assholes. It's a good thing I make an impression on folks when I get mad. The dumbasses told the old man he was welcome anytime but he'd have to leave me at home. As if ... 😂😂😂

 

Putting about 3 pounds of Shaggy Mane Mushrooms in the refer and forgetting about them.
Ya know they would make good fletching glue for arrows...3 pounds of black gooey tar like substance from Outer Space

PS
You can put a handful of Morel Mushrooms in a paper bag in the refer and they will dry out naturally. Too many in one bag causes a slimy mess though.

 

I've sold ammo ... that I wish I had back

 

Donating my mother's pressure canners....in a fit of cleanliness about a year before I took up canning. They'd sat for 30 years unused and I was tired of tripping over them.

Little did I know.....