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Saturday, April 28, 2012

Easy Corn on the Cob for a Crowd, Frugal Food Storage. Grocery Cycles


Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources


For Independent Minded People!

ISSN 2161-5543

In This Issue:

1.       Best way to cook corn on the cob for a crowd

2.      Grocery Sale Cycles, Frugal storage tips

3.      Hide in Plain Sight

4.      Free know-how from Tractor Supply

5.      If I wanted America to Fail-Panic Now-Avoid the Rush



No matter what anyone may say
about making the rich and the corporations pay taxes,
in the end they come out of the people who toil."

-- Calvin Coolidge
(1873-1933), 30th US President


We live in an age of paranoia where many of us believe that foods go bad long before their time is up. We confuse sell-by and best-by dates with expiration, and doing so involves tossing out an item when it's still entirely edible. We often refrigerate foods that don't require refrigeration.


When a food looks and smells fine, chances are it is but I found that many people don't think that's true. I left out cooked green beans overnight and asked people on Twitter and Facebook to take bets if I would get sick. While many people assumed I'd be fine, about as many figured I was headed for disaster. If you believe leaving a vegetable out on the counter for about a day is going to result in it going bad, you're wrong. I was fine, even though it is recommended to refrigerate after just two hours.


 Sites like Still Tasty seeks to provide recommendations for how long food can survive under various conditions, but in my tests I found these estimates to be overly cautious. It's probably in Still Tasty's best interest to err on the side of safety, but generally you're a pretty good judge of what's good and what isn't. If it's not growing mold, it smells fine, and a taste test reveals nothing out of the ordinary, chances are you're good to go. In the end, safety is the most important thing but don't go throwing out perfectly good food out of paranoia. Check if it's still good first.


StillTasty.com has comprehensive information about how long you can keep thousands of foods and beverages.



Kill poison ivy by drenching the plants with a solution of salt and a little dishwashing liquid; also works on poison oak.



PM’s Compendium of Useful Resources



Finding reliable, trusted babysitters…UrbanSitter uses Facebook Connect to access, with permission, the networks of parents and babysitters, and bring the two together. UrbanSitter.com

The Best Way to Cook Corn on the Cob for a Crowd?
 It's Cooler Corn…

 We like corn on the cob. And with eight adults at the table, that means a
couple of dozen ears. We would have used the lobster pot to cook them all,
but the lobster pot was busy steaming lobster…

Use a Coleman cooler and wipe it clean, then fill
with the shucked ears. Next, two kettles-full of boiling water are poured
over the corn and the top closed.
The corn will remain at the perfect level of doneness for a couple of hours


If your favorite cereal is on sale this week, do you know how many weeks it will be before it goes on sale again? Find out, and you'll know how many boxes you should buy.







Frugal Food Storage Tips
How do you take advantage of food sales when you have little food storage space? Get creative with these food storage ideas!



Tractor Supply also Provides Know-How

Be sure to check how their “Know-How Central” section for useful DIY information.

Livestock, garden, building resources and more…



Hide In Plain Sight
A lot of people are trying to make themselves very visible on the internet so they learn how to use SEO to make sure they are found. You can use those same principles to blend in among the noise of the internet and make yourself very hard to find.

Some people want to be seen. Others want to fly under the radar. Most of us want a little bit of both. The real issue that most people have in the fight between public and private personal information is control over who has access to what information. We want the ability to reach out to the public at times, and at other times retreat into our sanctuary. Retreating is more and more difficult in a digital world.  More at:




The Constitution should not be cast aside so quickly to achieve political ends, and its meaning must be carefully understood and respected. That's why The Heritage Foundation is proud to announce a new resource to help the American people and their elected representatives learn more about the history of our founding document. Heritage's Online Guide to the Constitution is a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of every single clause in the Constitution -- and it's available for free at ConstitutionOnline.com.



DIY Snack for Better Flowers

Before planting flowers this spring, mix 1 cup of sugar, 3 cups bone meal, and 1 cup of Epsom salts in an old bucket.  Sprinkle a pinch into the bottom of each hole as you’re planting.  The result?  A more colorful garden.



2 Liter Bottles of Light 

The slums of the Philippines are getting an extreme home makeover in the form of two liter bottles in their ceilings. The bottles function as 60-watt lights powered by 100% solar energy. Refraction is an amazing thing. If you drilled a hole in your ceiling light would drop directly through the opening in a straight line casting a shadow on the ground in the shape of the hole. By placing a bottle filled with water into the hole, the light is refracted by the water and emitted at 360 degrees like a light bulb. Light bulbs are taken for granted in America, yet are luxury item for the Philippines slums. The two liter bottles filled with water and a small amount of bleach to keep algae from growing, act as a light in the often-unlit slums.


The initiative in the Philippines to provide these lights to those who need them is known as “A liter of light”. It is estimated that each bottle light will last for about five years, which is more than any store-bought light bulb will do you for.


Read more AND find other useful, free how-to and DIY reports and resources at:




Get more creative and successful by carrying a personalized journal with you.  Put your name on the journal and make entries each time that creative light bulb goes off, even if at the moment is seems silly.



The Nanny State Updates…


Panic Now…Avoid the Rush!

Why is the DHS buying so much ammo for domestic use?

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), an agency that says its main purpose now is to thwart "homegrown terrorism," has awarded a contract to ammunition manufacturer ATK for acquiring 450 million rounds of .40 caliber hollow point ammo. You can view the announcement of the ammunition purchase at this press release: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/atk-secures-40-caliber-ammunition-co...

"Hollow point" ammunition is never purchased for practice or training. This ammunition is purchased for the sole purpose of being used in active fighting. At the same time, it is a violation of the Geneva Convention to use hollow point ammunition on the battle field.


The greatest global debt bubble in human history is showing signs that it is getting ready to burst

According to CNN, the level of selling by insiders at corporations listed on the S&P 500 is the highest that it has been in almost a decade. Do those insiders know something that the rest of us do not?



The Parting Thought –

The Fall of the Soviet Union, If I wanted America to Fail & Cycles of Life


Does it seem there is more bad news today than ever before?  It sure seems that way to me.  Of course, our planet has a bigger population so the sheer numbers would indicate more bad things will happen and with the immediacy of news today, we hear about nearly every bad thing from car accidents in India to the sick things people do to their fellow citizen.


When the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet empire collapsed the world was supposed to collect a peace dividend from the end of the cold war - and we did for awhile.


It didn’t take long for a new bogey man to appear, terrorists. Our government now spends more on ‘security and preserving our freedom’ than we did for all of WWII and WWI combined…but somehow, I don’t feel any safer and as most would agree, we’ve sacrificed our freedoms and privacy in the name of security.


For decades, it has seemed as though history has been slowly building toward some sort of crescendo. The pace of change just keeps getting faster and faster and faster, and our world is becoming unstable…and it’s not just the Mayan 20212 prediction that seems to be wreaking havoc with our climate and weather.


The economy is falling apart, the fabric of society is starting to come apart at the seams, war in the Middle East could erupt at any moment and the planet itself is shaking in unprecedented ways.


Everything is cyclical.  Empires rise and fall.  The American way of life, thanks in large part to political greed and stupidity, is slipping away.  There is no doubt in my mind our climate is changing.  People throughout the world seem to be increasingly unhappy.


Over the years I have noted the cycles in my life.  They always seem to come in three’s…three good things, three negative cycles.  Is this just the natural rhythm of the cosmos or is it perhaps, the Mayan predictions coming true?  If the Mayans are indeed correct, how did they acquire this knowledge?


We certainly live in interesting times.  If you’re inclined to believe in such cycles both for the planet and for your own life, you may be interested in learning more about the seven cycles of life at:  http://www.life-cycles-destiny.com/for/yearly-life-cycles.htm


For another interesting take on what’s taking place in America as to why our country is slipping away today, view If I Wanted America to Fail:





“Until the next revolution”, the Poor Man



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1 comment:

MinimalistGroup said...

Love the 'corn boy' image. That's actually a clever idea for corn for a crowd.