Do you keep your cupboards stocked for the winter?

I live in the east of England and the last three winters have been bad with heavy snow lasting for several weeks. My cottage is seven miles from the nearest town and off a main road and I don't have transport. I start stocking up on things in September but it's not just the worry of storms that sets me off filling my freezer and cupboards. I get an urge to stock up generally, bit like a squirrel! And like a squirrel I gather wild fruits like blackberries and hips and make jam and syrup.

My cottage doesn't have central heating, just two open fires, so I go out in the woods (my cottage stands in a wood) and bring home sacks of kindling and wood to saw into logs. I saw my own logs and stack them.

So, yes, I am another one who is well prepared.

My kitchen cupboards and my two freezers are always quite well stocked but they are now 'super' stocked. I'm in U.K. where we were warned a little while ago that it was going to be a bad winter so I let my frozen stocks run right down so that I could defrost and clean the freezers ready for restocking. They as full as they can get now with fresh stuff. I have tins, dried goods porridge oats and such like in my cupboards, all with long shelf life dates at the back and some need using in a few months time at the front. I have some, but not a lot, of small cans of evaporated milk, in case I run out of fresh but I'm not keen on it - it's just better than no milk at all. I have frozen bread but I also have bread flour and yeast should I need to make some - assuming we don't lose power of course. Losing power is my greatest fear when there are storms. I have plenty of emergency lighting but that won't stop the frozen foods being in jeopardy. I have some bottled water but should really buy some more as it's more essential to life than anything else. Storms always seem to be more frightening for those of us who live alone.

I hope and pray that we all remain safe and well fed wherever we are in the world.

Storms and snow are not the only things which could prevent me getting out to buy supplies. I have a lot of steps up to my house so even a hint of frost, snow or ice and I'm not going to try to get down them. But illness would prevent me going out also and I don't want to always be 'phoning family members to bring me supplies.

I always have plenty of food in the house. Much of it will keep for a very long time. Those perishable thing I can live without. That would be fresh vegetables, milk, bread, meat but I have frozen of all these things also and quite a few ready meals (home made). If I'm making a stew or cooking minced beef I always cook as if for the family who once lived with me and then portion the food out and freeze several portions for future use (and for if unexpected visitors arrive). Sometimes I cook far too many potatoes so I mash them up and freeze that in bags. Such things are a real boon on an off day when I just don't feel like cooking from scratch.

We would have to have a very long winter and very bad conditions for me not to have enough food to cope. I hope you all stay safe, warm and well fed wherever you are this winter. I'm in U.K. where it isn't likely to be as bad as some of you will have but we do get really bad ones every now and then. People who have them regularly tend to be better prepared because you expect it.

My daughter who married into an LDS family in Utah

keeps a stock of most food products that can be stored

for long periods of time. One of the core teachings of the

LDS community is keeping and maintaining a food store

for hard times. When I last visited family and friends in

Salt Lake City I was most impressed with this idea.

Here at home in the UK, I keep canned soups, meats,

fruit and preserves in a larder. The idea was to keep

things for "a rainy day" but as the rain, storms have kept up

for days, it may get used up quicker than I expected.

Food storage, where people can afford to do it, is a worthy

way of looking to the future, even if it just amounts to buying

one or two extra items per shopping trip.

I don't recall a time that I couldn't get to a market if I needed something and I live in a place where we have winter. They have already called off schools for Monday and are expecting -55 wind chills but don't feel the need to stock my cupboards and freezer. I drink my water from the tap and have never felt the need to pay for it.

Winter is tourist season. Now is when all the stores are fully stocked. Now is when our little town of 2500 or so grows to over 20,000. We sometimes don't have a freeze at all, here. The nearby farms are at full output. Produce is organic, fresh and plentiful. Citrus is available from roadside stands, where you drop your money in a coffee can, and take a bag. A 10 pound bag usually weighs 12 or 14 pounds. I don't need to stock up until around the first of June. When it's 120F is when I need to be fully stocked. Not now.

Yes I am. We tend not to get as severe storms here in U.K. as you do in America but we've had some very bad weather recently. Some of it has affected my area but not my property. I always keep a lot of food in as it's just convenient to do so, knowing that I don't have to go out and buy food if I don't wish to do so but now it's more important. I have even frozen 2 cartons of fresh milk as I don't like black coffee and am not keen on the milk substitutes available. I'm also not keen on instant potato or packet soups but I have some in my cupboard all the same. Bottled water is also important as flooding soon contaminates the public water supply.

That storm came and went already, but we're headed for very below-norm temps in a couple of days. (The high might hit 10F, which, I know is nothing new in the Midwest, but that's dang-cold in Philly.)

We don't change our shopping habits just because of the weather and we know what can happen, given we lived through The Mother of All Blizzards in the mid 90s, where no trucks could restocked Philadelphia stores for eight days. On day four, I climbed over the two-story snow bank to walk to our nearest store and the entire aisle of bread and cheese was stripped clean, except for the one product I wanted--yeast. (Good thing most people don't know how to make their own breads. If they did, the yeast would have been gone. lol) The only thing I missed for that week was Diet Pepsi. I only had two 2-liter bottles when the storm hit, and that's all I drink. But, I just liked the taste, so I diluted it down to bare minimum for taste, and made those two bottles last.

We live in a city. Even if we can't move our car, we can still walk to a grocery store. Even if people over stock (and we've seen people grab 6-10 loaves of bread, just because two inches of snow are coming), we're fine. We hit BJ's warehouse once a month for our meats. (There's only three of us, and our nephew usually goes home sometime during the weekend.) The rest we do once a week. We haven't starved yet, and judging by our girth, even if we had no food for three weeks, we still wouldn't. (Well, maybe the nephew, but he's a teenage boy, so he needs to eat every two hours, minimum. lol)

Whimsy, put the flour and rice in the freezer for 3-5 days and it kills the eggs that produce the bugs. (We tried all other remedies, including bay leaves, and they didn't work.)

Kim,

I home can some things, so I have a few weeks of food.

Then I rotate the stock with the grocery items that I have bought. I drove by the store yesterday and the lot was full of cars. I suppose people stocking up at the last minute.

I like the frost free and not crazy about shopping every week when things go on sale I buy in bulk most things freeze just fine. I like to have two-tree weeks of food on hand. When Winter comes stock accordingly. Times when I have nothing to do make some meals and freeze them and comes a day I don't have time to cook grab one and heat it up. I finally bought a chest for meats and one for veggies, fruits, etc.